Cofinancing Collective Impact, America Fund Partners with the Bridge Alliance
New York, N.Y (PRWEB) January 12, 2017 -- Invest America Fund (The Fund) is partnering with the Bridge Alliance to finance a portion their new initiative, Collective Impact 2017. The goal of Collective Impact is to give Bridge Alliance members an opportunity to form collaborative projects focused on civic problem solving and public policy innovation. The Fund and Bridge Alliance are each pledging to make a significant investment in this effort throughout 2017.
Invest America Fund is a seed fund building a community of social and political entrepreneurs and funders committed to bipartisan and nonpartisan policy transformation. The Fund is targeting and supporting leaders and organizations whose ideas and approaches have the potential to reach and improve the lives of 150 million or more American voters.
Bridge Alliance is a nationwide network of organizations--over 60 and growing--who are dedicated to respectful dialogue, creative problem solving, and supporting leaders who address and solve our nation’s challenges. All the organizations have made a common commitment to working together for collective impact and increased visibility for all those who want to strengthen the common ground on which the United States of America depends.
Each Collective Impact project consists of at least three Bridge Alliance members, submitting proposals for project ideas and efforts that cost between $25,000 to $125,000. By mid 2017, the initiative will disperse three to four grants to organizations that qualify based on a shared rubric of quantitative and qualitative metrics. Collect Impact 2017 is looking to make additional grants in the second half of the year.
The selection committee for the grants includes Co-Project Directors and Co-Founders of the Bridge Alliance, David Nevins and Debilyn Molineaux, and CEO and Co-Founder of Invest America Fund, Kahlil Byrd. Together, they will assess the various organizations’ predicted abilities to work in coalition, provide impactful and efficient results, and convey a powerful narrative in line with the mission statements of both organizations.
“Our partnership with the Bridge Alliance is an exciting opportunity to quickly identify a substantive part of our portfolio--bipartisan reformers and their organizations who are emerging as a dynamic coalition for change,” Byrd said. “Supporting Collective Impact 2017 is a key step in bringing infrastructure and financing to political entrepreneurs who are vital to digging us out of these tough political times.”
One of the fundamental requirements for receiving a grant is that the idea in some way helps bridge our political divide--from improving our voting system, to making local governing more effective and ethical, to advancing informed, citizen-developed solutions, for instance. A common thread amongst the Bridge Alliance members is that they are all working across the political spectrum towards improving our democracy in a nonpartisan way.
“Partnering with Invest America Fund is exactly what we need to help elevate and build upon Bridge Alliance’s conviction that for significant political transformation to occur, a network of aligned organizations and individuals must be established,” Nevins said.
“In today’s political climate, it is important for people to learn about collaborations across the political spectrum and reach out to work together, that’s what our Collective Impact project will do,” Molineaux said.
The selection committee for the grants include Nevins and Molineaux from the Bridge Alliance, and Byrd from Invest America Fund.
About Invest America Fund
Invest America Fund is a seed fund building a community by joining social and political entrepreneurs with funders committed to bipartisan and nonpartisan policy transformation. We target and support leaders and organizations whose ideas and approaches have the potential to reach and improve the lives of 150 million or more American voters. The Fund is building a national matrix of steady-state funding to tackle the most important issues facing our country today and is inspiring a “Silicon Valley” for political reform. Kahlil Byrd and Kellen Arno are cofounders of the Fund.
About the Bridge Alliance
Bridge Alliance is a “transpartisan” organization of democrats, republicans, independents, libertarians and non-voters, committed to building bridges and removing walls, working through differences and extending trust to our fellow citizens across the political spectrum to meet the challenges—and seize the opportunities—facing our nation.
Click here to visit the Invest America Fund website.
Click here to visit the Bridge Alliance website and read more about the grant program.
Sarah Shipley, Shipley Communications, http://www.investamericafund.com/, +1 202-577-7141, [email protected]
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