Established with Purpose
Some people grow up watching the world and wondering what they can do about it. I was lucky enough to grow up with an answer — and this Foundation is what I am doing with it.
— Aliya Kanji, Founder
Our Foundation
We are not an operating charity. We fund and support established organisations with credible track records — and offer strategy, experience and networks alongside every grant.
The Aliya Kanji Foundation works to save and improve lives by focusing on what communities in the Global South need most urgently: clean water, food, and nutritional supplements. We believe you cannot talk about education, opportunity, or potential until a child is safe, fed, and healthy. We back programmes that are honest about what works, and we share what we learn — because this work is too important for any one foundation to keep to itself.
I have spent real time in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and across India. I have sat with families, played with children, and seen with my own eyes what life looks like when the basics are missing. Geography and circumstance should not determine who gets to survive childhood, let alone thrive. Once communities are no longer at risk of losing their children to preventable causes, the Foundation turns to its next horizon: education, and everything it makes possible.
I grew up watching the Aga Khan quietly transform lives across the developing world — schools, hospitals, clean water, dignity. That is the standard I hold myself to.
What We Fund
Philanthropic funding, strategic partnership and organisational support for evidence-based programmes — particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and India.
01Safe-water systems and access programmes — the foundation of every healthy community.
02Childhood nutrition, fortification, supplementation and community-based preventive care.
03Once basic health needs are met: school access, student opportunity and the institutions that make it possible.
Beyond grants
We help partner organisations grow sustainably by sharing strategy, experience and relevant networks — so the work outlasts any single funding cycle.
How We Work
Every decision starts with one question: does the evidence show this saves or improves lives? We fund programmes with honest track records — and we stay close enough to know the difference between impact and intention.
Informed by naturopathic training and years of time in the field, we look at communities whole — not as a collection of deficits to be fixed, but as people with lives, dignity, and potential.
The most effective philanthropy rarely happens in isolation. We work alongside organisations, institutions, and individuals whose expertise sharpens our own.
Money alone rarely solves anything. We invest in the people doing the work on the ground — sharing strategy, experience, and networks to help them grow sustainably.
A child who is sick or malnourished cannot learn. A mother who lacks clean water cannot keep her family safe. We champion preventive, integrative approaches to health.
The Foundation is still young. We are building carefully, and we are honest about what we have done, what we have learned, and what we are still figuring out.
In the Field
These photographs are from Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. They are not curated moments — they are afternoons, conversations, card games on the ground. This is where the Foundation's thinking comes from, and why it will never be abstract.
The Aga Khan Development Network showed me what sustained, serious philanthropy looks like. I am at the beginning of that journey.
Our Partners
A carefully chosen group whose rigour, honesty and track record we trust — in Sub-Saharan Africa, India, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Childhood First
Coach Core
Impact London Collective
Let Me Know
North London Collegiate
Onside Youth Zones
Royal Free Hospital
Royal Ballet & Opera
Science Museum
Spear
The Hall School
Venture Partnership Foundation
Whittington Health NHS Trust
The King's Trust
LAMDA
Aliya is a member of these networks of global philanthropists, committed to collective action and shared learning.
Princeton University · 2024
In 2024, Kanji Hall opened at Princeton's Huo College — a residential hall built to enable more students to benefit from a Princeton education. A building full of people who will go on to change things, and a reminder that investing in education — at every level and in every part of the world — is always worth it.
Founder
“Growing up, my family's life was shaped by a profound sense of gratitude and service — and by the example of the Aga Khan. That model of sustained, serious giving is what I have always aspired to.”
After Princeton and Harvard Business School, Aliya spent years at McKinsey & Company, Saks Fifth Avenue and De Beers Diamond Jewellers in London, and in 2009 founded AK Properties Incorporated, a residential real estate development business.
Alongside her professional life, she spent years travelling through Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and India — not as a tourist, but as someone genuinely trying to understand how people live and where outside help makes a real difference. After graduating from the College of Naturopathic Medicine in London, she established the Foundation.
It is early days. But the direction is clear: clean water and nutrition first, then education, then the longer work of building lives that have real choices in them.
Princeton University
Minors in Latin American Studies and Spanish. Advisory Boards of Princeton International Relations & Regional Studies, the Center for Global India, and the Mpala Institute.
Harvard Business School
How to allocate resources, measure what matters and build something that lasts. Member of the HBS Alumni Board and the HBS Fund.
College of Naturopathic Medicine, London
Health is not a luxury — preventive, integrative care is the most humane and effective place to start.
Recognition · 14 March 2026
The Bishop's School
Recognising exceptional and sustained commitment to service — for her philanthropic leadership across the Global South through clean water, nutrition and education. The award was accepted on her behalf by her father, who read her acceptance speech.
In her own words
A message recorded for The Bishop's School Ellen Browning Scripps Alumni Awards, March 2026.
Contact
For partnership enquiries, introductions, or to learn more about the Foundation's work — we'd welcome hearing from you.
