At Greenbridge, we’ve always believed that philanthropy is about more than just writing checks. It’s about relationships, collaboration, and being there for our partners when it matters most. Over the years, we’ve seen that the impact we can make doesn’t just come from the grants we provide but from how we show up — offering perspective, advice, and connections that can help our partners achieve their missions.

We are excited to introduce a brand-new portfolio for our 2024 granting cycle: mental health. This marks our first year making dedicated grants in this space, and it comes at a critical time. The mental health system is expansive, complex, and in many ways, broken. For too long, it has struggled to meet the rising needs of individuals facing mental health challenges, particularly young people. The opportunities for creating meaningful, lasting change are vast, and our hope is to be a small part of that change by supporting solutions that get upstream of the crisis.

As Criminal Justice Innovation & Second Chance Employment is one of Greenbridge’s key portfolios, it’s been important that we are constantly meeting with and learning from those who have proximate experience with this system and those on the front lines of fighting for change throughout it. As part of that learning journey, I recently spent a few days in New Orleans at One for Justice’s first-ever summit, immersed in the criminal justice reform movement.

It’s hard to believe that another year is coming to an end. And yet, as we reflect on the year, it’s exciting to see how much has been accomplished by the Greenbridge team and, more importantly, by our remarkable Impact Partners.

As we complete our third year of granting, we are proud to have supported over 65 organizations across our priority portfolio areas. Those who received grants in 2023 are featured on our Initiatives page. We’d be remiss if we didn’t track and celebrate those who have received grants to date.

“There is no benefit in waiting – this is the moment.”

- Walter Green, Founder, Say It Now

Today we explore the powerful lessons and perspectives we’ve gained from prioritizing site visits as part of our due diligence and decision making.

An overview of our 2023 Civic Engagement & Democracy Impact Partners.

A reflection from Jason on his 25 years with Endeavor before signing off from their board.

Reflecting on the magic of our second annual Greenbridge Summit.

In 2022 we issued over 40 grants totaling over $1.6 million to organizations across our primary areas of focus. As we look ahead to 2023, there is much to be excited about. Take a peek at some of the data points we’ve collected that help to share the story of the impact that Greenbridge is having every day.

We hosted our first Greenbridge Family Foundation Summit in late June 2022. While a portion of the Summit was dedicated to planning and strategic conversations, we were very excited to host the senior leadership of several of our impact partners.

Every organization operates with a core set of underlying beliefs that define its culture. Shared beliefs are the glue that bind us together, and empowers us to make better and more efficient decisions to maximize our impact. We are excited to share them with you here.

In reviewing our activity for 2021, we made about 35 initial commitments we have termed “Pebbles.” These were organizations that met all or most of our criteria in our areas of focus and whose leadership and potential for the impact we felt were significant. In 2022, our intention is to identify a small number of larger, multi-year projects we term “Rocks.”

Listen to a recent interview with Jason Green on the Kauffman Fellows podcast “Lessons from 30 years of investing in 30 minutes.”

Our discovery this past year of so many amazing leaders and organizations making a difference has been a great source of optimism and hope. Our goal has been to identify great leaders making a positive difference and to help to unlock an even bigger impact in the future. We are proud to be a Foundation that invests in people who are driving innovative, transformative change that creates systemic impact across several key issue areas.

We came across a concept that resonated deeply—effective altruism. One of the key insights of this philosophy was that measuring a “return on philanthropy,” while difficult, is possible. And that in order to be as effective as possible with one’s limited resources, decisions should be made “using evidence and reason to find the most promising causes to work on.”

The last several years have taught us that we can’t take something as enshrined as the American democracy for granted. This has led to more than a few conversations unpacking how we got here. What are the fundamental components of a thriving democracy and how can we identify organizations working to support those vital components? We ultimately identified three buckets that we believe are vital to creating a strong democracy.

I had several people that believed in me before I even really believed in myself that helped launch Emergence and I wanted to pay that generosity of spirit and courage forward. I have sought out talented and promising founders of emerging venture capital firms that I have invested in and have tried to help mentor and coach. These firms are founded and led by women and/or people of color which is sorely underrepresented in our industry.

As we began to identify the areas of focus for the Greenbridge Family Foundation, it was important to both of us that each issue moved us… spoke to our hearts. They weren’t just issues that we knew from an intellectual standpoint were important. And they weren’t just issues that are gaining headlines today. They were issues we talked about over dinner with our kids or found ourselves asking friends and fellow philanthropists about. As we built our list, one of those ‘must have’ issues was criminal justice reform and second chance employment.