Potential. Innovation. Impact. Sustainability. Scale. These are the high order issues for venture philanthropists, who model their work after venture capital investors, seeking to maximize the impact of their philanthropic investment in entrepreneurial nonprofit organizations. Venture philanthropists support strong leaders with new approaches to addressing social challenges; invest unrestricted funding for the long term; and actively engage with organizations to help build their capacity, boards of directors and executive teams. By applying a venture-capital-like strategy to support social entrepreneurs, innovation and impact can be fueled to new levels. With stories and insights from this panel, business leaders will find renewed energy and excitement to engage in personal and corporate philanthropy that is both strategic and creates maximum impact.
The panel will explore the following issues:
- What is venture philanthropy, and how is it different than traditional philanthropy?
- What does "innovation" mean in the context of charitable work?
- How do you find nonprofits that are focused on impact?
- How do you measure it? What does it mean to "scale" a nonprofit?
- What can I do to ensure the impact of my personal or corporate philanthropy?
Speaker Profiles
Liam Krehbiel (Speaker)
Founder & CEO, A Better Chicago
A Better Chicago invests in our region's most effective nonprofits that are creating opportunity for low-income children, adults and families. Prior to founding A Better Chicago in 2010, Liam spent 10 years in the corporate and nonprofit sectors. Most recently, he was a management consultant at Bain & Company, where he worked on a variety of strategy and operational projects for Fortune 500 and mid-market clients. Prior to Bain, Liam worked at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, where he identified, assessed, funded and supported a portfolio of high-performing youth development organizations that aspire to scale nationally. Earlier in his career, Liam worked in the investment banking group of William Blair & Company and in the development office of ACCION USA. He has a BA in history from Dartmouth College and an MBA in finance and marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Richard Johnson (Panelist)
Founder & CEO, Spark Ventures
Spark Ventures invests in sustainable solutions to lift children in developing countries out of poverty. Rich Johnson is Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Spark Ventures and has served on the board since its inception. He was born and spent his early childhood in Japan, prior to moving to northern Illinois. Rich received a BA in Communications and an MA both from Trinity International University. His work experience has included business marketing and consulting, leadership and management for several nonprofits, and higher education administration. Rich is currently serving as an advisor and board member with several Chicago-area nonprofits and social enterprises.
Tasha Seitz (Panelist), Social Venture Partners Chicago
Tasha has been a technology venture capital investor with JK&B Capital since 1997, focusing on enterprise software, Internet infrastructure and mobile infrastructure investments. She started her career as a technology industry analyst at Gartner, the leading IT research and advisory company. Tasha received a BA from Wellesley College and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business. In 2012, she connected with a group of like-minded business professionals to launch a Chicago chapter of Social Venture Partners, a network of philanthropists who believe that engaged investment will result in a positive impact on their communities.
Alan Anderson (Speaker)
Founding Executive Director, Year Up
Alan Anderson joined Year Up in 2010 as the Founding Executive Director of the Chicago site to continue his passion for serving young people who need access to better opportunities in our city. Previously, Alan was the Acting Chief School Design Officer for Chicago Public Schools (CPS), and was responsible for re-designing and aligning the school closing and opening process to impact SY12 school openings and for leading a city-wide education and advocacy process to inform parents and families on the performance of their school and mobilizing parent and community leaders to develop and choose the educational solutions to fix their failing school. Alan also served as the Acting Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Human Capital and before that as the Executive Director of the Office of School Turnaround for CPS. Before CPS, Alan worked at Motorola, Inc for nearly nine years. Alan earned a BA in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, a master's in Electrical Engineering from McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Questions
Christina Hachikian, '07
Director, Social Enterprise Initiative
773-834-1239