Bayer Foundation Anchors AWE Evergreen Philanthropic Fund for Women-Led Climate, Health and Agri Innovations
Bayer Foundation has anchored the establishment of AWE Evergreen Philanthropic Fund (EPF) to support scaling technology-driven solutions across healthcare, climate resilience, and sustainable agriculture, which impact underserved and climate-vulnerable communities primarily in India.
The funding will be deployed through an evergreen pooling vehicle created by AWE Foundation, a US-based non-profit organization, to provide long-term catalytic capital to support social impact-related investments. Designed to address the persistent “missing middle” financing gap – where, impact-focused enterprises remain overlooked due to structural biases and limited access to capital and network – the Evergreen Philanthropic Fund will back enterprises that are building gender-equitable, scalable solutions to improve livelihood and health outcomes for women, smallholder farmers and healthcare workers especially in smaller towns and villages across India.
This collaboration reflects a strong alignment between Bayer Foundation’s mission of accelerating transformative social innovations in health and agriculture to build effective and resilient local ecosystems benefitting health access and food security, and AWE Foundation’s focus on women’s economic empowerment, climate action, and community resilience. Through this partnership, AWE Foundation aims to strengthen women’s agency as entrepreneurs, workers, suppliers, and consumers, while enabling improved access to healthcare, climate adaptation solutions, and sustainable income opportunities in rural and small-towns India.
Through the EPF, AWE Foundation will focus on measurable impact outcomes, including improving access to healthcare in underserved regions, strengthening the capacity of community health workers through digital tools, increasing income and productivity for smallholder farmers, reducing food and agricultural waste, and supporting climate-smart agricultural practices. Impact will be tracked using clearly defined key performance indicators. Through Bayer Foundation’s funding support, the EPF has set the goal of Improving the Health Outcomes of 1 million lives, promote Gender Equity by helping 1.5 million women gain agency and improve the Livelihood of 0.5 million rural, small town populations including farmers. The EPF will achieve these impact targets by investing in gender equitable impact focused businesses through its partners. All investments made through the EPF will be subject to independent governance oversight and conflict-of-interest protocols.
Commenting on the partnership, Chitkala Kalidas, Executive Director, Bayer Foundation, said, “Women entrepreneurs are powerful catalysts for change – strengthening communities, accelerating inclusive innovation, and shaping more resilient futures. Through our partnership with AWE Foundation, we are proud to champion solutions that expand access to healthcare, transform food systems, and advance climate resilience in communities where the impact can be most profound.”
Seema Chaturvedi, Chair, AWE Foundation and Managing Partner at AWE Funds, said, “This collaboration with Bayer Foundation enables us to deliver much-needed long-term, patient capital at the intersection of women’s entrepreneurship, healthcare access, climate resilience, and sustainable agriculture. The EPF structure has the potential to galvanize the potency of blended finance to unlock catalytic capital, crowd in private investment, and accelerate the scale-up of solutions that can transform livelihoods and communities at the last mile. We are deeply grateful to Bayer Foundation for anchoring this effort and partnering with us to build a more inclusive, resilient, and opportunity-rich future.”
