Established in 2018, Luminate is a global philanthropic organisation with the goal of empowering people and institutions to work together to build just and fair societies. They do this by funding and supporting non-profit and for-profit organisations and advocating for policies and actions that will help people participate in and shape the issues affecting their lives, and make those in power more transparent, responsive, and accountable.
Luminate prioritises delivering impact in four connected areas that underpin strong societies: Civic Empowerment, Data & Digital Rights, Financial Transparency, and Independent Media. Across all these areas, their strategy is long term yet responsive. This allows them to focus on supporting those driving sustainable solutions to deeply entrenched issues – while remaining flexible enough to react quickly to evolving challenges.
Luminate builds on a portfolio and wealth of expertise built up over a decade as the Governance & Citizen Engagement initiative at Omidyar Network. it was founded by The Omidyar Group, established by philanthropists Pierre and Pam Omidyar. Pierre is the founder of eBay. To date, Luminate’s global work has supported 348 organisations, in 17 countries with over $414 million in funding.
