Princess Banderi bint Abdulrahman AlFaisal, CEO of King Khalid Foundation (KKF) and a pioneer of Saudi philanthropy, died in March. Perhaps most notable among her achievements, she steered KKF through the ‘No More Abuse’ campaign, the first campaign against domestic abuse in Saudi Arabia, launched in 2013, which culminated in KKF submitting a draft law on women and child abuse prevention, which the Saudi Arabian government adopted and passed.

She also spearheaded a decade of building and strengthening the non-profit sector in the country by advocating for policy changes, inclusion of the sector in the Vision2030 strategy for the kingdom’s development, incubation of new organisations and capacity building. Most recently, she led KKF’s efforts in advocating for equal opportunities including addressing financial inclusion, social protection and social entrepreneurship. Many of these efforts resulted in policy changes. Princess Banderi believed in the comprehensive and systemic change approach. ‘She wasn’t afraid to talk about issues that needed to be talked about no matter how taboo they were.

She started the conversation on domestic abuse years ago when no one else was talking about it in the Kingdom,’ said her cousin Prince Talal bin Mohammed al Abdullah al Faisal al Saud. In 2016, she also co-founded, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Shaghaf, a fellowship programme that enrols young Saudis annually in 15-month long work and training programme aimed at creating future non-profit leaders in Saudi Arabia.

Source: ‘Saudi Princess Al-Bandari: A lifetime dedicated to philanthropy, women’s rights’, Al Arabiya English, 16 March 2019.

In the December 2018 issue of Alliance magazine on royal philanthropy Princess Banderi was interviewed by guest editor Joanne Bladd and shared the inside story of how the foundation has evolved with the times. Read the interview here.