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: 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.

How to Go Over The Edge in Three Steps

Posted on by Case Foundation

Over The Edge (OTE) takes you to great heights for a great cause. On Saturday, October 18, 2015, the height was 365ft and the cause was brain cancer research.

Brain cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among children and young adults. More than 600,000 people in the US are living with a brain tumor diagnosis and another 66,000 new diagnosis are expected this year. Meanwhile, there are only four brain tumor treatments approved by the FDA. [See Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2)’s new website for more information.]

The common goal of finding a cure for brain cancer motivated 80 plus participants to rappel off the top of San Diego’s Grand Hyatt. My sister and I were just two of the many “edgers” who went over in memory of a loved one that we lost to the disease. We went over for our grandmother, Elisabeth Clark, and for all of those who are fearlessly fighting the disease today.

Here’s how we got the courage to take that first step over the railing and go over the edge:

    1. Do it for an Organization Worth Going Over the Edge for

ABC2 teamed up with OTE for the third year in a row to raise money for brain cancer research and awareness. ABC2 is a grantee of the Case Foundation and a nonprofit organization that drives cutting-edge research and treatments for brain tumors.

In 2014, OTE for Brain Cancer raised over $215,000 to support San Diego-based brain cancer research. The total for 2015 is still growing, and you can keep up with this year’s fundraising progress here!

ABC2’s mission is to invest in research aimed at finding the fastest possible route to a cure. They let urgency conquer fear by taking bold strides in brain cancer research. They aren’t afraid to be unconventional in their tactics to raise awareness about brain cancer—including rappelling off the side of a building!

    1. Rappel Down a Building with a View

If you’re going to go over the edge, why not enjoy the view while you’re up there? For the third year, OTE for brain cancer rappelled 365ft from the 33rd floor of the beautiful Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, the tallest building on the San Diego waterfront.

When standing on the edge, don’t look down, but be sure to take in the view! From the top, edgers get a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean and downtown San Diego. You’ll be back on the ground before you know it, so take advantage of the once in a lifetime opportunity and take your time. It’s not everyday that you’re higher than the seagulls flying over the San Diego marina!

    1. Be Fearless.

You’d be surprised to discover what you’re capable of when you reach beyond your bubble and be fearless.

Walking backwards off the edge of a 365ft building is no easy task. However, the strength and inspiration necessary to make the descent can be found in the survivors’ courageous battles against the disease. If they can fight against brain cancer, you can go over the edge!

Love conquered fear as the cheers from the crowd below gave strength to the edgers above. Some superhero edgers were brain cancer survivors themselves, and many others were being fearless in honor or in loving memory of friends and family. Together as one, it was a day bursting with love, support and hope for a cure.

Want to see what going over the edge is like? Check out photos from OTE2014 or watch the video below of my OTE experience this year:

 

Be Fearless Spotlight: The Henry David Thoreau Foundation

Posted on by Case Foundation

This Spotlight is crafted in partnership with GOOD 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.

The Henry David Thoreau (HDT) Foundation, first established in 1998, has spent the last 17 years handing out funds to some of the most delightful—and unpredictable—people imaginable. HDT’s grant recipients are bursting with ideas and enthusiasm. They’re also passionate about the environment, offering dozens of innovative strategies each year to prevent further damage to the oceans and the air, the rivers and the soil. And they want to get started on all of it, right now.

Who is this elusive group of Thoreau Scholars? High school seniors—who are often thought of as capricious teenagers rather than the changemakers, social entrepreneurs, scientists and world leaders that they will soon be.

Dr. Jennifer Galvin, the HDT’s director, likens the foundation’s investments to a very smart wager. “We are making big bets on individuals and institutions – more of a social venture,” she says. The foundation provides funding to faculty members and to individual students. Their Thoreau Scholars arm has provided up to $30,000 to eight to ten Massachusetts high school seniors every year for college tuition. For this limited number of slots, the foundation receives about 1,000 student applications. Students apply online and supply letters of recommendation to support their proposals. The applicant pool is always so impressive that, Galvin jokes, “They’re either making it up or they’re the next Bill Gates! We definitely have to cross-check their credentials.”

“Each of the Case Foundation’s five principles are markers for us,” she adds. “Our Faculty Grant Program allows us to take risks on programs that might never get off the ground otherwise. We want longevity, not one hit wonders. We want to incentivize people to stick with environmental work… so that our scholars and faculty members can take the risks they want in the environmental arena—and whatever problems they want to solve, I want to support them.”

While all the Thoreau Scholars selected are bright and creative, 65 percent of them are also drawn from public high schools. That includes Christopher Golden, who today is a Harvard graduate, as well as the director of a nonprofit in Madagascar. His team, according to HDT’s website, has “developed a ‘recipe book’ of remedies based on local plants, which has been distributed to numerous villages to preserve and promote indigenous remedies in an area where hospitals are distant and expensive.” Golden believes that kind of optimism is precisely why Thoreau Scholars stand out.

“The program is designed to reward people based on their passions, to foster their belief that they might just be the person with the solution,” he says. “My fellow scholars are all hyper-intelligent, but the point of the scholars program isn’t test scores or academic accolades. It’s about passion and leadership.”

Galvin says the question at the heart of the HDT program is, “’How do you build resilient, energetic, environmental leaders?’… I want them to think of themselves as fearless leaders now, whether interested in policy or education or bench science, whatever drives them the most. They all have incredible stories about why they care so much.”

Galvin also does much more than write a check and await a report, treasuring the close personal relationships she fosters with—and among—her scholars and faculty members. “I email. I’m on the phone. Some are now my closest friends and colleagues, and they are in the four corners of the world. It’s like herding cats, but I love that!”

The first class of Thoreau Scholars graduated in 2003, and some of them have already gone on to start energy companies or become college faculty members in their respective fields. Galvin measures the impact of their work in different ways, she explains, whether it’s about honing scholars’ critical thinking abilities, their individual connections or their leadership skills. “Some are easy to measure in the short-term and some take longer to play out.”

“I saw the connections at a very young age between environmental health and our physical health,” she says. “I was always really good at zooming in and out, and seeing how the dots are connected.” That might be why the foundation casts such a wide net and looks for those who are taking risks, experimenting and forming unique collaborations—offering support to biologists and botanists alongside those pursuing public health, law and chemistry. “I want to cross-fertilize different sectors to reframe the narrative and shift thinking,” says Galvin. “Environmental problems don’t fit neatly into boxes and their solutions don’t either.”

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: Krochet Kids intl.

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.

The affluent shoppers in upscale stores like Nordstorm, Whole Foods, Anthropologie or Canada’s Holt Renfrew may not realize that the backpacks, baby booties, wool scarves and T-shirts they’re buying are employing 175 women in Uganda and Peru.

For Kohl Crecelius, CEO and co-founder of Krochet Kids intl., a seven-year-old nonprofit based in Costa Mesa, CA, the focus is training workers in new skills they can eventually use on their own—not simply hitting his firm’s production numbers, or making sure there’s enough inventory.

That’s what makes Krochet Kids intl. so fearless—their willingness to make a wager. “We’re in the process of making a big bet that people will truly care about how our products are made,” says Crecelius.

While many organizations focus on teaching skills, Krochet Kids intl.’s approach is riskier and embodies the notion of fearlessness by making sure their clients will eventually leave Krochet Kids, often to open a wholly different sort of business on their own.

That’s fine with Crecelius. His longer-term goal is to teach entrepreneurial values and skills, no matter how they’re eventually put to use. “What we saw far too much of when we were creating Krochet Kids intl. was a cycle of dependency. Hundreds of aid organizations focus on short-term need, but not on equipping their clients to be self-reliant individuals.” So far, the program has graduated 50 women into their own businesses.

Like many working in the nonprofit field, he was first inspired by his own travels, the aid work he witnessed in Uganda spurring him to experiment and create a different model. “I saw how short-sighted that was and how it needed to be done differently. The women I met wanted to work and to be capable of changing their own circumstances,” he says.

Crecelius’ brother had learned to crochet while attending college in San Diego, CA, a skill he passed on and which they decided might be a skill useful to women in northern Uganda, where they started with 10 workers. This realization sparked the creation of Krochet Kids intl., and over the course of the last eight years Crecelius’ big idea has been refined through experimentation and a series of unlikely partnerships.

His ethos informs how Krochet Kids intl. combines running an apparel company with a larger, long-term goal of teaching its workers the skills they need to eventually leave and run their own businesses. Their program gives the women a three-to-five-year commitment of consistent employment at a set wage based on piecework, a three-year educational curriculum that includes literacy, numeracy and financial planning and one-on-one mentorship.

That long-term commitment is essential because, like many such organizations, they work within a larger cultural context, one in which women are often more highly valued for keeping their labor within the family for its benefit. That requires its own sort of fearlessness on the part of their women workers; the women who choose to work with Krochet Kids intl. need to know that other income they may be giving up will be consistently replaced for several years—their families rely on it.

Working with local in-country partners, Krochet Kids intl. aims to break the cycle of poverty through rigorous and ongoing measurement of its impact. Every month, they track 45 indicators of progress across six areas: economic health, educational progress, physical health, social well-being, psychological well-being and spiritual well-being. Local social workers act as mentors to the women, insuring they can count on ongoing personal support.

“One of the questions we ask the women is ‘What are your perceptions of poverty?’ ranking their answers from 1, (the depths of poverty) to 10, (feeling completely free of it),” says Crecelius. “All the way through, we see a trend towards them having more confidence.”

Their metrics also indicate that the women they employ enjoy incomes 10 times higher than before, savings 25 times higher and—crucially for women earning good local wages—are 40 percent less likely to suffer from domestic violence. They are 25 percent more likely to participate in major family decisions, and their children are eight times more likely to attend high school.

“Impact is results, not action,” he says. “We have chosen to put impact first, through offering jobs, education and mentorship. That’s one of our main differentiators, that we’re a nonprofit and we have led with impact.”

The two regions they work with are culturally and economically very different—rural northern Uganda and the outskirts of a major city, Lima, Peru. Local churches, government agencies and local staff make home visits to find and select women who most need to learn new skills and boost their incomes. In Uganda, the attrition rate is less than two percent because they work in rural areas with few other competitors for labor. That rate is higher in Peru, which has a higher rate of transience and many more employment options available there to urban women. When the women leave, however, they may choose to use their new business skills and confidence beyond apparel production, like buying a motorcycle and renting it out as a taxi, or purchasing a piece of land and farming it.

The women now also make a much wider array of products, from T-shirts to backpacks, which “helps to smooth out seasonality from a business perspective,” Crecelius explains. “Our whole premise is based on a lot of risks—like, who makes headwear out of sub-Saharan Africa?” Yet product sales today bring in 80 percent of the group’s revenue.

An unlikely bet in 2012, fueled by urgency and a potentially huge win, meant heading briefly in an unusual and unlikely direction. The “most nerve-wracking night of my life” came for Crecelius then as he waited to learn the winners of a competition created by Chase Bank’s American Giving Awards whose top prize was $1 million. Krochet Kids intl. won second prize—taking home $500,000, which they used to create a new sewing floor in Peru. The contest, he admits “was not merit-based. It was a popularity contest,” but the potential gain was great enough that “we just shut down and went all hands on deck,” gaining “millions of impressions” on Facebook and other social media sites.

His business model also includes partnering with a wide range of others, from sneaker manufacturer Vans—using Krochet Kids intl.’s Peruvian fabric—and the consumer products distributor Birchbox, to VSCO, a photo-sharing app. “They’ve allowed us to reach unique and specific audiences,” he says. “Partnership is a two-way street and we’ve realized the amount we have to offer. It’s a really beautiful thing. It’s a win-win.”

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: The West Foundation

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.

“We make big bets with small gifts,” says Emily West, executive director of the West Foundation, a 56 year-old Indianapolis-based family foundation working in the international community development sector. With assets of $6 million, a staff of two and four board members, the foundation doles out approximately 45 grants a year. Gift size ranges from $10,000 to $30,000 and grantees can be surprisingly unorthodox. Issuing non-traditional grants is one measure of their fearlessness, says West.

“Foundations, particularly small ones, tend to be quite conservative and often believe they must give only to large, well-established organizations to ensure that not a penny of their grant will be wasted. And yet small foundations occupy a special niche in that they have the luxury of gifting at lower levels and taking the risk to assist emerging non-profits,” she says, arguing that large foundations, such as Ford, Rockefeller and Gates, would find it impossible to help these organizations find their footing. “Imagine how many grants Gates would have to give at the $10,000 level in order to give away the amount of money required of foundations on an annual basis (five percent of the earnings of the fund). They couldn’t – they would collapse under the weight of the number of grants they would have to make and the mountain of paperwork it would generate. But at our size, it’s manageable.”

She adds that “Gifts to small organizations that have never yet had a $10,000 gift, whether made in the U.S. or internationally” can be a real game-changer. Once other funders see that what looks like a risky investment has, in effect, paid off, they soon step up with much larger gifts—making small family foundations like hers crucial as a first indicator of a non-profit’s viability.

A great example was their $15,000 grant to Ubuntu Education Fund, a U.S.-based non-profit serving Port Elizabeth, South Africa. It was the first of its kind for the organization, and provided a small program expansion to offer counseling services to children whose families included HIV/AIDS patients. Ubuntu was favorably evaluated by the foundation as it serves a city ravaged by HIV/AIDS with residents who are ultra-poor (those living on $1.25 U.S. or less). And it turned out that the foundation’s bet on Ubuntu was a good one, as only six months after receiving that $15,000 gift, Ubuntu was awarded a 60,000-pound grant ($93,951.00 U.S.) by the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Today, Ubuntu has grown to become an important partner to the South African government in HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention and treatment, and has built a $6 million community center to further its work at the request of the citizens of Port Elizabeth.

Irish potatoes harvest woman kid_jan 2013

Taking risks on non-profits without a proven track record is all about establishing trust, says West. “With early stage organizations, that may take various forms,” she notes. “In evaluating the potential of an organization, you may see that they are very well organized regarding best practices from an administrative and/or programmatic standpoint, or they may have a business model that is extremely innovative. Sometimes you gauge the passion of the funder for the mission of the organization and have great faith in that person. There are many factors at play, and some are more tangible than others. Much of our work right now is devoted to nailing down exactly what they are so that we can promote them to our colleagues and encourage other small foundations to be confident risk takers.”

Embracing failure is also a necessary party of risk-taking, and the West Foundation has a philosophy on that as well. “We gave a $10,000 grant to Vittana, a young organization whose goal was to crowdfund post-secondary education tuitions for students in developing nations through new loan models with indigenous micro-finance institutions (MFIs). I thought it was a brilliant idea, and we funded their start-up in the Philippines,” West says, but the organization closed its doors within two years due to its inability to acquire funding for its model. Nevertheless, she sees that grant as a success. “Their model worked, and is still working with the Filipino MFIs where it was established, so good came out of our investment. Vittana also accrued much local knowledge of the field and has passed that on to other crowdsourcing organizations such as Kiva. So their work will live on to benefit others in the sector.”

The West Foundation has set for itself the audacious goal of becoming one of the leaders of a philanthropic movement to motivate donors to do more risk-taking, take a public policy approach by considering administrative as well as program delivery gifts, and listen more to what non-profits are telling them about their needs. In working towards this objective, they are formalizing their program for emerging non-profits so that they can measure the success rate of the organizations in scaling up their donation levels after receiving that first $10,000 grant. West is assisted in this by her program officer, Samantha Alarie-Leca, and her board members, all some twenty-five years her junior, but sharing her passion for assisting the Global South and her willingness to take calculated risk. “They are highly engaged,” she says. “They’re the ones who’ve provided the most input on developing our new program, and we’re very fortunate to have such an amazing group of young women devoting their time and energy to us.”

Only time will tell if the foundation’s current efforts will translate into dynamic change within the sector, but for the time being, West is happy with the direction she, her staff and board are taking. “I believe we are working towards a bold goal,” she says. “We don’t know of many others doing this.”

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: Baltimore Corps

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.

Too many people still think of his city as a morass of strife and failure, says Fagan Harris, co-founder and CEO of Baltimore Corps, an innovative two-year-old organization working to change that perception.

In April 2015, after police arrested Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African-American Baltimore resident who later died in police custody, the city erupted, with at least 20 police officers injured, 250 people arrested and hundreds of businesses damaged. Vehicles and buildings were burned and pharmacies looted. It looked like an episode of the unrelentingly grim television show that, for many, still defines the city, The Wire.

Harris, who grew up in and around Baltimore and who returned in his late 20s, is passionate about the city’s potential, despite the “fact that too many people, when they think of Baltimore, imagine a broken, dysfunctional city. The truth is Baltimore is home to creative thinkers and truly visionary leadership working everyday to strengthen community,” he argues. This understanding of the opportunities that lie within Baltimore—and many other cities that share a similar history—is what drove Harris to develop a bold approach to forging a new talent pipeline for the city.

Baltimore Corps is a committed group of 35 skilled professionals working closely with a range of cause leaders at leading nonprofits, social enterprises and government agencies to accelerate and scale the impact of effective models for social change. Each cause leader and placement organization pays their Fellow(s) stipend and a nominal program fee to Baltimore Corps. Fellows work full-time at their placement and commit for one year.

Fellows earn a baseline stipend of $32,000; Baltimore Corps aggressively markets its fellowship to talented Millennials across Baltimore and the country, and the organization saw 500 applicants last year for its 35 fellowship positions. To insure a strong mix of local knowledge and fresh thinking, “the best of both worlds,” adds Harris, half of those accepted are city residents.

“At Baltimore Corps, we’ve made a big bet that Baltimore is a frontier of social change,” says Harris, a graduate of Stanford and a Rhodes Scholar. “What New York City is to finance and San Francisco is to technology, Baltimore is for social change. If we can get it right here, we can get it right anywhere. We have more models for strengthening communities than many other places.”

The Corps’ work combines several simultaneous initiatives: to attract the best and brightest workers committed to effecting social change, to help local nonprofits and government retain them so they can grow and better achieve their goals and, through those combined efforts, to help Baltimore thrive. The riots lent an urgency to Baltimore Corp’s work as his staff “did a ton of volunteerism” and several fellows, due to begin their jobs in September, began in June instead. “We responded urgently to help clean and build up and relocate people. As a place-based organization, it’s critical that you’re a good neighbor.”

The city needs them to stay—and they need good jobs; nine of ten of the first class of fellows were hired full-time at the end of their work with Baltimore Corps, a result that thrills, but doesn’t surprise Harris. “We work hard to recruit for fit,” he says.

But initially attracting bright, ambitious fellows who’ll choose to make a life in Baltimore after their year’s commitment is a challenge, Harris admits. “It’s working so far, but it is a challenge.” Popularly, Baltimore is still seen as a second or third-tier city, Millennials are “very, very mobile” and many are deeply wary of any work involving government. To sweeten the offer, the program opens a deep network to fellows, offering ready access to corporate executives, even the city’s mayor, which would be nearly impossible in a larger city.

Baltimore Corps, unusually for a new, growing nonprofit, relies heavily on technology and data to keep careful track of fellows’ work, of their satisfaction and their work’s impact, checking in with each of them every 90 days. The hands-on approach can be emotionally draining, he admits. “This is risky, hard work. It can be heart-wrenching and lead to some soul-searching conversations.” The diversity of our corps and placement partners is powerful but it also challenges…A leader with an Ivy MBA tends to rely on different approaches than a leader who hasn’t graduated high school, and pairing the two has produced “abundant examples of friction,” Harris admits. “We ask for humility and patience. It’s not something we try to paper over.”

“We need more people in the fight putting their shoulder to the wheel and pushing,” says Harris. Bringing talent into Baltimore to partner with the city’s most promising cause leaders and social impact organizations propels ambitious professionals and graduates eager to accelerate their social justice careers, and the city has seen an out-migration of people in their 20s and 30s, leaving local groups and agencies hamstrung, he says. “When we think about scaling the most important and impactful work, we have to ask ‘What’s the hold-up?’ It’s not money or a lack of ambition. It’s deploying the right human capital to drive scale.”

After a local group, Thread, which helps underachieving high school students, found new blood through Baltimore Corps, the program scaled their organization by a third.

The fellows work with a wide range of partners, some with social entrepreneurs who are building organizations with only two or three people to large, bureaucratic and long-established agencies like the City Health Department. “That’s maybe non-traditional,” says Harris, “but we need to work with all of Baltimore. That’s really been a value of ours since Day One.” Doing so effectively means creating what he calls “a tapestry” of small and large social enterprises, nonprofits and government agencies and departments “working together to meaningfully promote the city.” Key to his vision is getting groups together to share information that typically don’t, who normally choose to “silo” their knowledge instead of cooperating.

The Corps’ five-member board “has been really tremendous,” offering “new energy and a new perspective” by attending staff meetings and giving plenty of feedback. “They’re very hands-on. They’re tremendous partners who are not just a board but five really terrific advisors.”

“Our number one goal is to identify what’s working here and grow it,” says Harris. “The families, the neighborhoods, the city–we really want to see things strengthen and improve.”

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.

Photo credit: Flickr user Cayusa, used via Creative Commons.

Rim-to-Rim to Beat Brain Cancer

Posted on by Case Foundation

This week, Ironwoman BethAnn Telford of TeamBT and endurance cyclist Maria Parker of 3000MilesToACure will cross the North Rim of the Grand Canyon together with a shared mission: to beat brain cancer. In one grueling day, they will race Rim-to-Rim: from the North Rim down to the canyon floor, across the canyon, then up to the South Rim over 21.1 miles with more than 10,000 feet of elevation change.

Telford is an Ironman World Champion triathlete, a serial marathoner and a 10-year brain cancer survivor who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for research and development of cures for the disease. As Telford wrote recently in her blog, the Rim-to-Rim journey is “a powerful metaphor for the race to end brain cancer. The canyon represents the valley of death of underfunded research.” Her Rim partner Parker is an accomplished ultra-marathon cyclist and was the winner of the 2013 Ride Across America, dedicating her victory in honor of her sister’s battle with brain cancer. She and her family founded 3000 Miles to a Cure—a charity dedicated to raising $1 million for brain cancer research.

Part of their journey includes the filming of “Crossing the Canyon”—a short documentary film about their passage and the organization. The film will extend their impact beyond the walls of the canyon, inspiring and giving hope to those battling brain cancer.

Proceeds raised from their journey will benefit Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2), a Case Foundation grantee and nonprofit organization that drives cutting-edge research and treatments for brain tumors. ABC2 was co-founded by Jean and Steve Case, and Stacey Case after Steve Case’s brother (and Stacey Case’s husband), Dan Case, succumbed to the disease after a fight with brain cancer.

Since its inception, ABC2 has awarded more than $20 million in brain tumor research funding to highly qualified investigators and physician-scientists from more than 40 research institutions. Brain cancer is the leading cause of tumor cancer deaths among children and young adults. There are more than 600,000 people in the U.S. today with a brain tumor diagnosis, and another 66,000 new diagnoses are expected this year. It is a uniquely challenging disease that is in need of strategic, focused research funding.

Together, Telford and Parker will cross the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, into the valley, and climb the other side as they bridge effective treatments for brain cancer. These two fearless agents of change are women whose impact will extend beyond the walls of the canyon, inspiring and giving hope to those battling brain cancer. Good luck to them both!  Follow their journey on Twitter at #CrossingtheCanyon.

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