Templeton World Charity Foundation’s Global Innovations for Character Development seeks to establish character development as a lever for social change, increased prosperity, and overall human flourishing. It envisions a world in which character strengths are recognized for their transformative role in improving the lives of individuals and communities.

With grant-funded projects around the globe, GICD is a first-of-its-kind initiative to promote character strengths worldwide. Character strengths are learned and learnable attributes, virtues, skills, habits, or capabilities that enable individuals to lead better lives. Examples include compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, honesty, humility, and kindness. Some Global Innovations for Character Development projects also seek to promote local character strengths, such as the East African concept Utu (shared humanity, humanness).

Learn how grantee Tom Osborn and the Shamiri Institute created interventions to help adolescents in Kenya leverage character strengths to fight anxiety and depression.