"The resources and privileges you were born into are gifts. You had better turn them into a responsibility for helping those born without them."
Karis Tai, age 16 · TEDx Concordia Shanghai

The Karis Hope Fund  ·  The Work

She built for people
the system tends to forget.
The Hope Fund protects
that work and what comes next.

This page is about the work the Karis Hope Fund supports and is developing — established Kenyan organizations doing education and mentorship for vulnerable youth, new initiatives advancing legal protections for workers and cancer patients, and the broader access-to-justice work the Fund's longer horizon takes on. Each section describes the organization or initiative, what it does, and how the Fund is involved.

Karis working with Kenyan youth on a community project — at the heart of the work the Hope Fund supports
How the Fund Works

Three areas.
One charitable mission.

The Karis Hope Fund makes grants to qualifying charitable organizations and develops new charitable initiatives across three areas: Education & Mentorship, Justice, and Dignity. The board decides every grant. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law (federal recognition pending). Allocations are reported transparently.

01 Education & Mentorship

Grants supporting community-based education and mentorship for vulnerable youth in Kenya, with a focus on programs that combine academic support, character formation, and economic mobility.

  • Wezesha · community education center
  • TAFA · football, tutoring, scholarships
02 Justice

Grants and direct charitable initiatives advancing legal advocacy and access to justice for workers, women, and other underrepresented people — bringing legal protections within reach of communities the formal system tends not to serve.

  • Naivasha Worker Justice partnership
  • Cancer Rights at Stanford
03 Dignity

General unrestricted grants directed by the board, in the spirit of Karis Tai's values, supporting organizations and causes advancing the dignity of vulnerable people — wherever the board identifies need and opportunity.

  • Grace in Action Fund · board-directed unrestricted
Donor Choice

Donors give unrestricted or to a specific area. Every restricted gift is honored for its designated purpose.

Reporting

Grants and outcomes reported to donors — by category, amount, and recipient organization.

A note on how the Fund works: The Karis Hope Fund is a charity, not a personal fund. It does not pay any portion of Karis's personal expenses, including medical care, and does not pay Karis or any director. Every gift goes to its charitable mission — grants and direct initiatives in education, justice, and dignity. See how to give →

The Fund's distinctive contribution: backing work at the frontier — established programs the Fund supports, new initiatives the Fund is developing, and the broader access-to-justice work the Fund's longer horizon takes on.
01
Education & Mentorship

The Work She Has
Long Championed

Two established Kenyan organizations doing community education and mentorship for vulnerable youth. The Hope Fund supports their ongoing programs through grants. Karis has been part of both for years — as co-founder, advocate, and volunteer — and continues to volunteer with them today.

Children rescued and treated by the Baobei Foundation — each photo a life saved
Where she came from  ·  Shanghai, China
Formation

The Baobei
Foundation

The work that formed her. Not a Hope Fund grantee.

What It IsIndependent foundation run by Karis's parents to help orphaned infants with life-threatening conditions receive surgery and find families
Karis's ConnectionGrew up inside the work as a child — volunteer, ambassador, witness
Hope Fund StatusNot a Hope Fund grantee. Donors wishing to support Baobei may give to the foundation directly.
Why It's HereIt is the through-line. To understand the work the Hope Fund supports, you have to understand where Karis's commitment to vulnerable people came from.

Karis's parents gave up their careers and income to move to Shanghai and run a foundation for orphaned infants with life-threatening birth defects — on no salary at all. Karis grew up inside it. By twelve she was managing donors from every continent, navigating orphanage bureaucracies in Mandarin, and translating between rural villages and international philanthropists.

One of those babies was Ana — left abandoned at 4.9 pounds in a rural hospital with no birth certificate and no legal existence. Karis was nine years old, on the flight to Shanghai. Ana survived, was adopted, and is Karis's sister. Ana's story is the foundation of everything Karis has done since: the night court in New York, the work in Kenya, the legal proposal she wrote during chemotherapy.

TEDx Talk · Evelin Tai Karis’s mother and Baobei director, speaking on the work that shaped their family — and Karis.
A Wezesha staff member addressing students at the empowerment center in Kasarani
Active  ·  Kasarani, Lake Naivasha  ·  Current Hope Fund grantee
Grantee 01

Wezesha
Empowerment Center

A Kenyan registered CBO doing community education and mentorship for vulnerable youth.

What It IsIndependent Kenyan community-based organization registered in Kenya
Hope Fund RoleCurrent grantee — supporting staff, programs, and operations
ProgramsEducation, mental health, employability, community care
Karis's ConnectionHelped found the organization. Volunteers with the team. Recuses from any board vote affecting Wezesha.

Wezesha means "to empower" in Swahili. Karis helped found the organization on a return trip to Kenya, after running a structured brainstorming process with a Kenyan-led team. The question at the center: what does Kasarani most need? The answer came from the Kenyans in the room. "The education resources that rich kids get. We want the same."

Out of that answer came Wezesha — not a school, but an education center. Students stay in the local government schools, because pulling them out would create two tiers and disempower the institutions those communities depend on. Instead: a safe place to study, teachers to fill curriculum gaps, food for children who are malnourished, and the structure of a family for youth whose home situations are deeply difficult. The team rented a facility, renovated it, hired a director and teachers, and identified the most vulnerable students in Kasarani — many of whom could not have attended school at all without support. The organization was operational within weeks.

The founding team included Rachel, a missionary who had previously founded a university in Uganda; Moses, a medical doctor and clinical psychologist in Nairobi; and the TAFA leadership. Wezesha hired two clinical psychologists, Sarah and Faith, and established a free mental health service for every child in the program — the only program of its kind in Kasarani.

Today Wezesha is led by its Kenyan team. Karis volunteers with them; she is on WhatsApp with Kasarani every morning. The Hope Fund makes grants supporting Wezesha's ongoing programs. Karis recuses from any Hope Fund board vote affecting Wezesha.

Academic Outcomes · 2024–2025

In every grade Wezesha serves — 6th through 11th — the top student at Loldia Primary School and St. Andrews High School is a Wezesha student. In some grades, the top two or three are.

These are the most disadvantaged students in the community — many could not have attended school without Wezesha. They are now the highest-performing students in schools of thousands.

Visit Wezesha  
TAFA youth playing football at sunset in Kasarani
Active  ·  Kasarani, Lake Naivasha  ·  Established Kenyan organization
Grantee 02

Talanta Africa
Football Academy

A football academy that has educated and mentored Kenyan youth for years.

What It IsEstablished Kenyan organization founded by Sammy Kamau, Eric Ochieng, and the late Judy Akoth
Hope Fund RoleChampions TAFA's work; grant decisions made by the board over time
ProgramsFootball, TAFA Academics (after-school tutoring), scholarships, community center
Karis's ConnectionLong-time advocate. Director of the Talanta Africa Fund (US). Recuses from any Hope Fund vote affecting TAFA or TAF.

Talanta means "talent" in Swahili. TAFA was founded by Sammy Kamau, Eric Ochieng, and Judy Akoth — three people who had grown up in Kasarani, witnessed what poverty does to children and youth, and decided to do something about it. Judy later passed away; her memory lives in the work that continues. What started as a football academy has grown into a community-based organization built on three pillars: skills development through sport and vocational training, academic support through TAFA Academics tutoring and mentorship, and behavioral change through counseling, spiritual nurture, and a community center that gives young people a safe place to belong.

TAFA's "no school, no football" model has kept hundreds of children in school. The condition for participation is simple: stay in school and stay away from drugs. That requirement has driven results that go far beyond football. Young people who come for the pitch stay for the mentorship. The TAFA Community Center serves as a library, computer room, and refuge — a place that, for many, is closer to home than anywhere else.

Karis encountered TAFA on her first trip to Kenya and recognized immediately what it was and what it needed. She helped TAFA professionalize its operations and set up proper accounting systems. She later helped found the Talanta Africa Fund — a US 501(c)(3) — specifically to build the financial infrastructure to sustain TAFA's work and fund scholarships. More than 100 students have been supported through Talanta Africa Fund. Today, the Karis Hope Fund champions TAFA's work; any future grant from the Hope Fund to TAFA or to TAF is decided by the Hope Fund's independent board, with recusal of any director who has a material role with the recipient.

Visit TAFA  
A veteran beekeeper with Karis at the Bee the Change apiary
Active in Kenya  ·  Future Hope Fund grantee
Future Grantee

Bee the Change

A women's livelihood enterprise providing economic opportunity through beekeeping in Kenya.

What It IsA women's livelihood program providing income through beekeeping and pure Kenyan honey products
Hope Fund RoleFuture grantee — once Bee the Change is registered as an independent Kenyan CBO, the Hope Fund's board will consider a grant
Current StatusOperating under the umbrella of the Talanta Africa Fund (US 501(c)(3))
Karis's ConnectionHelped found the program. Director of TAF. Will recuse from any future Hope Fund vote affecting Bee the Change.

Karis recognized a gap beyond education: the women in the community needed economic pathways. With local women, she helped launch a beekeeping cooperative producing pure Kenyan honey and honey-based lip balm for the US market. Beekeeping, it turns out, is also associated with environmental restoration — bee populations in this region of Kenya are indigenous and important to the ecosystem. By building hives where bees belong, the project helps restore pollination in the surrounding landscape.

Today, Bee the Change operates under the umbrella of the Talanta Africa Fund — the US 501(c)(3) Karis helped found to support TAFA. Plans are underway for Bee the Change to be registered as its own independent Kenyan community-based organization, at which point the Hope Fund's board will consider a direct grant. As with Wezesha and TAFA, Karis would recuse from that vote.

Every product sold creates income for a woman in Kasarani who is building independence and stability for her family.

Visit Bee the Change  
02
Justice

New Initiatives
the Fund is Developing

Legal advocacy and access-to-justice work for vulnerable communities — new initiatives the Hope Fund is bringing into being. Two are currently under formation: a worker-justice partnership in Kenya and a cancer-rights initiative at Stanford.

A commercial flower greenhouse in Kenya — the kind of workplace the Worker Justice partnership will support
In development 2026  ·  Naivasha, Kenya
Initiative 01

Naivasha Worker
Justice Partnership

A new Hope Fund initiative bringing legal protections to flower-farm workers in Kenya.

What It IsA Hope Fund initiative under formation to grant to a Kenyan partner organization providing legal services to vulnerable workers
Hope Fund RoleIdentifying the right Kenyan legal-aid partner; planning a grant to support pilot operations
TargetFlower-farm workers in Kenya's export supply chain
Karis's ConnectionHelping shape the partnership alongside a Stanford Law professor; will recuse from board votes if she takes a material role with the partner

Every Valentine's Day, millions of roses are bought as tokens of love. Most were picked by women in Naivasha on large commercial flower farms. Kenyan law provides these workers with occupational protections. In practice, those protections exist on paper only — the legal system is too distant, too expensive, and too complex to reach.

The Hope Fund is developing a partnership to change that. Karis, working alongside a Stanford Law professor, has been helping identify the right Kenyan legal-aid partner organization — a Kenyan-led organization with the standing, capacity, and legal infrastructure to take specific worker injuries (chemical exposure, dismissal without cause, denial of statutory protections) and pursue them through the courts and regulators that already exist on paper. Karis drafted the first version of the legal proposal during her own chemotherapy.

The Fund's grant, once the partner is identified and a formal agreement is in place, will support the pilot's first year: case research and documentation, legal-aid partner operations, and the work of advancing one or two cases far enough to demonstrate the model. If it works, the framework is replicable across other supply chains — flowers, tea, coffee — wherever workers have rights on paper that the legal system fails to deliver.

Karis at the Stanford Comprehensive Cancer Center
In development  ·  Stanford, CA
Initiative 02

Cancer Rights
at Stanford

A new Hope Fund initiative bringing legal-financial navigation to cancer patients facing insurance denials and disability claims.

What It IsA new Hope Fund initiative bringing free legal-financial navigation services to cancer patients in the Stanford area
Implementation PartnerAn established national 501(c)(3) with a proven model for providing legal-financial navigation to cancer patients — partner to be named when the partnership is formalized
Who Is HelpedCancer patients facing insurance denials, disability claims, employment law issues, and the legal complexity of being seriously ill
Karis's ConnectionWill volunteer as an unpaid advocate; recuses from any board vote on this initiative

When Karis was told her chemotherapy had stopped working, she and her family navigated insurance questions, radiation options, fertility decisions, and clinical trial complexity — simultaneously, in real time, during treatment. They had the knowledge and legal literacy to do it. Most cancer patients facing the same decisions do not.

The gap between what medicine can offer and what insurance will pay for is not a medical gap. It is a gap a lawyer can close. The Hope Fund is building Cancer Rights at Stanford to close it: a new initiative bringing free legal-financial navigation services to cancer patients in the Stanford area — insurance denials, disability claims, employment law, the practical legal complexity of being seriously ill.

The Hope Fund is developing a partnership with an established national 501(c)(3) that has been providing this kind of navigation to cancer patients for years. Their model works. It is chronically underfunded. The Hope Fund's grant will help bring those services to Stanford-area patients walking the path Karis is walking now. The partner organization will be named publicly when the partnership is formalized. Karis intends to volunteer as an unpaid advocate. The Fund's board will decide the grant; Karis will recuse.

03
Dignity

For Causes the Board
Could Not Ignore

The Hope Fund's general unrestricted giving — board-directed grants in the spirit of Karis Tai's values, supporting organizations and causes advancing the dignity of vulnerable people, wherever the board identifies need and opportunity.

04

The Grace
in Action
Fund

For the cases and causes the board cannot ignore.
How it operates
I

Mission fit. Grants advance the dignity of vulnerable people — legal advocacy, education, justice, or human-rights work — consistent with the Hope Fund's charitable purposes.

II

Board-decided. Every grant is approved by the Hope Fund's independent board. Any director with a material relationship to a proposed grantee recuses.

III

Full transparency. Every grant reported publicly — recipient, amount, purpose, and outcome — in the Fund's quarterly reports.

Some of the most important work is the work that finds you. Karis went to night court in New York at eleven o'clock on a Friday because she could not stop herself. She helped found Wezesha because she saw a gap and assembled people who could begin filling it. She drafted a legal proposal for Kenyan flower-farm workers during chemotherapy because the work needed doing.

Some of the most important grants will be the same. The Grace in Action Fund is the unrestricted portion of the Hope Fund, reserved for the work the board identifies as urgent and meaningful but that does not yet fall within an active named initiative — a specific case, an emerging organization, or a cause that has not yet found an advocate. The board makes the call. Karis brings proposals like any director, and recuses where she has a material role.

It is built around how this kind of work actually moves through the world. Justice work tends to find its own shape, and the Fund leaves room for that.

"Karis" means grace in Greek. Grace in action is not a plan. It is a way of being in the world.
The Karis Hope Fund  ·  Grace in Action  ·  Board-directed unrestricted  ·  Est. 2026

How donors will know
what happened.

The Karis Hope Fund publishes regular grant reports describing every grant made, by recipient, amount, and outcome. The board reviews and approves all reports before publication.

Education & Mentorship

Grants to Wezesha and TAFA reported by recipient, amount, and program milestones. Reported quarterly.

Justice initiatives

Status of the Worker Justice partnership and Cancer Rights at Stanford initiatives, including partner organizations identified, grants made, and outcomes.

Grace in Action

Every board-directed unrestricted grant reported by recipient, amount, purpose, and outcome — publicly, no exceptions.

Bold work for people
the system tends to forget.
This is what your support
makes possible.

The Karis Hope Fund supports established work like Wezesha and TAFA in Kenya, develops new initiatives in justice — Worker Justice in Naivasha, Cancer Rights at Stanford — and directs unrestricted Grace in Action grants to organizations and causes the board identifies as urgent and aligned with the Fund's purposes. The Fund is governed by an independent board. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law (federal recognition pending).

She has always believed that privilege is a gift you owe to others. She learned it from her parents at nine years old, on a flight with an abandoned baby. She has practiced it her whole life. The Hope Fund is the structure that lets a community of people stand behind that work and carry it forward together.

Help continue her work Her Fight →