Interledger Public Policy Activation Grants

Public Policy Activation Grants

Open payments infrastructure needs to be backed by public policy that supports and protects interoperable systems across all levels of financial governance. 

The Interledger Foundation’s Public Policy Activation grant stream was established to address this gap directly. This grant stream deploys targeted philanthropic investment to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations and academic research institutions so that they can engage credibly and constructively in policy processes with the explicit goal of advancing digital public infrastructure and expanding access to digital financial services for populations that have been systematically excluded.

Current Cohort

The Interledger Foundation’s initial Public Policy Activation cohort comprises three organizations selected for the strategic significance of their policy work, the depth of their community relationships, and their capacity to contribute to a more equitable and open global payment system across multiple regulatory jurisdictions:

  • Alliance of Digital Finance and Fintech Associations, South Africa
  • ARTICLE 19, United Kingdom
  • Center for Technology and Society, Fundação Getulio Vargas Law School, Brazil

 

Grantmaking Priorities

The Interledger Foundation concentrates its policy grantmaking on four areas where targeted philanthropic investment has the greatest potential to shape the regulatory and institutional conditions for open payment systems. These priorities reflect the Interledger Foundation’s theory of change: that ensuring everyone can participate in the digital economy, by sending, receiving, and storing money safely and affordably, requires structural reform at the level of law, regulation, and technical governance, and not only at the level of products and services.

The Interledger Foundation supports high-quality research, formal submissions, and structured dialogue with regulatory bodies to advance informed governance of open payment protocols. Funded activities include technical assistance to regulators, contributions to public consultation processes, and the development of evidence-based policy frameworks that reflect the needs of underserved communities as well as the technical characteristics of open infrastructure.

Meaningful financial inclusion requires that the communities most affected by exclusion have genuine representation in the policy processes that govern their financial lives. The Interledger Foundation funds organizations with the trust, relationships, and analytical capacity to translate community experience into credible policy evidence, and to hold institutions accountable for the commitments they make.

The concentration of payment infrastructure in the hands of a small number of proprietary platforms poses systemic risks to competition, access, and resilience. The Interledger Foundation invests in advocacy for open standards at national payments councils, multilateral and multistakeholder forums, and international standard-setting bodies. Our grantmaking promotes the adoption of the Interledger Protocol and other architecturally compatible digital public infrastructure and digital public goods that prevents lock-in and reduces barriers to entry.

Payment infrastructure makes consequential decisions about who can participate in economic life. The Interledger Foundation supports organizations that bring a rigorous human rights framework to the design of payment systems, including privacy protections, non-discrimination requirements, due process in decision-making, and access to effective remedy. 

Grantmaking Approach

  • Proximity to affected communities: 
    Direct relationships with populations whose financial access and rights are at stake. We prioritize organizations whose analysis is grounded in community engagement, not secondary research alone.
  • Strategic policy awareness: 
    Sophisticated understanding of the regulatory landscape, with clear assessment of where advocacy can shift institutional positions or create new policy options.
  • Technical engagement capacity: 
    Sufficient familiarity with payment systems, open protocols, and interoperability standards to engage substantively in technical policy processes. Deep Interledger technology expertise is not required, but partners must engage with technical dimensions of policy debates, rather than treating them as out of scope.
  • Human rights analytical framework: 
    A demonstrated commitment to analysing payment policy through the lens of internationally recognized human rights standards, including the rights to privacy, non-discrimination, and access to effective remedy.
  • Collaborative orientation: 
    Willingness to work in genuine partnership with the Interledger Foundation and with other grantees: sharing learning, contributing to collective analysis, and participating in Foundation-convened forums and unconferences. We see ourselves as partners building a community, not merely a funder. 

 

The Interledger Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant proposals. However, organizations seeking to introduce their policy work to our team are welcome to do so by emailing links to public documents to programteam@interledger.org. 
The Interledger Foundation reviews all introductory correspondence and will respond where a potential area of mutual interest is identified.