The Mitene Fund: Creating a world where all children and families can thrive
FamilyAlbum founder Kenji Kasahara’s philanthropic efforts (known collectively as “Mitene Kikin” or “The Mitene Fund” in Japan) support organizations working to solve social issues surrounding parents and children through grants and non-financial support. Under the mission “Creating a world where all children and families can thrive,” The Mitene Fund has supported 91 NPOs and NGOs with a combined 1.2 billion yen since its launch in April 2020.
Written by: Momo Hoshino
A Foreword
Over the last two months, we’ve explored a social issue still very much prevalent here in Japan: child poverty. (Click for Part 1 and Part 2) While looking at the reality of children in poverty and the background of the issue, we also covered organizations working in the front lines on this pressing problem.
In Japan, we are now witnessing what could be the dawn of a movement where funds flow from individuals and organizations in the private sector to the social sector. The next two blog posts will share a few examples of such initiatives ETIC. has been a part of, in hopes of giving you a glimpse into this movement.
Kenji Kasahara’s conceptualization of The Mitene Fund
Kenji Kasahara, director, founder, and senior corporate officer of mixi, Inc., began devising a plan to support the social sector in the winter of 2019.
Founded in 1999, mixi, Inc. is one of the earliest IT startups in Japan. Their social network service “mixi” was a major success in Japan in the 2000s. Under the mission providing space and opportunity for truly meaningful connections, the company has developed a wide range of services related to sports, digital entertainment, lifestyle, and more.
Since Kasahara became a father in 2013, he has been heavily involved in a different kind of social-networking service: a private photo- and video-sharing app for families. Released in 2015, FamilyAlbum (also known as Mitene) is a free, all-in-one resource for parents to share photos and videos of their children in a secure, invite-only album. The app includes unlimited storage, automatic organization, and special features to make communicating with the entire family easy and fun. Available in 8 different languages, FamilyAlbum now has over 12 million users worldwide.
FamilyAlbum was created to help families feel closer regardless of distance, and the team strongly believes that the app has the power to positively impact the lives of families everywhere. At the same time, as the FamilyAlbum continued to grow, Kasahara also began to wonder how he could better support children and families. He felt an increasingly strong desire to help organizations working to combat issues related to children and families, including education gaps and domestic violence.
In April 2020, Kasahara committed 1 billion yen from his personal assets and The Mitene Fund was established.
What is The Mitene Fund?
With the mission of “creating a world where all children and families can thrive”, The Mitene Fund provides both financial and non-financial support to selected organizations.
They select organizations working on social issues surrounding families and children in 5 categories: “health,” “education,” “poverty,” “birth & parenting” and “abuse & neglect.”
Entering its third year, The Mitene Fund has supported a total of 91 NPO/NGO projects in Japan through two rounds of funding. Globally, Kasahara has donated over 1.1 billion yen as of March 2022. (NOTE: some organizations were selected in multiple rounds of funding at different time periods).
Aside from financial support, The Mitene Fund has also provided non-financial support for projects in Japan. In this regard, ETIC. has been able to provide advice thanks to our experiences providing non-financial support to many other nonprofit organizations.
With support from mixi, Inc. employees and ETIC.’s Social Innovation team, The Mitene Fund takes advantage of the strengths of both organizations to provide mentoring, digitalization, networking, and many other advisory opportunities.
Focus areas of The Mitene Fund
So, what is special about The Mitene Fund apart from the story behind its initiation and its provision of non-financial support?
In order to increase its impact, The Mitene Fund takes a unique approach and uses its resources to support the activities of NPOs that haven’t traditionally been included in many grant programs.
Emergency response to family and children in need (First Round: April 2020)
The first batch of funding selected 53 organizations in Japan that supported children and their families in need of urgent assistance due to the pandemic. With Kasahara’s strong initiative, the fund quickly distributed 300 million yen from July 2020 to June 2021.
The impact of the fund was undeniable.
The 53 selected organizations utilized around 470 million yen (300 million of which was from The Mitene Fund) to support 80 thousand people. *1
*1 For support provided on a household basis, one household has been converted into two people
MUSUBIE is an organization that aims to contribute to creating an inclusive society which leaves no one behind, by spreading the idea of kodomo-shokudo (soup kitchen especially targeting children from struggling households) nationwide and supporting places where children can visit at ease.
Kodomo-shokudo offers free or low cost meals to all children and families. Not only are children able to eat warm cooked meals at low costs here, they can also utilize this place to communicate with adults, participate in various cultural activities, and more.
There are now more than 6,000 cafeterias around Japan (“Kodomo-shokudo nationwide location number survey” conducted in December 2021). However, many of these cafeterias are run by volunteers and some have struggled with finances and other issues.
In light of this, MUSUBIE was granted 10 million yen from The Mitene Fund under the category of “support for children disadvantaged by economic poverty.”
Their activities include support for regional networks, where they assist the launch of cafeterias, foster cooperation with government and related organizations, intermediate donated goods, etc.
The Mitene Fund supported these activities through a grant to the “project to support families in need through the support of children’s cafeterias.”
Special grant programs to support the next challenge of NPOs (Second Round: May 2022)
For the second round, The Mitene Fund selected a total of 20 organizations and is still ongoing as of today (May 2022).
Building on the experiences from the first round, the second round of the grant program had two categories: “Innovation Support” and “Step-up Support.”
Innovation Support aids organizations with a promising outlook in bringing great innovative ideas and social impact in the mid-to-long term.
Seven organizations have been selected for funding of up to 100 million yen per organization for a period of 3 years maximum.
In contrast, the13 organizations selected for Step-up Support are ones that have been working at the grassroot level to address issues children, families, and communities face.
This grant offers up to 10 million yen per organization for a maximum period of 2 years. The purpose of the grant is to assist these organizations in strengthening their business and organizational foundations and to take their projects to the next level.
One organization that has received Step-up Support funding is the Otera Oyastu Club. This unique organization was founded by a monk to share temple offerings to families in need.
At temples, many food offerings are made to the Buddha and ancestors. These temple offerings are usually handed down to those who are training at the temple. However, there are times when temples receive an overabundant number of offerings and puzzle over how to keep them from going to waste.
The Otera Oyastu Club assists temples in sharing offerings to families in need by partnering up with organizations supporting children and single-parent families.
There are now over 1,800 temples in all 47 of Japan’s prefectures sharing offerings to more than 580 organizations supporting families in need through Otera Oyatsu Club. They have successfully been reaching 23,000 children a month with their activities.
The Mitene Fund supported them with a grant of around 4 million yen during the first round of funding and an additional 10 million yen in the second round, all in addition to non-financial support.
The second round of funding was executed under the funding project “Isolation resolution and mutual aid creation through sharing with families in need.”
Donations to reach the international community
The reach of Kasahara’s philanthropic efforts does not end domestically.
In 2020, Kasahara felt a strong desire to support the health and wellbeing of families and children impacted by the pandemic, and quickly acted to donate $1 million towards COVID-19 relief for families and children on a global scale.
Recipients of donations included DonorsChoose, GiveDirectly, Save the Children, and other organizations providing housing, meals, counseling, holistic support, diapers, and other necessities to families and children experiencing homelessness, serious illness (including sick or premature babies in neonatal care), financial difficulty, or family violence.
(Find out more from the link below:
https://blog.family-album.com/announcements/our-founders-response-to-covid-19/)
Most recently, Kasahara donated $500,000 to support Save the Children’s emergency response in Ukraine and around the world.
(Find out more from the link below:
https://blog.family-album.com/announcements/supporting-emergency-relief-efforts-with-save-the-children/)
The strengths of private donations
An important factor to mention is that the significance of Kasahara’s philanthropic efforts and The Mitene Fund is defined not only by the amount of financial and non-financial support, but also by its flexibility and speed.
Funding restrictions are cut down to the bare minimum, reflecting commitment to the belief that funds are best used for what people acting on-site deem necessary.
This allows for more flexible use of the funds and other resources.
By funding with flexibility and speed, The Mitene Fund is able to supplement public funds, which generally have more restrictions and can take more time for administrative procedures.
Another merit of Kasahara’s philanthropy and The Mitene Fund is its ability to invest in more uncertain and ambitious projects as characterized by the innovation fund.
These benefits can play a transformative part in the social sector: by assisting organizations with flexibility and agility, private funds can allow for more effective use of public funds.
Last month, Kasahara, mixi, and ETIC. celebrated the second anniversary of The Mitene Fund. In the third year and beyond, ETIC. will continue the exciting journey of managing The Mitene Fund hand in hand with mixi, together working to create a world where all children and families can thrive.
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