Theory of Change
“To work with nature and local communities by supporting like-minded individuals and organisations striving to restore the balance between humans and nature to benefit all life on our planet.”
Kulawan’s Focus
What does “Kulawan” mean?
The term “kulaw-wan” is used to refer to “environment” or “nature” by the Manobo Indigenous Peoples of Mindanao in the Philippines, for whom land is life itself: ‘we do not own the land, the land owns us’. They believe the land is sacred as it is the dwelling place of the unseen spirits and is therefore “alive and a source of life”. We chose this name (with a slight spelling change) as a reflection of our wish to honour this ethos in our work.
Our Values
Interconnectedness & Systems Change
Empowerment - Gender & Community
Collaboration & Humility
Field Building, Innovation & Demonstration
Equity & Juistice
Flexible and Adaptive (mindset & capital)
We support nature positive focused organisations in Asia which have the potential to become economically self-sustainable, focusing on the following sectors:
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As Kulawan is a catalytic capital initiative, we will provide flexible, patient and risk tolerant funding to best suit the needs of the organisation. We can provide capital ranging in the form of grants, equity and debt, taking on higher amounts of risk and able to accept lower financial returns in order to attract further investment into organisations we support.
We can support a variety of actors in the sector, including:
Funds
(e.g. first-time fund managers)
Organisations with potential sustainable revenue model
(e.g. early stage ventures)
Key outcomes and criteria
We will support organisations which aim to achieve measureable outcomes in the following areas:
Key gaps
From listening to actors in the sector and through our own experience, we believe there still exists gaps in the market which we aim to help address through Kulawan. Such gaps include: