AstraZeneca: Grantmaking for Global Youth Health

AstraZeneca’s Young Health Programme, is just one way in which CAF helps them work towards achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 3.4 of reducing early death from non-communicable diseases.

The objectives

In 2010, AstraZeneca partnered with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Plan International to launch the Young Health Programme (YHP) to improve the health and life chances of young people age 10-24 in some of the most vulnerable and under-resourced communities around the world. The YHP is a core part of AstraZeneca’s sustainability ambition to use their capabilities to make the most meaningful impact where society needs it – health.

The YHP aims to address the growing global burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, diabetes, cancers or respiratory diseases through prevention. It promotes education and awareness of the primary NCD risk factors so that young people can make informed choices and protect their health in the future.

At the project’s inception, AstraZeneca approached CAF for support in verifying grantee organisations, processing payments and distributing grants. Since delivering these initial objectives, we’ve become a trusted strategic partner on a number of large-scale grant programmes.

Within the YHP programme, AstraZeneca has also launched smaller grantmaking programmes such as Step Up!. Outside of the programme we’ve supported them on ILC^2:: Initiatives in Lung Cancer Care and the Patient Organisations Recovery Fund, all contributing towards achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 3.4 of reducing early death from non-communicable diseases.

Our support

Our comprehensive due diligence ensures that every grantee charity is legitimate. This is particularly important for overseas charities operating in countries with no charity regulator or where laws on financial crime and money laundering are weak. CAF’s verification process, based on regulatory expertise in the sector internationally, makes it possible for AstraZeneca to give confidently to non-regulated charities in a smooth and efficient way. This is especially important to them as they work within a regulated pharmaceutical sector.

AstraZeneca uses a Company Account – a ‘one-stop shop’ for their charitable funds. This enables them to make tax-effective donations, as well as secure their budget in one transparent account until they are ready to make grants.

CAF holds and ring-fences funds for the YHP, carries out and tracks payments to grantee charities, as well as processes grants through the project’s smaller grant making programmes. The team provides strategic advice and supportive account management to AstraZeneca, with regular updates on the performance of the programmes and learnings to improve the impact they have.