Pausing to see the bigger picture
In July 2023, we developed our five-year strategy built on the idea that good intentions alone are not enough. We shifted toward becoming an evidence-based organization that tests innovative solutions and scales what works, focusing on two main goals: reducing multidimensional poverty and empowering agents of change.
Halfway through the strategy in 2025, we decided to pause and reflect. Given how quickly the external landscape was shifting, we had to go back and revisit our assumptions, examine what was working, what wasn’t, and what needed adjustment. Over four months, we carried out a mid-strategy review that helped us refine our plans for the next two years.
Choosing ‘Grow’ as our theme
The strategy team looked for a theme to frame the journey, and that resonated with the team. The word helped us structure the process into four practical stages:
Grounding: We started by aligning the big picture. We reviewed the 2024 Egyptian Multidimensional Poverty Index report1 and revisited the strategy to make sure everyone was working within the same framework.
Reflecting: Each program team stepped back to assess what was working, where progress was slower than expected, and where gaps were emerging.
Optimizing: Based on those reflections, we adjusted targets, geographic focus, and some of our tools and approaches.
Way Forward: Finally, we translated those adjustments into clear recommendations for the next phase.
‘G’ Grounding
Progressing towards the 50% achievement by mid-strategy
By the end of 2025, we had reached about 31% of our first goal – reducing multidimensional poverty, and 46.5% of our second goal – empowering agents of change, with varying progress across different programs. While we knew our quantitative framework still needed further refinement, having these numbers mattered. They helped us see where progress was slower than expected, where our data systems were falling short, and where we needed to dig deeper and adjust our approach.
Why We Expanded Our Work to Matrouh
One of the key decisions in the review was to revisit our geographical focus. When we first selected our five priority governorates: Fayoum, Assiut, Sohag, Minya, and Qena, we based the choice on both poverty data and where we already had an active project presence. At the time, Matrouh ranked very high in need, but logistical constraints and our footprint elsewhere made expansion there difficult. By 2025, that picture had changed. Our presence in Fayoum had declined, while partners’ interest in Matrouh was growing. This created a window to reassess. We carried out a focused assessment and decided to expand into Matrouh and gradually phase out our work in Fayoum.
‘R’ and ‘O ’: Reflecting and Optimizing
Adopting scalable literacy interventions in the education sector
The review led to a significant expansion of the education sector target, driven by the launch of a new UNICEF-supported initiative focused on strengthening foundational literacy in early grades in Egypt through targeted instruction and structured pedagogy. The program design is informed by rigorous evidence generated through a quasi-experimental study examining its impact on children’s literacy outcomes, variations in implementation across schools and teachers, and considerations for scaling the intervention sustainably. The program is expected to reach 65,000 children. In addition to that, an additional 10,000 were reallocated to the Teaching at the Right Level (TARL) project – an evidence-based initiative, and one of the Foundation’s flagship programs, as a result of implementation challenges in the preprimary program, which led to a reduction of its original target from 30,000 to 20,000 children. As a result, the basic education target increased to 90,000 children, raising the overall education sector target from 46,000 to 111,000. The review also led to the expansion of the target age range from 2–4 to 2–6 years to better align with the Ministry of Education’s kindergarten activities and broaden the program’s reach.
Setting more ambitious targets in the Economic Empowerment sector to align with need and mandate
The review reinforced the importance of scaling our economic empowerment work and setting more ambitious targets that are better aligned with both the level of need and the Foundation’s mandate. Recent findings from Egypt’s Multidimensional Poverty Index show that employment-related deprivations, especially in decent work and social insurance, remain among the highest measured gaps. Strengthening this sector remains one of the most direct ways we can contribute to poverty reduction. In response, the review led us to raise our targets, creating ‘aspirational targets’ across both programs within the Economic Empowerment sector. For Training for Employment, we set a range of 5,000 participants under the core scenario and up to 8,000 under a more ambitious one. For Micro and Small Enterprises, the targets increased to 15,000 under the core scenario and 16,000 under the ambitious scenario. This shift reflects our continued focus on job creation – central to the Foundation’s original mandate- and a growing evidence base in the sector. With impact evaluations already conducted for Training for Employment, and additional research underway for Micro and Small Enterprises—including studies on micro equity and microloans, the next phase of the sector is increasingly focused on scaling interventions that build on emerging evidence that demonstrate strong potential for impact.
Staying ambitious while adapting to external shifts in the social empowerment sector
In the Social Empowerment sector, the discussion was more nuanced, as performance varied across programs. While some programs, such as Basic Services and Children without Parental Care, were exceeding their targets, our flagship Bab Amal program was progressing more slowly than initially planned. Rather than applying a single adjustment across the sector, we reviewed each program individually.For Bab Amal, we chose not to revise the target of 80,000 participants, as it reflects the Foundation’s approach of piloting promising models, rigorously testing their impact, and scaling those that demonstrate strong results. The program has already transitioned from the testing phase to scale-up, with the Foundation committing to fully fund 50,000 households while mobilizing partners to reach an additional 30,000. However, recent funding constraints—particularly following the withdrawal of USAID and broader donor dependency challenges—have slowed progress. As a result, the timeline has been extended from 2028 to 2030 to enable sustainable scale-up.For Children without Parental Care, the program has already exceeded its initial target, reaching 116% of the goal of 2,000 children achieving protection outcomes. Rather than raising the target, we decided to revisit how outcomes are defined and measured, particularly the criteria and timing used to count children toward the target to ensure greater clarity and rigor. A key insight from this work is the limited global evidence available in this area, which has amplified our commitment to identifying effective and cost-efficient interventions, especially those that support successful transitioning out of care and reintegrating into society. Upcoming impact assessments will further strengthen the program’s Theory of Change for future phases. Similarly, while the Basic Services program is projected to reach 109% of its target by 2026, the priority is not to increase the target but to refine the program’s structure. The team is exploring separating the program into distinct components, such as housing, water treatment, and nutrition to better capture their different pathways to impact and link each intervention to the relevant evidence base. This will also allow for a more rigorous examination of the program’s Theory of Change in the next strategy cycle.
Establishing a new framework for empowering agents of change
Until November 2025, our second strategic Goal 2: empowering agents of change, was still relatively broad and loosely structured. We didn’t yet have a formal results framework, so reporting relied mostly on high-level targets and qualitative narratives. During the review, we worked to make this goal more concrete. This began with clarifying key definitions: “empowerment” as the process of enhancing individuals’ capacity to make effective choices and translate them into desired actions and outcomes, and “agents of change” as those who actively drive change and whose achievements can be assessed against their own values and objectives (as further elaborated on p.22 of the strategy document). We consolidated scattered cultural initiatives into a single Arts and Culture program and revised the scope and targets of both the Scholarships and Capacity Building programs. While this goal is still evolving, we now have a clearer framework to judge whether new concepts align with the strategy and how their results should be measured.
Strengthening our tools and evidence-based
The review didn’t only lead to program/sector changes; it also pushed us to improve how we operate internally. We identified several gaps in our tools and internal systems and started addressing them. These included the need for a targeting tool aligned with the Egyptian Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), updated program theories of change grounded in evidence, and a centralized digital system for data collection and operation at the level of the foundation. In response, we updated our unified questionnaire to better reflect the Egyptian MPI indicators. In parallel, we are prioritizing a centralized digital System to reduce fragmentation in data collection and reporting across programs, while continuing to refine our program theories of change based on evidence for the next strategic cycle.
‘W’: Way Forward
Lessons Learned Along the Way
While this learning journey generated valuable insights, it also revealed important challenges. We’re sharing these reflections in case they’re useful to other philanthropic and civil society organizations going through similar strategy reviews.Stakeholder involvement: We originally hoped to include grantees and research partners in the process, but the timeline proved too tight, and the review ended up being mostly internal. Looking back, that was a missed opportunity. External voices often surface perspectives we can’t see from inside, and they require time to engage properly.Balance both quantitative targets and learning: We realized we were leaning too heavily on numerical progress against targets. The data was useful, but it didn’t always capture what we were learning from implementation. Future reviews need to balance performance metrics with learning insights and set expectations that match how mature the data systems are.
Include the wider foundation: The review mainly involved program, learning, and strategy teams. In hindsight, involving more of the foundation — including Partnerships, Public Relations, and Communications teams— would likely have produced richer discussions and better decisions.
Extend the timeline: We allowed one month to plan the review workshops. That was not enough. For a similar scope, we would now plan for at least three months — and longer if the review is broader. Good strategic reflection needs space and pacing, not just structure. As a result, we are starting the process for the upcoming strategy much earlier. With stronger evidence base now in place, we are better positioned to reflect these learnings into our programs’ theories of change and inform the next phase of strategy development.
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead, this mid-strategy review served as an important reset point. It helped us clarify what matters most, where we needed to adjust, and how to stay responsive to a changing context. Most importantly, it strengthened our commitment to learning and evidence as we move into the next phase of the strategy.
