Closing the gap between potential and opportunity in Latin America

Prospera is a development foundation that builds and scales initiatives at the intersection of youth access, conservation, and technology. We invest where the leverage is highest: in the systems that determine whether young Latin Americans can reach their potential.

See Our Work
1.8B

young people without access to professional networks or structured opportunity

23%

youth unemployment in rural Colombia

10M+

hectares of forest lost annually across Latin America

< 3%

of global philanthropy directed to the region

Sources: ILO, DANE, FAO, Candid

What We Build

Prospera operates as a builder, not just a funder. Each initiative targets a specific structural failure in the region.

Youth Access

YouthAtlas

YouthAtlas is an AI-native platform that aggregates scholarships, fellowships, internships, and development programs from across the web and matches them to young people based on profile, location, and goals. It is the professional discovery infrastructure that LinkedIn provides in developed economies, purpose-built for the 1.8 billion young people who don't have it yet.

Visit youthatlas.com →
Conservation

Expedicion Jaguar

Expedicion Jaguar protects critical ecosystems in Colombia by tying conservation funding directly to community income. The initiative builds payment-for-stewardship agreements with rural landowners, making it more profitable to preserve forest than to clear it.

Coming soon
Pipeline

What's Next

We are developing new initiatives in civic technology and rural economic inclusion across the Andean region. If you are building in these spaces, we want to hear from you.

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About Prospera

Prospera Development Foundation was created to address a simple asymmetry: Latin America has no shortage of talent, ambition, or natural wealth. What it lacks are the systems that connect those assets to opportunity at scale.

We are not a traditional grantmaker. We identify structural gaps in youth access and conservation, then build the initiatives that close them. Our approach is technical, operational, and focused on outcomes that compound: platforms that reach millions, not programs that serve hundreds.

Prospera is the development arm of Selvitas and operates as the foundation's institutional home for program design, funding, and scale.

The foundation was established by Federico Perez, who holds dual graduate degrees from Yale's Jackson School of Global Affairs and School of the Environment, where his research focused on the political economy of development in Latin America. He founded Prospera to move from analysis to action.

Partner With Us

Prospera is building a portfolio of high-leverage initiatives across Latin America and actively seeking funding partners, institutional collaborators, and operators with regional expertise. We are especially interested in conversations with funders working in youth development, conservation finance, and civic technology in the Andean region.

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