The foundation was originally envisioned by Rainer Arnhold, a San Francisco pediatrician and philanthropist, who taught at Mulago Hospital, Uganda.
On their "How we fund" page, they write that they are looking for three things: a priority problem, a scalable solution, and an organization that can deliver.
[3] As of May 2024, the Mulago Foundation website listed about 80 organizations include Babban Gona, Blue Ventures, Bridges to Prosperity, Dost, Development Media International, Digital Green, Educate Girls, Food for Education, Foundation for Ecological Security, Friendship Bench, Global Forest Watch, Kheyti, Medha, Noora Health, One Acre Fund, Planet Indonesia, SaveLIFE Foundation, Ubongo Learning, Urgewald and Youth Impact.
[11] On March 11, 2014, Kevin Starr and Laura Hattendorf of the Mulago Foundation wrote a lengthy article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review skeptical of cash transfer charity GiveDirectly's accomplishment so far, saying that the evidence so far was underwhelming, though there might still be bigger gains a few years down the line.
They contrasted GiveDirectly with other charities that they felt delivered more bang for the buck: One Acre Fund, VisionSpring, KickStart International, and Proximity Designs.