Be Fearless

Be Fearless Spotlight: Inner City Advisors and Fund Good Jobs

Posted on by Case Foundation

This Spotlight is authored by guest writer Caitlin Kelly as part of a special blog series by the Case Foundation featuring Be Fearless stories from the field. Follow along with us as we meet people and learn about organizations that are taking risks, being bold and failing forward in their efforts to create transformative change in the social sector.

For Sean Daniel Murphy, interim CEO of Inner City Advisors (ICA) and Managing Director of Fund Good Jobs, what goes around comes around. Murphy credits the mentorship he received early and often with who he is today — a visionary entrepreneur on a mission to help others realize their business goals.

“It always starts with the family values I was fortunate enough to grow up with,” he says. “My parents, aunts and uncles, a lot of people, really looked out for me and I was attracted as a result to change some things that weren’t right in my community. I wasn’t interested in nonprofit work per se, but when my mentor gave me a shot and opened a door for me at 21, he took a chance on me. Now I take a chance on others. Building people is the way I do business.”

In its first two years in existence, Fund Good Jobs, which provides the capital and support small businesses need to grow and create good jobs, has grown into a $2.35 million fund. The Fund has invested in five companies that have created and retained nearly 150 jobs, making a positive economic impact on hundreds of Bay Area residents. Over recent years, Fund Good Jobs’ founding organization, ICA, has overseen the growth of hundreds of local businesses that collectively have generated revenues of over $200 million and that employ more than 2,500 Bay Area residents.

The companies benefiting from Fund Good Jobs traditionally have had difficulty accessing capital, though they are all dedicated to creating what Murphy calls “good jobs.” The “good jobs” movement has grown significantly over the past few years. Murphy defines a “good job” as one that offers pay above a livable wage, provides access to health benefits and wealth building tools like a 401(k) plan, offers “life ladders” — opportunities to rise both personally and professionally — and has a culture that allows employees “to really enjoy” making a living there.

Key to the movement is a focus on small businesses, which are uniquely equipped to create good jobs. They have greater flexibility to hire those who have lacked access to quality employment opportunities. As active members of the community, they tend to hire locally and are less likely to ship jobs overseas. Collectively, thousands of small businesses across the country have the capacity to generate millions of good jobs.

One of the Be Fearless principles Fund Good Jobs demonstrates is being agile and creative in its assessment of risk and the way it structures capital offerings. By deeply engaging with a company, Fund Good Jobs can underwrite deals that traditional lenders and investors won’t touch. “Traditional notions of risk have really been prohibitive for these folks,” Murphy says. By providing “support and capital” to these businesses, he says “they in turn bet on people in their community.” His fund has made five such investments so far, “people I’ve known for four or five years. I know them well beyond their business plan.” And what he seeks in them is a quality that wouldn’t be visible on a typical balance sheet.

“Character is intangible and doesn’t carry as much weight as it could with local banks and local investors,” he says. But Murphy makes smart wagers, seeking out referrals from people whose values he shares, those new business owners working seven days a week and night shifts and the ones guaranteed to be fearless.

Firebrand Artisan Breads in Oakland is one such beneficiary. The new manufacturing plant has hired 45 staff members so far, with 15 more planned. They needed $1.8 million to grow their business, but couldn’t access a loan, stuck in what Murphy calls the “Valley of Death”— loans between $250,000 and $2 million — which are the hardest to obtain. Murphy’s financial acumen allowed Fund Good Jobs to create a capital stack, a combination of local and private investors, as well as a bank. In May 2015, the organization invested $600,000 in Firebrand to finance an expansion of the company’s baking facilities, as well as to help it open retail space at a development in downtown Oakland.

In October, the group finalized a $300,000 investment in Red Bay Coffee to enable it to open a new coffee bar and roasting facility in East Oakland. The two investments prompted an additional $1.6 million of growth capital from partners Murphy found.

Murphy’s board, led by Olukai CEO Jim Harris, encourages risk-taking too, but also offers significant input “to make sure we could continue making the bold bets we’ve made,” says Murphy. “They show us how to block and tackle. They’re constantly looking out for [our] blinders. It’s one thing to be fearless and take risks, but it’s another thing to have someone keep an eye out for you.”

Another Be Fearless principle that drives the work of ICA and Fund Good Jobs is that of reaching beyond one’s bubble. Murphy currently does this by cultivating key partnerships, including with local developer Michael Ghielmetti, founder and president of Signature Development Group. “Michael has been a key supporter of ICA-grown businesses that are creating good jobs in Oakland,” Murphy explains. Signature’s latest development is called The Hive, a retail block that now houses Firebrand Artisan Breads, Red Bay Coffee and Impact Hub Oakland.

“It’s an unlikely partnership because the temptation is to put in traditional tenants,” says Murphy. “But not only is he a supportive landlord, he’s invested in these companies and [has] gotten others to invest. It’s been a different way of doing business.”

Murphy credits Ghielmetti with pursuing community oriented businesses for his latest development. “It looks cool, but it wasn’t a conventional decision on his part. Most developers wouldn’t have partnered with us. When he asks us, ‘Do you need anything else from me?’ those simple questions are a lot bolder than people realize.”

How has Murphy and his team accomplished all of this in such a relatively short amount of time? Urgency is Murphy’s middle name. “I think our team would laugh if we tried to define a time that urgency drove us. We have to learn to balance that. We live at such an urgent pace every day. Our business owners don’t sleep — and we don’t either. It’s nights and weekends, and our relationships reflect that. I talk to our business owners every day at any hour for an advising session, whether that’s midnight or 5:00 a.m., if that’s what they need.”

When investing in underrepresented entrepreneurs or riskier business endeavors, Murphy knows that it takes more than a loan to make a business successful. The entrepreneurs need capital, but they also need social networks and a support system that can walk them through the process of growing their business. This holistic approach to building up businesses and creating good jobs is what sets Fund Good Jobs apart.

Murphy adds, “We have a phrase we use here – ‘Going all in.’ I’m inspired by it every day.”

Feeling inspired? If you’re ready to begin your own Be Fearless journey start by downloading our free Be Fearless Action Guide and Case Studies.

This post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Any references to companies or investments do not imply endorsement by the Foundation.

An Imperative for Nonprofit Boards: The Time is Now to Step Up Your Game

Posted on by Case Foundation

This piece originally appeared on BoardSource’s Exceptional Boards blog.

Over the years, I’ve had the great privilege of serving on a wide range of boards — from early stage startup companies to large, established nonprofits — and have observed firsthand the variety of hats we board members can wear. The role of board member compels us to be diligent in our roles as fiduciaries, but that’s just the beginning of our responsibilities. We also need to be champions of and networkers for the organizations we serve. And, particularly in a world where change is accelerating and disruption is becoming the norm, we also need to step up and challenge the organizations we care so much about.

Drop into the average board meeting as an observer and you’ll be quick to spot the fiduciary at work, or the helpful board member offering up valuable insights or supportive compliments. What might be harder to spot is the “fearless challenger” in the mix. And this is for a good reason: Quite commonly, board members view their role as “protector” of the organization, legally bound to ensure the longevity and solvency of their organization. For some, this mandate is a call to exercise an abundance of caution and focus on risk mitigation — in essence, do what they can to be sure bad things don’t happen. But, while of course that’s important, it’s incomplete. Today’s board members have to go further, and challenge the organization to be sure good things happen, too.

Earlier this year, BoardSource released Leading with Intent: A National Index of Nonprofit Board Practices 2015 in which chief executives and board chairs used BoardSource’s 10 basic responsibilities of nonprofit boards — including mission, financial oversight and strategy — to assess their board’s performance. The result was a disappointing B- average, reflecting “responsible, but not necessarily exceptional, performance.” The Leading with Intent survey found that boards have a particularly difficult time adapting and adjusting to change, noting that “boards do well at functions related to compliance and oversight, but face challenges with their strategic and external work.”

Given the critical role boards play in influencing and guiding the work of social sector organizations, when it comes to performance, anything less than exceptional is simply unacceptable. Underpinning all of our fiduciary and legal responsibilities on the boards we serve is the need to help our organizations adapt, innovate and…change.

We live in a world where the pace of change is unprecedented. It’s not just the old organizations that have to reinvent their ways of doing business to keep pace, even new and highly successful organizations such as Google, Facebook and Amazon routinely adapt their structures, their practices and even their workforce to stay relevant and ensure they are well poised for the future or adapting to new market opportunities as they emerge.

In the social sector, many of the organizations we serve are on the front lines of the world’s most pressing challenges where the “same old way of doing things” is simply not an option. As noted in the Leading with Intent report, this assessment should serve as a wake-up call for boards. If we want to move from a B- to an A+, we all have work to do. We must understand that while risk mitigation is important, it’s also important to push the organizations we serve to try new things, experiment and challenge the status quo. Often for an organization to stay nimble, it needs to feel it has the backing of its board to take some risks and be bold. If we, as board members, don’t provide the requisite “air cover” to encourage risk taking, we are not really serving the organizations’ long-term interests.

Through time there have been many examples of organizations we can learn from that missed the mark on these fronts. Shouldn’t Kodak have brought us Instagram? Shouldn’t Blockbuster have brought us Netflix? Instead, they were utterly disrupted by these upstarts. These companies didn’t have their heads in the sand — they were aware of the upstart challenges — but they didn’t organize and prioritize to meet the challenge. They were taking what they thought was the safe route, and it turned out to be the risky route. They were stuck playing defense, when they needed to play offense.

If we are privileged to serve in board roles then we need to be bold enough to ask the hard questions and challenge the organizations we are there to support. In this period of great disruption and change, it is imperative that boards don’t just focus on the current operations, but also keep an eye toward the future — and make room for the necessary strategic conversations about the future.

How can these ideas be put into practice? Here are three specific suggestions:

  • Ask your CEO to highlight “threats and opportunities” as a routine part of board sessions, not just report out on current operations. On this point, remember that often everything is fine until it is not, so relying just on current operating activities without an eye on the broader landscape can represent its own “head in the sand” risk.
  • Make sure someone at the table is routinely asking, “How is the landscape around us changing, and are we adapting fast enough to meet these challenges and leverage new opportunities?” If you don’t have board members asking these questions already, you can “assign” this role to a given board member or members to ensure that the requisite conversation takes place. This “designated hitter” approach (often via a lead director) offers a safe and effective method to put on the table what some board members are really thinking or questioning, but often don’t feel comfortable to be the first to put forth. By openly “assigning” this role at the start of dialogue, a CEO can get the “unspoken” issues on the table.
  • Ask the CEO what she/he needs to ensure that the organization’s future can be ensured, and strengthened. As a board, be prepared to listen carefully to the answer to this question. All too often budgets are prepared under the assumption of what the board expects. What the board really needs to know is what the CEO really thinks the right path forward should be — not what the CEO thinks the board wants to hear, or might readily approve.

By formally inviting an all-cards-on-the-table conversation, board members can be candid and honest in providing feedback, without worrying that their suggestions or critiques might be viewed as unsupportive. This kind of dialogue can help build trust and a sense that “we are all in this together,” which can go a long way to furthering the goals of the board and the organization.

Last year, I had the privilege of speaking at the BoardSource Leadership Forum about why we all need to Be Fearless in the social sector. I laid out the five key principles that typically are present when organizations or movements achieve transformative breakthroughs. The response was overwhelming, as I heard from many in the community afterwards about what they were already doing in line with the Be Fearless principles, or what they were inspired to do moving forward.

Since then, we have been working closely with practitioners in the field to improve our Be Fearless Framework for Action. We heard from many of you what worked and what didn’t, and as a result we’ve revamped the tools, to make them more useful — including adding more ways to assess your organization and identify opportunities for increasing your impact.

I invite you to check out the new Framework at CaseFoundation.org/BeFearless — and hope you will let me know what you think about it so we can continue to improve it.

Being the fearless one in the room — especially the boardroom — is never easy, but it is necessary if we are going to fully support individuals and organizations that will create the transformative change the world needs. These ideas may seem foreign to some, given the traditional boardroom dynamics that are so commonplace, but they are grounded in real-world examples and best-in-class practices that yield results…results the world cannot wait for any longer.

Jean Case is CEO of the Case Foundation, and serves in a number of board roles, including: the National Geographic Board of Trustees; Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2); SnagFilms; BrainScope Company, Inc.; and the White House Historical Association. In addition, she is also a member of several advisory boards, including: Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation; Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprise Initiative; and the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.

Be Fearless Spotlight: Reliefwatch

Posted on by Case Foundation

This Spotlight is authored by guest writer Caitlin Kelly as part of a special blog series by the Case Foundation featuring Be Fearless stories from the field. Follow along with us as we meet people and learn about organizations that are taking risks, being bold and failing forward in their efforts to create transformative change in the social sector.

Disclosure: Reliefwatch received a program-related investment from the Case Foundation in 2015.

Imagine having to walk for three days simply to reach the nearest clinic to access the medicine you or your child desperately need. Now, imagine reaching your destination only to find the medicine you need is not there. In many parts of the developing world, that’s the reality. Reliefwatch founder and CEO Daniel Yu is helping to address this critical problem of expired medications (and a lack of needed supplies) that affect more than one million health centers and countless patients in the developing world.

It was on a trip to rural Egypt in 2012 that Yu, then an undergraduate student of international studies at the University of Chicago, encountered the problem firsthand. A local pharmacy had shelves full of various medicines, but many were out of date and therefore useless. In speaking with the local pharmacist, Yu learned that there were also no reliable communication channels—they operated without an inventory tracking system. “There was no computer or internet access, so there was no way for suppliers to see how this was happening,” explains Yu. But what was plentiful? Basic mobile phones.

At its root, the problem was one of distribution—aggravated by a serious and health-impairing failure to communicate. If only those prescribing and distributing the medicines had a reliable, consistent and easy way to make sure the warehouse knew what they needed.

Yu wasn’t then focused on the many challenges of improving public health or the specific logistical mechanics of pharmaceutical distribution. But, in a classic example of being fearless, he let a personal sense of urgency conquer his fear and reached beyond his bubble to begin substantive conversations with strangers many thousands of miles away, in places like Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, who urgently needed a solution to this pressing problem.

Being fearless means reaching beyond your familiar areas of expertise, as Yu did. “I didn’t have deep expertise in the NGO world,” he admits. But he didn’t let that stop him. Though he lacked a background in international development, he did know the world of information technology. Yu notes, “More people in the developing world have access to a cell phone than a toilet. You can use technology to effect change. And that goes beyond simply creating the next social media site, but rather solving a problem that is fundamentally affecting people’s lives.”

But how to make use of that specific connectivity? Yu brought together a small team to create innovative software that could manage inventory records with basic mobile phones. He dove in “headfirst” with Reliefwatch simply because “no one had done it.” Being fearless and taking a risk to help people live better lives “was in our DNA from the start.”

“The big problem is availability and information transfer,” he explains. Faxed forms get lost or ignored. Phones might not work. The internet might go down, or become unreliable or expensive. So this became the challenge Yu decided to tackle, making a Be Fearless-style “big bet” that his novel and untried solution could help.

ReliefWatch Image

Even when a central warehouse is well-stocked with medicine, transferring information quickly, clearly and reliably between far-flung pharmacies and clinics—as well as those also responsible for getting stock out to others—is an ongoing problem. Yu looked to solve the question, “How do you make information collectible and actionable?”

Participating clinics get an automated call twice a week at a pre-scheduled time. The employee who answers is then asked, “How many bottles of amoxicillin do you have?” The employee’s keyed-in reply is then integrated into a cloud system and goes directly to the supplier. Yu shares, “It makes their life easy and straightforward. Instead of loading up a random truck once a month and finding out once they’ve arrived on-site that the pharmacy didn’t need it or, worse, they needed it a month ago.”

“Often, it’s a volume issue. The supplier is responsible for hundreds of clinics with no personal contact and lots of parts within that supply chain,” says Yu. “Sometimes it’s the manufacturer who needs the information. It becomes a transparency issue.”

At its core, says Yu, “Reliefwatch is a tool that helps organizations be more efficient and effective by reducing waste and loss.” Some organizations, having invested their resources in medicines, lose up to 10 percent of it annually when it expires before being used, he adds. Users of his system include NGOs, government organizations, private organizations “and any entity invested in making sure that medicine gets to the last mile and is available.”

USAID is currently using Reliefwatch’s system in Uganda with the country’s Ministry of Health to make sure that vaccines are being distributed; the pilot project is being tested in two districts and 80 sites and may expand to the rest of the country. “To date, we’ve had a 100 percent response rate in our data collection [in Uganda]—you’re often lucky to get responses in the double digits.”

The reason that’s important is because the fundamental problem Reliefwatch is trying solve is to use their system by collecting data (and making it actionable) in areas where it’s previously been very difficult or costly to do so. So, though previously a Ministry of Health like Uganda’s may only have had reliable information on the availability of medicines in 15 percent of their clinics, today, using Reliefwatch, they could potentially be able to access data on nearly all of their clinics, which would dramatically increase their ability to provide reliable health services, particularly in times of crisis or disease outbreaks.

Yu’s fearless plan for 2016 is to double Reliefwatch’s reach, adding Honduras, Kenya, Panama, Nicaragua, Rwanda, the Philippines, Indonesia and China. “Going into an emerging market is not as straightforward,” he says. “We’re often going in blind or semi-blind.”

It also takes a willingness to jump on a plane to Nairobi, as he did to explain his system face-to-face with dubious potential users there. Three months ago, Yu and his team noticed that East Africa is the fastest-growing business region in Africa, but at the same time, that there’s a lot of uncertainty about how to best create relationships there, let alone effective ones.

“How would we meet our ambitious goals unless we took actions to get on the ground? It wouldn’t be possible,” he says. So Yu “knocked on doors” once they arrived in Kenya and quickly saw results from his big bet. “When we actually sat across the table from people, they were extremely receptive and were more than happy to meet with us.”

And there is proof that the bet paid off: A planned two-week visit blossomed into a fruitful 2.5 months as Reliefwatch hired a full-time employee in Nairobi to handle the new business.

Feeling inspired? If you’re ready to begin your own Be Fearless journey start by downloading our free Be Fearless Action Guide and Case Studies.

Header photo credit: Flickr user DFATAustralianAID, used via Creative Commons.

Be Fearless Spotlight: YWCA of Northwest Georgia

Posted on by Case Foundation

This Spotlight is crafted in partnership with BoardSource and authored by guest writer Caitlin Kelly as part of a special blog series by the Case Foundation featuring Be Fearless stories from the field. Follow along with us as we meet people and learn about organizations that are taking risks, being bold and failing forward in their efforts to create transformative change in the social sector.

It takes guts to stop a capital campaign right in the middle — not to mention returning the funds already raised. But Holly Tuchman, CEO and Executive Director of the YWCA of Northwest Georgia (the Y), is a woman with a truly fearless approach to achieving her organizational goals.

Having opened the first domestic violence shelter in Georgia over 35 years ago, the goal of the Y is to empower women and work for peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all people. With the support and dedication of their community, the Y’s work focuses on programs to reduce domestic violence and sexual assault, ultimately “helping clients lead safe, healthy and self-sufficient lives.”

When she arrived to lead the Y, just over eight years ago, she found a main building constructed in 1962 in desperate need of renovation and a domestic violence shelter with bunk beds so old and rickety that the Salvation Army refused to take them. Radical change was necessary, but she was determined to see it done smoothly, thoughtfully and strategically.

This was easier said then done. At the time the organization was losing $30,000 to $40,000 a month. “I had no idea it was as bad as it was,” she says. “After much discussion with our board of directors and community stakeholders, we decided to stop the capital campaign.” Tuchman returned the money to astonished donors, explaining there was now a new team and new approach in place.

Rooted in the new approach was the replacement of the Y’s swimming pool. A long-time symbol of a traditional Y and a fixture in the community, it was replaced with 12 transitional apartments for women fleeing domestic violence—giving them a safe space to stay while they continued to heal, live a violence-free life and work towards self-sufficiency.

Working closely with their engineer and interior designer, both of whom offered some skills pro bono, meant Tuchman and the Board could push for an attractive yet affordable final result all could be proud of. The shelter’s bunkbeds were falling apart; advised to keep them to save money, they insisted on new, more welcoming furniture instead. They were able to expand the Y’s training room space, counseling department, and office space for administrative and programmatic staff.

Tuchman, along with Capital Campaign Chair, Kim Gresh and a committed and compassionate board, re-launched their capital campaign with the new direction in mind. They infused the team with a real sense of urgency. “We just don’t ever stop! We work for our clients 24/7, 365 days a year. Our staff never quits!” As the only YWCA of its kind in Georgia, devoted to aiding women fleeing domestic abuse, “we’ve had many successes. But we have also had clients who unfortunately became a domestic violence murder victim. But we keep on going, because the next person needs our help,” she says.

Being bold and taking risks are essential parts of Tuchman’s professional DNA and have helped to make the organization stronger. “We launched our [new] capital campaign in early 2009, at one of the worst times we could possibly have started, and we finished it with no long-term debt,” she says. The campaign raised $7.28 million over five years, which allowed them to renovate their building and shelter. All renovation was completed this past May—bypassing the original sum of $6.5 million that a fund-raising consultant they’d hired had already told them was impossible. “It wasn’t enough,” Tuchman replied firmly. “We raised probably another $500,000 beyond that.”

But Tuchman doesn’t do it alone. She relies heavily on the expertise and energy of an unusually large board, with 30 members, eight of them men. Talk about reaching beyond your bubble! “When I first came to the YWCA eight and a half years ago, we had to petition our national organization to allow men to join our board.” She did so for a compelling reason: “We could have lost $1 million in donations if we didn’t.” In fact, when she began asking men for donations to the capital campaign, the pushback was real: “You want me to support your organization, but I can’t be on your board?”

That is no longer the case. In addition to the eight male board members, the board will also welcome its first male chairman in July 2016, the culmination of a lengthy process of conscious growth. “It was a combination of a couple of things,” she explains. “We started Y’s Guys, a committee of men who wanted to talk to men about domestic violence, and we created a men’s breakfast to get men involved in the issue. If we’re going to stop domestic violence men have to stand up and say ‘This isn’t acceptable in our community.’”

The board, which meets monthly, offers Tuchman and her staff skills most useful for “the big picture” like marketing, fundraising and finance. “They offer the strategy and our financial ability to sustain the organization. They’re not micro-managers. They stand along us and fearlessly lead.”

Feeling inspired? If you’re ready to begin your own Be Fearless journey start by downloading our free Be Fearless Action Guide and Case Studies.

Be Fearless Spotlight: Fixing a Leaky Pipeline

Posted on by Case Foundation

This Spotlight is authored by guest writer Caitlin Kelly as part of a special blog series by the Case Foundation featuring Be Fearless stories from the field. Follow along with us as we meet people and learn about organizations that are taking risks, being bold and failing forward in their efforts to create transformative change in the social sector.

Last year, a number of well-known tech-focused companies released information about their employees that relates specifically to race and gender. The results shone a light on the deeply rooted challenges this sector faces when it comes to diversity. Breaking through those obstacles remains a challenge for women and minorities in particular—one that the Kapor Center for Social Impact (Kapor Center), based in Oakland, California, is boldly tackling every day.

The Kapor Center wears its mission on its sleeve: “We believe that when the community of tech leaders reflects the diversity of the United States, tech will play an integral role in closing gaps and disparities that exist in this country,” the organization’s website states. “Via proven methods from the for-profit and nonprofit fields, we work in partnership with a diverse set of stakeholders to maximize social impact.” Over the years, the Kapor Center has focused its efforts on audacious, “gap-closing” endeavors. The “gap” in these cases refers to a number of challenges facing society today—gaps in academic achievement, access to health care and economic opportunity, as well as gaps in income, information and social mobility.

TheGap_Kapor Center

To achieve these lofty goals, the Kapor Center funds a variety of groundbreaking initiatives and entrepreneurs aimed at stopping what it calls the Leaky Tech Pipeline, which creates roadblocks for African Americans and other underrepresented communities of color in the tech-innovation fields. Currently, African Americans account for less than 3 percent of programmers, developers, engineers and other tech-focused talent. As a result, although African Americans are generally early adopters and users of technology, their intellectual capital is almost nonexistent in the development of new apps and tech systems, leaving in question how germane the products are to their daily lives. To address this gap, the Kapor Center has initiated several interventions, including efforts to provide greater access to educational opportunities for African American and Latino students.

One such intervention has emerged from a program called the College Bound Brotherhood, which supports college and 21st-century career readiness for Bay Area African American males. Created in 2008, the Brotherhood is the first network in the United States to focus on African American male students and connect them to college readiness programs and local resources. Using a Networked Improvement Community model—in which organizations, parents and school districts learn from, support and build with one another to become more solution-oriented toward issues specific to their community—the Brotherhood aims to place 3,000 African American males on a college-bound and college-completion track annually.

Justin Davis, a former professional basketball player who serves as a Program Officer for the Kapor Center, joined the organization in order to “pay it forward” after benefiting from the opportunities that similar funded programs offered him as a young male of color, including college prep services. Davis attended Stanford University on an athletic scholarship, studying communications, then played with the Golden State Warriors.

“In 2008, foundations weren’t investing heavily in black males’ achievement or black-male-centric initiatives,” Davis notes. “We would like to think we were seeing ahead of the curve of what was a pressing issue needing philanthropic support.” Davis says that as a result of the Kapor Center’s early investments in black males, it has been on the front lines of a larger movement, providing not only financial resources, but also “our tech inclusion lens” to such initiatives as President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper, the Executive Alliance to Expand Opportunities for Boys and Men of Color, and the California Executives’ Alliance to Expand Opportunities for Boys and Men of Color.

Davis embraces a bold approach when advancing the work of the Kapor Center. Fearlessness to him means “being unapologetic about serving underserved communities, especially black and Latino, especially with regard to technology.” Noting that the tech industry is “highly homogeneous and not truly reflective of America in general,” Davis says that “our priority and focus is on creating a more diverse tech sector, so we made several investments in community-based organizations and nonprofits serving these groups. Being fearless means we’re very vocal and outspoken about this being an issue. These doors are not welcoming for people of color! And even for the few people who get in, is there a culture that retains them?”

Davis is an athlete at heart, and his competitive nature drives his work. “How do you get better at philanthropy? How do you get better at serving communities of color?” These are key questions that he challenges himself and his team to consider. “I’m always thinking about ways to improve our work and our organization.”

Davis asks, “How can we make the best investments that snowball and create a tech sector that welcomes these men? Our challenge has been trying to understand where to make those investments, as there are no blueprints for how to do this through grant-making. We’ve been making investments outside our comfort zone.”

Reflecting the skill set he developed while working with the Kapor Center, Davis has gone on to rebrand the College Bound Brotherhood, helping it to focus solely on diversifying the world of tech. That meant cutting off funding to some grantees while gambling on new and untested investments. “As part of our pivot to focus exclusively on tech, we parted with some of our long-term grant partners,” Davis says. “In doing so, an opportunity presented itself to support a number of nonprofits who weren’t receiving much interest or funding for their work aimed at exposing communities of color to coding.”

Without such focused support, Davis adds, the effects of a growing tech sector on black and Latino communities were mainly “displacement, career unreadiness and gentrification.” The Brotherhood’s investment strategy paid off: “Two to three years later, we had people so thankful for [our] taking the risk to help them grow and develop.”

While the Kapor Center is strengthening the tech pipeline for people of color, Davis is quick to point out that “there are many entry points—from a novice coder to successful entrepreneur.” He notes that not all students in the College Bound Brotherhood have been introduced to coding, but like many Americans they’re “connected at the hip to technology via cell phones or gaming consoles. We simply want to expose these young men to exactly where that technology comes from and inform them that there is a lucrative career available to them if they’re interested. We aim to build meaningful relationships with tech companies so they remain cognizant of the importance of having multiple doors through which talent of color can comfortably walk.”

The Brotherhood collaborates with more than 40 agencies and organizations, each of which contributes to the network model. Much of the success of the program is due to the engagement of unlikely partners. “They’re the big tech firms just down the road. We’re knocking on the door and getting into those closed walls,” Davis explains.

The “tech inclusion” full court press is working, he says with satisfaction. “Oh yes! We’re sitting down now with C-suite staff and doing workshops on this issue in front of hundreds and hundreds of their staff,” Davis says. “These conversations have paid dividends in the sense that we are no longer knocking on the doors (as much), but are now often answering the knock on our door.”

Feeling inspired? If you’re ready to begin your own Be Fearless journey start by downloading our free Be Fearless Action Guide and Case Studies.

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