The Problem
Indonesia is full of sharp, scrappy founders who know how to fix maternal malnutrition in their own communities. What they don’t have is what Mulago and Gates look for: early, flexible capital and the scaffolding to turn good ideas into high‑performing, fundable organizations. Big donors say they want “local leadership,” but their systems are built for polished, de‑risked NGOs, not the early‑stage founders who never make it onto their radar.
Black Licorice is a small, focused fellowship that fills that gap. Each year, we find 5 of the most promising Indonesian founders working on maternal health and the first 1,000 days, give them $20,000 USD in unrestricted funding, and put them through a one‑year fellowship on design for impact, strategy, governance, and evidence. By 2030, we will have seeded 25 Indonesian‑led organizations with boards, budgets, data, and strategies strong enough to sit comfortably inside the portfolios of institutional donors.
Our Solution
Indonesia is full of sharp, scrappy founders who know how to fix maternal malnutrition in their own communities. They have the ideas and the grit. What they don’t have is:
- Early, unrestricted funding
- Real governance and strategy support
- A path to serious, institutional funders
The mission of Black Licorice is to raise the tide of Indonesian NGOs. The way we do that is to find founders with high-impact solutions & the commitment & capacity to drive those solutions toward their full potential.
We do not fund projects—we fund organizations that are developing, proving & moving important solutions to eliminate maternal malnutrition & stunting. Our funding is unrestricted. We teach founders what it takes to go big and we fund the journey to get there.
We find founders from the maternal health & malnutrition space in Indonesia & help them build boards, budgets, governance & bulletproof strategies, everything needed to entice institutional donors & philanthropists. Over the next 5 years we’ll fund 25 fellows with the objective of building an army of donor-ready Indonesian organizations across the archipelago.
Total Budget for 2026: $225,000 with $100,000 in grants going directly to 5 Indonesian founders/CEOs.
We work like a lean, philanthropic venture fund focused on one problem and one country: maternal malnutrition and the first 1,000 days in Indonesia.
The Core Thinking:
Find
Each year we hunt for 5 of the sharpest Indonesian founders working on maternal health and malnutrition—from NTT to Sumatra, Kalimantan, and West Papua. These are hyperlocal NGOs with real traction and no lobby.
Bet Early
We give each founder a one‑year Fellowship:
USD $20,000 unrestricted capital
Two intensive week‑long retreats in Bali
A structured year focused on design for impact, strategy, governance & communication. This is the riskiest, most underfunded slice of the NGO pipeline. We step into it on purpose.
Build capacity that actually matters
We teach what “great” looks like:
Real boards, not rubber stamps
Clean budgets & financial controls—we want to know the price of soap
Clear theory of change, focused strategy & hard‑edged KPIs
Funding applications, reporting, & the tact to navigate donor bureaucracy
The goal is not pretty paperwork; it’s organizations that can deliver
Create a pipeline
Black Licorice is not about building one superstar NGO. It’s about seeding 25 serious Indonesian organizations by 2030—each running credible maternal health and malnutrition programs and ready for Mulago, Skoll, and institutional portfolios. Some will scale big, some will stay insurgent and local by design. Together, they raise the bar.