
We recruit Melton Fellows primarily at universities from these six partner regions. The universities listed below provide valuable local academic and logistical support in the recruitment, mentoring, and learning experiences of Fellows while they are students. In addition, partner Universities may forge collaborations with local NGOs or other institutions to enable Fellows at all stages of their careers to participate and act on local issues.
Meet BMS College of Engineering
Bangalore, India
Campus Coordinator: Dr. H N Suma
Read BioMeet Dillard University
New Orleans, USA
Campus Coordinator: Dr. Courtney Williams
Read BioMeet Friedrich Schiller Universität
Jena, Germany
Campus Coordinator: Dr. Alvaro Fernandez
Read BioMeet Zhejiang University 浙江大学
Hangzhou, China
Campus Coordinator: Prof. Qiang Lu
Read BioMeet Universidad de la Frontera
Temuco, Chile
Campus Coordinator: Felipe Opazo
Read BioMeet Ashesi University College
Greater Accra, Ghana
Campus Coordinator: Rosemary Naa Adei Kotei Buckman
Read BioBangalore, India
Located in Bangalore, the Garden City and Silicon Valley of India, BMS College of Engineering (BMS) has been part of the Melton Foundation network since 1992. Founded in 1946, the college was the first private enterprise engineering college to be founded in India.
New Orleans, USA
Dillard University (DU) is our partner university in New Orleans, USA. A private historically black liberal arts institution, DU has been part of the Melton Foundation network since 1995.
Jena, Germany
One of our founding institutions, Friedrich Schiller Universität (FSU) has been a university partner of the Melton Foundation since 1991. Located in the city of Jena, FSU was founded in 1558 and provides higher education opportunities to over 20,000 students today.
Visit the FSU Melton Foundation website
Hangzhou, China
Zhejiang University (ZU) in Hangzhou, China has been a part of our network since 1993. ZU has its roots in the Qiushi Academy, which was founded in 1897 as one of the earliest modern academies of higher education in China. Today, with more than 41,000 students, ZU is considered one of the top three universities in China.
Visit the ZU Melton Foundation website
Temuco, Chile
Located in Temuco, Chile, Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) was established in 1981, following the merger of the University of Chile and Technical State University in Temuco. UFRO joined the Melton Foundation in 1994 and has been a valued partner institution ever since.
Visit the UFRO Melton Foundation website
Greater Accra, Ghana
Ashesi University College (Ashesi) is a coeducational institution whose goal is to educate African leaders of exceptional integrity and professional ability. It is the first university in Ghana to adopt and blend the Liberal Arts method of education with majors in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, and Business Administration. The university is an independent, private, not-for-profit institution and has been a part of the Melton Foundation network since 2014.
Together we are nurturing a growing community of global citizens, based on mutual interests, synergies, and complementary experience.
Our approach to collaboration is shared-value based so that each partnership is unique to the organization(s) involved. If you’re curious to find out more or see potential synergies between our work and yours, contact us!
Meet African Youth SDGs Summit
Meet Amani Institute
Meet Civicus
Meet Innova Pais
Meet Conveners.org
Meet Development Perspectives
Meet Divest Invest
Meet Ernst Abbe Stiftung
Meet GrassRoots Hub
Meet HPI School of Design Thinking
Meet IncubatecUFRO
Meet AFS - Chile
Meet MIT Practical Impact Alliance (PIA)
Meet NEXUS Ghana
Meet SDSN Youth Initiative
Meet Social Innovation Exchange (SIX)
Meet World Merit
Meet Fundación Colunga
Meet CSTEP
Meet World Assembly of Youth (WAY)
Meet Red Regional de Educación para la Ciudadanía Mundial LAC UNESCO/APCEIU 2022
Meet SDG Thought Leaders Circle
Meet Catalyst 2030
The African Youth SDGs Summit (AYSDGS) provides a platform for dialogue on youth inclusion and participation in Africa’s social, economic, and political systems. Started in 2017, AYSDGS mobilizes stakeholders such as youth groups, CSOs, UN systems, governments, and the private sector to dialogue and exchange ideas and reflect on the way forward to increase investment and participation of young people in development on the continent.
The Melton Foundation has been an AYSDGS partner since its initiation in 2017.
The Amani Institute‘s mission is to develop professionals who create social impact by creating new models of education and training that enable people to develop new practical skills and experiences for their professional toolkit, a personal understanding of their own leadership journey, and the global networks necessary for long-term career success. All this while simultaneously reducing the high cost of a world-class global education.
Amani Institute and The Melton Foundation have collaborated on different events and training activities since 2016.
CIVICUS is an international alliance dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world. In order to do so, they focus on three priority areas:
CIVICUS undertakes a variety of long and short-term projects in each of these areas, working in close partnership with relevant organizations to achieve our joint objectives.
The Melton Foundation has been a proud CIVICUS partner since 2016.
Innova Pais conceive innovation as a process that seeks new methods and ideas, solutions to problems in an effective, efficient, and sustainable way.
Innova Pais has been a valued partner of the Melton Foundation since 2019, regularly collaborating on Sustainable Development projects and working towards solutions to the greatest challenges of our time. Our local hub in Temuco actively works with Innova Pais in combined initiatives.
Conveners.org recognizes the transformative power that convening, when done right, has to positively change the world. They are building a community of mission-driven conveners, accelerators, and mappers to convene and learn from each other, build the larger capacity of the field, and construct pathways to more efficiently realize change.
The Melton Foundation has been a part of the Conveners.org network since 2016.
Development Perspectives is a Development Education NGO based in Ireland and forms part of a global network of curious, critical thinkers and development practitioners working for social justice. They contribute to lessening poverty, inequality and climate change through transformative education and active global citizenship. Among other activities, Development Perspectives organizes the #SDGchallenge, a project which aims to equip individuals with the knowledge, skills, and motivation to take informed action to contribute towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Development Perspectives and The Melton Foundation have collaborated on global citizenship activities and events since 2015.
DivestInvest is a diverse, global network of individuals and organizations united in the belief that by using collective influence as investors to divest from fossil fuels, and invest in climate solutions, the transition to a zero-carbon economy can be accelerated. In this way, they are supporting the agreement made by governments in Paris at COP21 while protecting investment returns.
The Melton Foundation took the Divest-Invest pledge in May 2016. In doing so, we joined 140 other foundations, family offices, and charities collectively representing more than $12 billion in assets who have committed to divest from fossil fuels and invest in climate solutions such as renewable energy.
The Ernst-Abbe-Stiftung (EAS) is a foundation in Jena, Germany, named after the German physicist, entrepreneur, and social reformer Ernst Abbe (1840-1905). Since 1992, the EAS promotes science, research, and innovation by providing infrastructure and funding for science projects, research centers, knowledge, and technology transfer as well as new businesses and young entrepreneurs.
The Ernst-Abbe-Stiftung has been an important Melton Foundation partner since 2005.
GrassRoots Hub is an eco-entrepreneurship and SDGs Innovation Lab with a global community of grassrooters making an impact and furthering social good. GrassRoots educate, innovate and incubate start-ups and connect accelerators to leading companies, research institutions, foundations, non-profits, and investors. The GrassRoots Hub is building a community aimed at sharing and generating insights and ideas to ensure impact from local communities to a global level.
The collaboration between GrassRoots Hubs and The Melton Foundation started in 2018 and has taken impactful turns ever since.
Together with the d.school at Stanford, the HPI School of Design Thinking at Potsdam University in Germany has taken a pioneering role in the development and dissemination of Design Thinking. The focus of the HPI School of Design Thinking lies in the teaching method, the cooperation with project partners, and the research and further development of Design Thinking.
HPI School of Design Thinking has been a curriculum partner of the Melton Foundation since 2015.
IncubatecUFRO addresses the need for structures and initiatives that support the creation and consolidation of high-impact innovative and social business initiatives, strengthening the capacities of the public, academic and private sectors. A division of the Innovation and Technology Transfer office at University of La Frontera in Temuco, Chile, they facilitate and accelerate business growth through access to seed capital and advice for the development and strengthening of business models, marketing plans, finance, customer prospecting, market validation, prototyping and entrepreneurial skill-building, among others.
For more than five years, IncubatecUFRO and the Melton Foundation have worked together to support Melton Fellows’ entrepreneurial project ideas through mentoring and internships.
AFS Chile is a member of the AFS World Network, which develops active global citizens determined to make the world a better place. The AFS study abroad programs empower young people from all backgrounds with essential global skills—and the passion for making a difference.
AFS Chile and The Melton Foundation have worked together since 2019, to further both organizations’ missions by promoting intercultural collaboration.
The MIT Practical Impact Alliance (PIA) harvests the power of collaborative learning and action to increase, accelerate, and sustain impact on global poverty. PIA, organized by MIT D-Lab, is the latest chapter in the Institute’s accomplished history of collaborating with leading organizations to bring knowledge and innovation to bear on the world’s greatest challenges.
The Melton Foundation is a founding member of MIT’s Practical Impact Alliance.
NEXUS is a global community founded to bridge communities of wealth and social entrepreneurship. With over 3500 members from 70 countries, NEXUS works to unite young investors, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and allies to catalyze new leadership and accelerate needed political, societal, indigenous, financial, environmental, and equal justice solutions. NEXUS Ghana, the Ghanaian branch of NEXUS Global, organizes events to connect young people from diverse backgrounds and link communities that would otherwise never meet.
The Melton Foundation and NEXUS Ghana have supported each other’s missions and activities since 2018.
Launched in 2015, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Youth Initiative empowers youth globally to create sustainable development solutions. SDSN Youth educates young people about the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and provides opportunities for them to pioneer innovative solutions to address the world’s biggest challenges. With this aim, SDSN Youth creates platforms for young people to connect, collaborate and integrate their ideas and perspectives into national and regional pathways for the implementation of the SDGs.
The Melton Foundation has been a proud member of SDSN Youth since 2017.
Social Innovation Exchange (SIX) is the world’s primary network focusing on social innovation. Their vision is that people all over the world can become better innovators by more easily connecting to their peers, sharing methods and exchanging solutions globally.
SIX works with governments, businesses, academics, funders, practitioners and leading social innovation intermediaries that support social innovation to accelerate the field of social innovation around the world. By linking all these actors across sectors, fields and geographies, they can spread the most effective models more quickly.
By leveraging their networks for mutual benefit, SIX and the Melton Foundation have supported each other’s endeavors since 2015.
World Merit is a global charity with a community of over 100,000 change-makers, representing every country in the world. They connect young global citizens across the globe and provides a place to debate global issues, collaborate on projects and showcase their impact. World Merit works to unleash the upcoming generation to create waves of change and to tackle the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Since 2016, World Merit and The Melton Foundation have collaborated to engage young people in furthering the SDGs by making a meaningful difference across the street and across the world.
ColungaHUB is a space that supports the development and maturation of civil society organizations that lead initiatives in the line of overcoming poverty.
Since 2019, the Melton Foundation joined the HUB community curated by Fundación Colunga, and has thus joined the commitment to strengthen civil society and promote a fairer society at large.
The Center for Study of Science, Technology, and Policy (CSTEP) is one of India’s leading think tanks, with a mission to enrich policymaking with innovative approaches using science and technology for a sustainable, secure and inclusive society.
The Melton Foundation has been a partner of this esteemed organization since 2019, and we continue to work together towards advancing sustainable development.
The World Assembly of Youth (WAY) is the international coordinating body of national youth councils and national youth organizations. Founded in 1949, WAY has special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) and works in close cooperation with several United Nations agencies including UNAIDS, UNEP, ILO UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNCTAD, and WHO.
WAY works for the promotion of young people and youth organizations in program areas such as education, employment, environment, human rights, democracy, population, health, drugs, peace, gender equality, community development, and leadership training.
The Melton Foundation and WAY have committed to support each other’s work and mission in 2020 and has engaged in various shared endeavor ever since.
The Global Citizenship Education Network of Latin America and the Caribbean was formed as a result of the regional meeting “Towards a world without walls: regional meeting on education for global citizenship in SDG 4 – Agenda E2030”, organized in Santiago, Chile, in October 2017. With the support of APCEIU – Asia and Pacific Center for Education for International Understanding, activities have been generated to promote dialogue, exchange of experiences, awareness and training of different key actors, including teachers and educators, school directors, youth, educators, civil society leaders, researchers, policy makers, among others.
The purpose of the SDG Thought Leaders Circle is to support, promote and address a transformational agenda building from the spirit and intention of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals through the infusion of innovative, unifying and uplifting visions, values and strategies, co-creative partnerships, and heart-based service for the good of the whole. Ultimately, our commitment is to act as agents of change in alliance with those who are likewise committed to the evolution of our species and the protection of the planet we share.
Catalyst 2030 is a fast-growing global movement of people and organisations committed to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) by 2030.
Joining forces with communities, governments, businesses and others, Catalyst 2030 members are changing systems at all levels through collective action and bold new strategies.
Since 2020, the Melton Foundation is a vetted and trusted organization of the GlobalGiving network, alongside some of the world's best non-profits. Through crowdfunding, we bring to light unique global citizenship projects, advancing sustainable development one step at a time! There are many other ways to support our work: click here for more!
Fundraising Partner
GlobalGiving is a 501 non-profit organization based in the United States that provides a global crowdfunding platform for grassroots charitable projects. Since 2002, more than 950,000 donors on GlobalGiving have raised more than $430 million to support more than 24,000 projects in 170 countries.
Since 2020, the Melton Foundation is a vetted and trusted organization of the Global Giving network, alongside some of the world’s best non-profits. Through crowdfunding, we’re bringing to light some of our foremost projects, advancing sustainable development one step at a time!
Find us on Global Giving – bit.ly/MFGlobalGiving