Innovating from a Foundation of Trust: Inside GreenLight’s Established Sites

What started in Boston in 2004 is now a national network of 15 soon to be 17 sites. Today, four GreenLight Fund sites have been making a sustained impact in their cities for over 10 years, navigating political and economic cycles with steadiness, resolve and rigor. In each of these four sites, we have created a diverse and resilient portfolio of at least six high performing organizations, responded to critical needs and scaled impact while establishing deep roots and earned trust in their respective communities. These, our most Established Sites, Boston, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and Cincinnati, are demonstrating another level of innovation while continuing GreenLight’s core work locally.

GreenLight’s durable presence in communities

Our core model remains the consistent practice and primary focus across all of our sites. Our Established Sites are able to serve in a broader capacity. They are fully integrated into their community with significant progress having already been made in shifting the local landscape for the better including strengthening the local ecosystem, developing strong, trusted partnerships amongst local nonprofits, business leaders and the public sector, and demonstrated impact of bringing diverse leaders and experts together to solve problems.

Our work in partnership with the community over time has established GreenLight as a foundational piece of the ecosystem, delivering innovation and bold solutions to address racial and economic inequities children and families face. With the validation that comes with the follow-on multi-million dollar Funds we’ve raised in each of these cities and the broader community conversations we are now part of, GreenLight’s Established Sites can serve as a testing ground for deeper local impact that can ultimately be implemented across our sites nationally. 

Years of building trust leads to innovation

Trusted relationships are a key part of GreenLight’s success. We earn that trust by the rigor and impact of our model, the Selection Advisory Council we bring together for meaningful conversations that heavily influence our decisions, and the engagement with residents, champions and investors who feel heard and value the impact of our work. 

With this trust, established sites operate with a broader mandate: in addition to adding one new organization each year, to experiment and innovate in ways that can deepen and extend impact both locally and across the network. What we learn from innovating in our Established Sites will benefit all of our sites moving forward.

Grantmaking Innovations: Responding during the pandemic

When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, challenges in communities grew, both in new emerging issues and the number of people experiencing those challenges. In the Bay Area, the team conducted a rapid double selection. While GreenLight’s Method is intentionally a year-long process, with the trust in place and the urgency of the pandemic, the team designed a process that stayed true to the core tenets of the model while accelerating the pace to get solutions to people faster. The result was selecting two tech-based models addressing the logistics around food delivery for the growing numbers of people who were food insecure (Food Connect) and supporting computer access and training (EveryoneOn) to support the shift to virtual learning and working. Those two investments were and continue to be tremendously impactful for the Bay Area. Applying those learnings, GreenLight is now open to sites making double selections as an exception, when there is a strategic reason to do so.

In Boston, also during the COVID pandemic, the Portfolio Advisory Council was created. With the number of portfolio organizations in Boston already at double digits, the team wanted to see what it would mean for the community to reinvest in the existing portfolio. The PAC created a process and invited portfolio organizations to come forward with proposals. Several reinvestments have since been made including one that has enabled Friends of the Children-Boston, GreenLight’s first investment, to evolve their model to focus on serving whole families in addition to the students (achievers) being served by their mentors. They are now reaching over 500 siblings and caregivers through the family engagement efforts in Boston.

Impact Multipliers: Innovations we are testing now

We continue to test opportunities for additional impact in our Established Sites. Before moving forward with innovations, we define the scope, clear success metrics, and a plan to capture and share learnings.

Targeted Pilots

In the Bay Area this year, a site that has always served three distinct communities – San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, the team is running multiple, parallel selection cycles. This regional approach leveraging additional capacity has the opportunity to deliver impact faster in a tailored way to each of these communities that have unique dynamics and unmet needs. 

Tools and tactics with potential utility across the network

In Cincinnati, the team is partnering with Aspen Ascend to pilot a predictive modeling tool to support the site’s diligence work during their selection process. GreenLight engages in full diligence of finalist portfolio organizations with site visits, data analysis and more to determine if an organization is replicable, a strong fit for the local community, and effectively meets the identified need with measurable results. The tech-based tool in development will test how GreenLight might make stronger decisions by building future based scenarios and incorporating more local data into the decision process. This will not take the place of the team’s diligence work but has the potential of leveraging technology without needing additional capacity.

Field-Building & Learning

In Philadelphia, GreenLight has led the formation of an AI learning community. Bringing together leaders from nonprofits, businesses and philanthropy, they are exploring how integrating AI into nonprofit solutions while centering human interaction could advance the field. By convening portfolio leaders, peers, and sector partners around shared challenges and emerging opportunities, we are leveraging our local, trusted relationships to drive further impact across the sector.

These are just a few innovations helping us to explore new strategies for expanding and deepening our impact in these sites and across the network moving forward.

Deepening impact as a trusted partner

The GreenLight Method is a proven approach designed for all GreenLight communities and particularly important where GreenLight is still learning the landscape. When Established Sites are embedded deeply in their local communities and have become a known, trusted partner, they can anchor in who we are and what has worked while innovating beyond that without sacrificing rigor or community trust. This benefits and strengthens the local communities and enables GreenLight to continue learning and growing, ultimately driving stronger change towards inclusive prosperity across the country.