Development Co‑operation Profiles: Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
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The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation was established in 1944 by the hotelier Conrad N. Hilton. Its work primarily focuses on Africa, South America and the United States.
The foundation aims to assist people living in poverty and facing disadvantages worldwide. It concentrates on promoting healthy early childhood development, supporting sustainable livelihoods for youth, helping young people transitioning out of foster care, improving access to housing and services for those experiencing homelessness, finding solutions for safe water access, and supporting the work of Catholic sisters. Each year, after being selected by an independent international jury, the foundation also awards the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize of USD 2.5 million to an organisation making significant efforts to reduce human suffering.
This profile presents verified data on development assistance allocations. See the Development Co-operation Profiles.
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation provided USD 108 million for development in 2024 through its cross-border funding. Compared to 2023, this amount represents a decrease of 7.6% in real terms. Grants represented 98.1% of Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s gross disbursements, while the remainder was extended in the form of loans (1.9%).
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation provided all of its development finance bilaterally in 2024, while 2.9% was channelled through multilateral organisations (earmarked contributions).
In 2024, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation channelled its bilateral development finance mostly through non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (USD 87.9 million), public-private partnerships (PPPs) and private sector (USD 7.8 million) and universities, research institutes or think tanks (USD 7 million).
In 2024, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation provided USD 3.1 million to the multilateral system. Of this, USD 3.1 million was non-core contributions earmarked for a specific country, region, theme or purpose. 84% of total development finance was channelled through United Nations (UN) funds and programmes, and UN organisations.
The UN system received USD 2.6 million from Conrad N. Hilton Foundation in 2024. The most significant UN recipients were the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (USD 2.2 million), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) (USD 300 thousand) and the United Nations Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office (UN-MPTFO) (USD 200 thousand).
In 2024, civil society organisations (CSOs) received USD 87.9 million of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s gross bilateral finance, of which 36.2% was directed to developing country-based CSOs. Overall, 2.4% of total bilateral development finance was allocated to CSOs as core support, while 78.9% was earmarked to specific projects or programmes. From 2023 to 2024, the combined core and earmarked contributions for CSOs decreased as a share of bilateral philanthropic development finance, from 82.6% to 81.4%.
Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid.
In 2024, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s development finance was primarily focused on Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. USD 78.2 million was allocated to Africa and USD 24.6 million to Latin America and the Caribbean, accounting respectively for 72.4% and 22.8% of gross bilateral development finance.
In 2024, 84.7% of gross development finance went to the top 10 recipients, most notably Uganda (17.3%), Ghana (12%), and Kenya (11.7%).
Least developed countries (LDCs) and other low-income countries (LICs) received respectively USD 51.4 million (47.6%) and USD 500 thousand (0.5%) of Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s gross disbursements in 2024. Conrad N. Hilton Foundation allocated the highest share (47.6%) of its bilateral development finance to LDCs in 2024, followed by lower middle-income countries (26.7%), noting that USD 4.1 million (3.8%) was unallocated by income group.
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation allocated USD 32.4 million of its development finance to land-locked developing countries in 2024, and USD 2.1 million to small island developing states (SIDS) in 2024. Its main SIDS recipient was Haiti.
Support to contexts with high and extreme fragility reached USD 66.7 million in 2024, representing 61.7% of Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s bilateral development finance. Of this, contexts with extremely fragility received a sum of USD 4.3 million.
Learn more about the OECD States of Fragility platform.
In 2024, the largest allocations (77.5% of bilateral contributions) by Conrad N. Hilton Foundation went to social infrastructure and services, with a strong focus on support to education (USD 29.8 million). The second largest sector was humanitarian assistance (USD 16.6 million), focusing on emergency response (USD 15.1 million). This was followed by production sectors (USD 5 million).
In the period 2023-2024, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation committed 18.6% of screened bilateral allocable development finance to gender equality and women’s empowerment, compared to 18.5% in 2021-2022 and a private philanthropic average of 33.2% in 2023-2024. This is equal to USD 17.9 million of screened bilateral allocable contributions in support of gender equality on average per year. In addition:
The share of screened bilateral allocable contributions committed to gender equality and women’s empowerment as a principal objective was 7.1% in 2023-2024, compared with the private philanthropic average of 11.9%.
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation includes gender equality objectives in 13.2% of contributions for humanitarian aid, below the 2023-2024 private philanthropic average of 11.5%.
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation screens all bilateral allocable contributions activities against the DAC gender equality policy marker (100% in 2023-2024).
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation committed USD 1 million of contributions to end violence against women and girls and USD 400 thousand to support women’s rights organisations and movements, and government institutions on average per year in 2023-2024.
Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of All Women and Girls in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance and the DAC Recommendation on Ending Sexual Exploitation in Development Co-operation.
In 2024, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation committed the largest shares of its contributions to SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), SDG 4 (quality education) and SDG 5 (gender equality) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.
Access the full list of providers at this link: Development Co-operation Profiles.
Official website: https://www.hiltonfoundation.org.
The methodological notes provide further details on the definitions and statistical methodologies applied, including core and earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations, channels of delivery, bilateral unspecified/unallocated/allocable development finance, the gender equality policy marker, and the environment markers.
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