 Today, I'm announcing a major step we're taking to reduce one of the biggest obstacles you face, the so-called equivalency determinations. Under current U.S. tax rules, every time you give a grant to a foreign civil society organization, you have to prove that the organization would qualify as a tax exempt one if it operated in our own country. And that process, as I don't need to tell you, can cost as much as $10,000 in legal fees. And each foundation must go through this process on your own, even if the grantee has already been qualified by another foundation. That's just redundant, and it serves no real purpose. And although it's not specifically addressed in the new rules, this change will clear the way for foundations to set up organizations that can serve as repositories of this determination, meaning this would only need to be done one time. That moment in 2012 was pivotal. Hillary Clinton was de facto blessing the operation of an equivalency determination repository, which was something that had really been in the works for years. And by that, I mean active advocacy, collaboration, investment, all toward that goal. So it was a remarkable moment. But it's a story better told by the people who were there and who made it happen. NGO Source is a repository for equivalency determinations, which are a kind of legal opinion on whether a foreign organization to the U.S. and NGO meets the requirements of a U.S. 501C3 public benefit organization. When I first heard about the NGO repository project, it was actually from Daniel Benharen, the founder of TechSoup. He had had a conversation with Gavin Claybaugh, the program officer at the Charles Stewart Mock Foundation. And Gavin had told him about this interesting RFP that he thought being familiar with our work might be something that we should respond to or consider responding to. We had just started the global network and we had a mission, which was to provide software products and hardware to organizations through a network of cooperating partners. And the energy level in the room was incredible from the beginning. And I think it was a perception that we could do more than that, you know, that we had capacity and geographic reach that was remarkable. And then this RFP just appeared. And we said, we can do that. So I've been at the Ford Foundation 24 years and I think it was about 15 to 20 years ago that we first heard the idea about a shared repository. I guess one initial thought was, how come no one thought of this earlier? Skepticism, I'd say. I'd seen a lot of, you know, these kinds of gatherings of professionals in the sector. We'd talk about it, we'd nash our teeth, we'd, you know, dream about possibilities. But, you know, then they wouldn't necessarily go anywhere. And this one, it was the right combination of players and people, enough of us who had had enough with the status quo. Why don't we really think about how we can really change this for the better and make something that allows us all to rely on somebody else's determination? The vision was really, really clear. Honestly, when I first heard the concept, I was like, well, of course we should do this. Like, you know, why wouldn't we try to do this? One thing people don't realize about the early days of NGO source is that we were building something we weren't actually sure we'd be able to launch. So we had to go in and have many meetings with Treasury, the IRS, the State Department to tell them that this is a safe and sound service. It is, there's demand for it from all of these foundations who are part of the council, the governing council of it. But it wasn't, we weren't sure. The biggest challenge of the project, which was four years in the making, was the regulatory approval. Because if you don't have regulatory approval, you can't really have a repository. You could have a service, but you wouldn't be able to have something with a reusable asset that everyone could leverage. Go talk to the state and make the case of why this is going to help with soft diplomacy, with helping to increase funding from private funders to civil society organizations outside the U.S. We made a number of arguments to talk about why this was important, you know, why we believed the, you know, guidance was necessary, and ultimately it was successful. And that was the game changer when that guidance came out and we knew we could rely on it. And I remember just sitting in that breakout session and thinking, if this really comes to fruition, if this gets approved, this is going to be a game changer for international grant making. The key advocates for NGO Source came from within the grants administration departments of many of our largest international grant makers and foundations. They were absolutely 100% critical in securing the investment within their organizations to really allow NGO Source to launch. And it was not a small investment. It was seven figures. I think from my point of view, it's a really interesting collaboration also internally at our foundation because it brought together the technology piece from a different fraction officer, like how would you actually set up the website, get a database. So I think that was really unique for me is that it was people with all these different disciplines coming together. And then it was not only that, but doing it across different funders and NGOs that support the field. One of the things that was wonderful in the early days right after the launch was having such an active advisory council that was such a big asset to us in the early days and getting it off the ground. There was a shared problem that everybody wanted to solve. And that really drove the continuation of this collaboration to NGO Source. I think that that's been one of the things that differentiates NGO Source from the alternatives for doing equivalency determinations is right from the start. We were working with our partner organizations who were able to support NGOs in time zone and in language. The fact that you have partners that work in country and can help with translation and that you have FAQs that give a lot of information to explain things to clients, to donors. We thought about what it would mean in those early days if NGO Source really was successful. What would it mean to scale? And the vision I always had was this would be a place that NGOs would want to be in this database because it would be a reliable place for grand tours to actually come in and almost check and see had there been some kind of vetting process done on legitimacy of an organization. That was the magic. That's what we were all hoping we'd get to is that organizations outside of the U.S. would start to see those efficiencies by not having to do this multiple times. And what has been really incredible to see is that more and more when we reach out and tell grantee organizations or prospective grantee organizations that we want to do this, they already know what it is and they know the benefits of it. Any kind of challenges that would ever come up or like a special request for assistance, the NGO Source team was always very accommodating and very proactive, which is just in this day and age where we're so used to not being able to get in touch with a human being with any kind of service provider. It's just it's been a pleasure having a partner. We appreciate the service delivery and sort of the very special customized approach. Once you build trust with the organization and then you are at a point where like, you know what? I'll ask my colleagues in the U.S. so obviously there's the time difference, but in the evening I'm sure we will receive feedback. And then you receive that feedback over the years NGO Source has always had all these brilliant colleagues that at all times they're always on hand to support us. The expertise on being really up to date with all of the changes in nonprofit tax law across so many different countries and knowing really the ins and outs and I think for our foundation it allows us to sort of free up our resources for really focusing on the legal and technical compliance related aspects for each grant. In the 25 years I've been working in philanthropy, there are a lot of things I'm really proud of and the work that I've done, but helping to get NGO Source conceived and off the ground is really at the top of the list for me. I was looking at our stats on our beautiful NGO Source dashboard and our map that shows the EDs really does touch almost every corner of the world. We're almost at 500, so 63 different countries. We've been able to facilitate ED grant making through NGO Source, so thank you. You sleep very peacefully to know that I've made so much impact, you know, to some organizations out there. I'm so excited about the future of NGO Source. It's been successful and it's great to look back on the 10 years since the launch and see just kind of remember how inspiring it all was and now, you know, compare that to the results. Ultimately, NGO Source was the product of so many critical people and organizations that it's just impossible to do them all justice here and the collaboration continues which is what I'm so excited about. From our global partners and NGOs to our members, supporters of thought partners, they're all what brought us here. And together, we have a future full of possibility. In fact, we're only just getting started. NGO Source team, are you ready for the next 10 years?