Built Together: GitLab Foundation and Fundación Santo Domingo Deepen a Locally-Led Partnership to Expand Economic Mobility in Colombia
Colombia’s labor market holds untapped potential. There are millions of workers in the informal sector, young people ready to contribute and women and migrants who bring unique skills. GitLab Foundation and Fundación Santo Domingo saw an opportunity beyond simply giving money to fill gaps. They built a partnership from scratch, co-creating structures from the ground up.
Launched as a two-year, $1.6 million strategic partnership in 2024, the initiative pairs Fundación Santo Domingo’s decades of on-the-ground experience with GitLab Foundation’s outcome-oriented measurement and learning tools, and a shared commitment to scale what works.
The partners designed the collaboration to address those realities through three shared strategies: improving employment pathways, supporting entrepreneurship, strengthening mid-sized businesses, and addressing international labor mobility. The model emphasizes employer engagement and local partnerships in high-growth sectors such as technology, health and tourism.
A partnership built and governed together
GitLab Foundation and Fundación Santo Domingo co-created the governance, financing and measurement systems together. This differs from the traditional top-down donor and recipient approach to philanthropy. Through shared strategic frameworks, the partners guide investments that prioritize collaboration and shared learning.
The partnership uses GitLab Foundation’s unique impact modeling methodologies to direct resources to opportunities that will double participants' lifetime incomes cost-efficiently.
Funding in action: Proyectarse and Escuela de Oficios Hoteleros y Turísticos
Two complementary projects illustrate the model in practice. Proyectarse is a locally rooted program that has trained more than 1,000 participants from 2024 to 2025, resulting in permanent, formal job placements with meaningful income gains for those placed.
Complementing Proyectarse’s career pathways work, the Escuela de Oficios Hoteleros y Turísticos provides hospitality, gastronomy and tourism training in Cartagena aligned with Four Seasons standards. The program is projected to serve roughly 290 participants per year, with GitLab Foundation supporting a subset of those participants through its co-investment. The Escuela and Proyectarse programs show how vocational training, employer-aligned standards and targeted placement can create pathways to formal jobs in durable industries with strong income gains.
Fundación Santo Domingo and GitLab Foundation are a part of a new initiative, New Opportunities for Vocational Advancement (NOVA). The first prototype, Cuando Sabes Inglés Se Nota helps jobseekers strengthen their English, develop job skills and connects them with formal employment opportunities. Co-designed in close collaboration with national and international partners, the program will evolve as more participants complete training.
Voices from the partnership
“Our partnership with GitLab Foundation strengthens a shared agenda for productive inclusion — one that creates meaningful employment and development opportunities in line with labor market demand,” said Daniel Gonzales, Social Investing Director of Fundación Santo Domingo. “We believe that combining local and global capabilities, technology, and purpose will enable us to build more inclusive models that connect talent, employability, and productivity across Colombia.”
“Partnerships like this work when they center trust, joint accountability, and mutual learning,” said Roger Perez, senior program officer at GitLab Foundation. “We bring measurement tools and a willingness to iterate, Fundación Santo Domingo brings deep relationships and implementation experience, and together we are investing in solutions that help people move into formal, better-paying jobs.”
Shared learning and what comes next
GitLab Foundation and Fundación Santo Domingo document results together, and invite employers and municipal partners to join in the learning. The partners will continue to pilot flexible financing that supports a range of local institutions. This emphasis on joint governance, co-investment and mutual learning is deliberate. This partnership reflects a belief that unlocking economic opportunity requires local leadership, long-term commitment and practical measures of impact.
Fundación Santo Domingo brings extensive regional capacity to the partnership, co-funding more than 100 projects each year. This partnership delivers faster, locally-led responses to time-sensitive opportunities. The hope is that this continued partnership will inform broader practice in Colombia and beyond.
To learn more about the GitLab Foundation’s Colombia strategy, visit the Foundation’s Handbook.
ROI: 46
DIL: $382
The projected cost efficiency of this portfolio is approximately $382 to double a participant’s income over their lifetime (cost per DIL), reflecting highly cost-effective, transformative income gains across programs.
Across the portfolio, we estimate a portfolio-weighted North Star ROI of ~46x, meaning that for every dollar invested, programs are projected to generate approximately $46 in increased lifetime earnings for participants.
On average, the portfolio is estimated to increase annual earnings by approximately $2,105 per person, representing an average income increase of ~147% relative to baseline earnings. This translates into an estimated $20.3 million in total additional lifetime earnings (present value) across all participants.
