Exploring the New Venture Fund’s Past, Present, and Future
Our clients and partners at the New Venture Fund (NVF) have released a new retrospective: “New Venture Fund: Using Philanthropy to Shape a More Just, Equitable and Sustainable Future.” The report examines NVF’s mission, model, growth, and future, in addition to profiling several of the projects for which it provides fiscal sponsorship.
Since its founding in 2006, NVF has helped hundreds of philanthropists and changemakers work together to address many of the world’s most difficult challenges, from global development and health to education, the environment, and more. In the words of NVF’s president, Lee Bodner, “The New Venture Fund’s mission is bold but ultimately simple. We aim to help build a just, equitable, and sustainable future by getting the right types of philanthropic capital into the hands of people with the right ideas, at the right times, in the right places to accomplish needed change.”
Central to that realizing that mission is NVF’s comprehensive and innovative approach to fiscal sponsorship, developed in conjunction with the team at Arabella Advisors. Bodner continues in the report’s introduction:
“We understood early on that one key to addressing the realities of deepening inequality and persistent systemic challenges was to focus donor contributions so that more great ideas could come to life faster. Our goal was to see more leaders getting green lights for life-changing innovations rather than being blocked by lack of resources, cut off by shortage of expertise or drowned by unnecessary bureaucratic processes. Recognizing that current philanthropic practices sometimes reinforce funding inequities, NVF has aimed to provide an antidote — to build bridges between donors and frontline groups and to democratize funding, all so that more capital gets into the hands of those with the ideas and commitment to make lasting change.”
The report goes on to examine NVF’s model and growth and profiles the work with some of its major projects, including global systems change collaborative Co-Impact, the Climate Justice Resilience Fund, the National Collaborative for Health Equity, and educational open access coalition SPARC. Also included are explorations of New Venture Fund’s project funding, issue areas, allocations of funding by geographic region, funding sources by donor type, and more.
To learn more about the New Venture Fund, download the full report or explore an online version.