Aspen Digital, a program of the Aspen Institute, Google.org, Dalberg, Asian Development Bank (ADB), craig newmark philanthropies, JPMorganChase, Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, Vodafone Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation have announced the Anti-Scams Philanthropy Collaborative. This initiative introduces a joint approach to share knowledge, identify, fund, and scale innovative solutions designed to prevent scams and support the world’s most vulnerable populations.
The founding members of the coalition represent a total commitment of $50+ million dedicated to combating scams and frauds worldwide.
The global financial cost of scams is estimated to exceed $442 billion annually, with financial losses expected to increase as malicious, international actors leverage emerging technologies, including fast-developing agentic AI. As online platforms and mobile connectivity expand, increasingly sophisticated scams will affect everyone. Yet, those with potential for highest harm if targeted will be those least equipped to identify and respond to them – including older adults, young people, first-time internet users, displaced populations, and communities with lower levels of digital literacy.
Existing efforts lack wider public awareness, while innovative solutions can be difficult to scale. The Collaborative aims to scale innovative solutions designed to reach vulnerable geographies and populations worldwide that are impacted the most.
The Anti-Scams Philanthropy Collaborative represents a pioneering philanthropic model designed to coordinate and deploy philanthropic funding to mobilize partners across technology, finance, government, and civil society. The Collaborative will leverage philanthropic dollars and partnerships to enhance and help strengthen scam prevention, detection, and disruption; support scam victims; and anticipate the future evolution of scams. It also complements existing efforts, testing innovative solutions in an initial set of markets representing a range of scam landscapes to inform operational playbooks and rapidly scale what works, regionally and globally.
“Defeating today’s highly sophisticated scam networks requires a fundamental shift from a fragmented response to a coordinated, global defense,” said Rowan Barnett, Director, Google.org – APAC, EMEA & Global Stronger Communities. “Philanthropy has a key role to play, and we as funders must come together to match the speed and scale of these rapidly evolving threats. By initiating and anchoring this Collaborative, we want to ensure civil society and frontline defenders have the resources and advanced technologies they need to protect the world’s most vulnerable communities.”
“The Anti-Scams Philanthropy Collaborative represents a vital step forward in addressing the defining challenge of modern digital fraud,” said Vivian Schiller, Vice President and Executive Director of Aspen Digital at the Aspen Institute. “By convening philanthropies to anticipate future threats and scale innovative solutions, we hope to enable governments and private sector partners to more effectively deploy tools to disrupt scams worldwide.”
The Collaborative’s first initiatives will focus on:
- Building Smarter Defenses: Promoting advanced, AI-driven tools and shared infrastructure to prevent, detect, and disrupt scams.
- Strengthening Scam Resilience: Equipping vulnerable communities with the knowledge, confidence, and support to recognize, report, and recover from scams, while strengthening the capacity of community organizations, policymakers, regulators, law enforcement, and frontline services that support them.
- Anticipating Future Threats: Developing forward-looking threat intelligence building early warning systems and stress testing defenses to enhance global readiness for the next generation of emerging scams.
