Greater Good Blog

A message to our clients and partners, from Arabella Advisors’ CEO, Sampriti Ganguli.

Like others across the country and around the world, Arabella Advisors is committed to doing all we can to help limit the spread and mitigate the effects of COVID-19. As a social enterprise, taking steps to protect our partners, employees, and the communities we serve is part of our DNA. At the same time, we are focused on ensuring that the inspiring and essential work of our clients and partners can move forward with minimal interruption. We recognize that your work is now more important than ever.

To help prevent the spread of the virus and flatten the curve,  our staff will be  working from home until the public health crisis is over. Our team is prepared to do their work virtually, leveraging cloud technology and online meeting platforms to continue our daily operations. We do not expect significant disruption to our work together but appreciate your patience if adjustments need to be made as our team, like yours, navigates a new reality. We are reaching out today to let you know what you can expect from us in the coming weeks and beyond:

• Our commitment to client service remains steadfast. At Arabella, our teams are passionate about creative problem solving and supporting you to achieve your goals. In times like these, that passion shines more than ever. As always, we will strive to be strong thought partners to you, anticipate difficulties wherever we can, and provide meaningful guidance.
• We will remain nimble and communicative. You can expect to hear from us on a case-by-case basis if there are any recommendations for adjustments to our existing work plans. Feel free to reach out to anyone on our team if you have questions.
• Our work will be equity-informed, data-driven, and future-focused. We will maintain our focus on equity and inclusion, both in our ongoing work together and in COVID-19 response efforts. We are tracking closely how philanthropy is responding to the needs of partners, grantees, staff, and communities, and we are optimistic about the big and small shifts being made to continue and improve philanthropic efforts. We would love to hear what you are seeing in terms of needs and action and would welcome the opportunity to share what we are hearing as well. Our team is thinking both about the near-term needs and the longer-term recovery that will require sustained support and active innovation across philanthropy.

Arabella is proud to have been a co-founder and incubator of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, a terrific resource for donors at a time like this. We also provide advisor and fiscal sponsor services for several pooled donor funds and donor collaboratives, such as the Oakland Fund for Public Innovation and the Washington Regional Food Funders, who are playing central roles in the emergency response and future recovery.  We would be privileged to help guide you in your own philanthropy response to the needs in your community.

Short of a more thoughtful assessment of community needs and partners, we encourage you to extend your generosity to organizations that are close to the ground and who are more likely to play a role in the likely scenario that government emergency management agencies take command of the social safety net in the days and weeks ahead. This means sending unrestricted support to organizations that serve basic needs for specific geographies or constituencies. Those organizations that have pre-existing logistical capacity and experience coordinating or contracting with government agencies will be of value in the worst-case scenario of temporary public health service and economic collapse. If you have questions about specific organizations or approaches to putting your resources to work at this time, please don’t hesitate to call us. We will reach out again as we identify national needs and strategies to meet them.

We remain committed to helping you achieve your goals in this difficult and uncertain time and look forward to charting a path toward a stronger future together.