Our Story
Since our founding in 2016, Cultivate has committed to addressing the historical and systemic barriers that create dependency in communities worldwide, hinder community-centric practices and limit the potential of communities.
By building capacity of local leaders, community organizations and their funding partners, we contribute to a global movement for localization and community-led development where communities drive their own development and partnerships are founded on trust.
- Oct 1, 2010
2010
The idea for Cultivate begins to come together while our founder studies in Nairobi.
- Aug 25, 2021
2015
Cultivate's pilot program is designed and our founder begins to build her team.
- Aug 25, 2021
May 2016
Cultivate is officially launched as a nonprofit organization.
- Aug 25, 2021
June 2016
Four leaders join our program - Padox (Kenya), Martinho (Mozambique), Fred (Rwanda) and Joshua (Malawi) - to become the first of our founding trainees.
- Aug 25, 2021
March 2017
We offer our first in-field training in Kolkata, India.
- Aug 25, 2021
December 2018
We close the year having trained 13 community leaders from 11 nations worldwide.
- Aug 25, 2021
January 2019
We launch our digital training and coaching platform and retire our in-person training pilot program.
- Aug 25, 2021
August 2020
We launch our organizational training and consulting pilot program with Food for His Children's staff in Tanzania.
- Aug 25, 2021
March 2021
We launch our first-ever cohort group, with 19 community leaders from 10 nations around the world.
- Aug 25, 2021
2025
Unfortunately, we pause all our programs so our CEO, Elaine, can fight stage 4 cancer.
- Jul 1, 2026
2026
We celebrate our tenth year as Elaine returns to work, cancer-free! We are now looking forward to a new strategy to serve more leaders and communities in the next decade of our work.