Lego Foundation Gives Second $100 Million Grant for Play-Based Programs

The Lego Foundation Tuesday announced a $100 million, five-year grant to the International Rescue Committee to develop play-based educational programs in Ethiopia and Uganda.

The announcement comes a year after the foundation gave $100 million to a collaboration between the Sesame Street Workshop and the International Rescue Committee to provide educational media and materials for Syrian refugee children.

The International Rescue Committee will administer the grant and will work with five other organizations: the Behavioral Insights Team, Innovation for Poverty Action, Plan International, Ubongo, and War Child.

The Lego Foundation is a Danish organization that derives revenue from its 25 percent stake in the Lego Group toy company. Sarah Bouchie, the grant maker’s vice president for global programs, said Sesame Street’s work with the International Rescue Committee caught the Lego Foundation’s attention after the two nonprofits received a $100 million grant through the MacArthur Foundation’s 2017 100&Change challenge, in which the grant maker held a yearlong competition to identify “big bet” projects that weren’t a part of its grant-making portfolio.

Ancillary Benefits

One of the goals of 100&Change was to highlight effective nonprofits worthy of funding. According to the MacArthur Foundation, finalists and other top applicants have received about $319 million in grants from other foundations, not including the Lego grant just announced.

Lego’s $100 million is the latest in a series of high-dollar grants foundations have made in the past several years. In addition to the 100&Change program, which is in its second $100 million round, Co-Impact, a group of Giving Pledge members gathered by Bill and Melinda Gates, has plans to pool at least a half-billion dollars to make large grants over the next few years. Bouchie said Lego considered making a series of smaller grants but decided on a large commitment so the International Rescue Committee and its partners could try new approaches and quickly replicate what works.

Such a large grant can “get the attention of other humanitarian actors and governments to make sure our investments are really about strengthening the system,” Bouchie said. “It sends a signal that we’re in this for the long haul and we want to be a true partner.”

Lego has developed a program around “play boxes,” which incorporate the Lego bricks in a curriculum. But Bouchie said the grantees would not have to use the clickable toys.

“We would only do it if it made sense in that particular context,” she said.

Alex Daniels covers foundations, donor-advised funds, fundraising research, and tax issues for the Chronicle. He recently wrote about grant making that gives grantees more power in decision-making and about the distribution of $1 billion to four research institutions. Email Alex or follow him on Twitter .