Giving Compass' Take:

• Ross Chapman describes the process and criteria he uses to decide where to invest his money for social change. 

• Why is it important to strategically think about where and who your money is going toward? 

• Here's how to transition your investment portfolio to align with your mission. 

Last year I decided it was time to start making more bold and radical steps as a class-privileged person with substantial access to financial resources toward true redistributive and reparative investment. Here’s a little bit about what went into deciding where to give followed by the list.

When I sat down and reviewed the state of my giving/investment strategy these questions helped me see somewhat safe choices being made in a vacuum. I was giving only around $2000/year to black- and Brown-led groups working on the tech pipeline and fighting racism in the corporate world.

But while I felt good about choosing some amazing groups, my giving plane was overdue for revision — a process I had gotten out of the habit of doing annually. I realized I wasn’t being accountable and risking enough.

After further, tougher, reflection; spending time in community with staff and members of Resource Generation at our local chapter events here in the Bay and conferences — especially folks of color, non-binary folks, and women; squeezing myself out from RG making connections with folks from multi-racial grassroots funding circles (see below)…eventually, I landed on three organizations to direct the lion share of my redistributions for 2018+.

One important commonality amongst these organizations is that they all regrant or reinvest donations.

  • Must direct capital to organizations focused on root causes
  • Must have directly impacted people as primary leaders and decision-makers and fund organizations with the same
  • Grants must support movement building by also supporting capacity building for recipients
  • Must center their grantees, are transparent about their decision-making, and work closely with grantees and activists to collaboratively define success
  • Must force me to give/invest beyond my comfort zone (eg: $5000 is the starting contribution for donors joining the CJI giving circle; $25,000 for Working World.

Read the full article about thinking about strategic investments by Ross Chapman at Medium.