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- [00:00]
Sara Lomelin
Especially in a time like this when there is so much polarization and division, giving circles can offer again this space to find, you know, to look people in the eyes, in the eyes to find the humanity of one another, to find what makes us similar instead of being focusing on what separate us.
- [00:26]
Jay Frost
Welcome to the PM Podcast brought to you by Donor Search, the show that takes you inside the lives of thought leaders, innovators and change makers in fundraising, philanthropy and civil society. I'm your host, Jay Frost. Sara Lomelin is a philanthropy disruptor and the founding CEO of Philanthropy Together, a global movement advancing collective giving. She's the creator of the Latino Giving Circle Network, the the largest network of Latinx philanthropists in the US and a TED speaker recognized on Forbes 50 over 50 impact list. Sara is passionate about shifting power in philanthropy and proving that everyone can be a philanthropist.
- [01:09]
Unknown
I'd like to hear about your own origin story. I know you're originally from Mexico City, but take us back a little bit. Where are you really from?
- [01:19]
Sara Lomelin
Yes, that's a great question. And where you're really from? That's a very deep question. Because at the end of the day, yes, I am Mexican. I was born in Mexico City, but then at this point, I have spent most of my life, more than half of my life in the US so I feel 100% Mexican and 100% American at the end of the day because my, you know, my group of friends, my kind of like my chosen family in the US is incredibly international. I feel that, you know, I'm from any part of the world. And it's funny because I have that kind of face. Like I was in Morocco in November and people were speaking to me in Arabic. If I'm in Spain, people think I'm from Spain. If I'm in Italy, like, I have been from every single country. Like, people have thought I'm Brazilian. I'm, you know, any Latin American country I have been, I can be part of them and most of the Mediterranean and Middle east countries. I have that kind of face that I can be from anywhere. But I was born in Mexico City, my family still there. I have three brothers. I'm the oldest and the only girl. My parents are still there, Catholic family. I went to an all girls Catholic school led by French nuns. So I, you know, the language that I learned in my childhood was French. At school I, I have like a kindergarten level of English because, you know, they were teaching French. English was kind of like, okay, you know, we were saying like, my name is Patti. My name is Pip. We like to go to the movies and something like that. That was it. And then learned English. After high school, I went away for a year, and in order to communicate with other people, you learn English. And then I started my career. I went to college, major in communications, and started my career in the corporate world. I used to work for a financial institution in Mexico, first doing internal communications pr and then I moved to manage the call center. And I'm going to date myself, but the call center before the Internet. So this is when thousands of people, small business owners, are calling every single day to the bank to ask for their, you know, their balance, right? And every single thing, every single, single issue with your credit card, you know, anything gets by phone. So I learned very hands on what customer service is and what it means to, you know, literally create a bridge, a connection with someone that was upset, was impatient, may, you know, think the worst of the company that I was working at, but just, you know, how to connect with people at a human level. You know, I got married. We moved to the US for graduate school with the idea of just being in the US For a couple of years and then going back to Mexico City. Well, my husband got a job in the Bay Area, so we moved from Boston to San Francisco. And 28 years later, I'm still here. So my children were born here in California. Most of the time I have been here in California. We lived for a few years in Texas, near Dallas. So we were there for eight years. And it was in Dallas when I had kind of like my first connection with a giving circle. But before that, I need to backtrack a little bit. I was at some point an entrepreneur, so I had a small business. I was making baby sleeping bags for car seats and strollers.
- [05:42]
Unknown
So explain what that is. That's.
- [05:46]
Sara Lomelin
Yeah, I know it sounds totally random, but, you know, it was a time in my life that I'm having children. One of my best friends is living in L. A. She has babies, too, and toddlers. And she came up with this idea that now is very popular because every single stroller comes now with, like, a little foot moth, with like a little. It looks like a sleeping bag where you, you know, you put the baby especially for. For cold places like the east coast, the Midwest. So the baby is very comfortable inside. The sleep on the car seat or the stroller. So we started this at the beginning. It was 2000. It was the year 2000, and there was nothing in the market like that. And right now, you know, to make the long story short, we had A blast. We learned a lot. I can write a book of what not to do when you have a small business. I mean, we were very naive in many ways, but the good thing is that we break even. We were selling at some point at Amazon, and this was 2006, 2007. So anyway, we have a good run. And then after that, and kind of at the same time, coming from another country, I really wanted to understand the education system right here, especially with young children.
- [07:16]
Unknown
I mean, your kids were.
- [07:18]
Sara Lomelin
Yes, completely. So I became the de facto volunteer at my children's school. We were living in Texas. My kids were going to a public elementary school. So I became the room mom, the grade level coordinator, the mom organizing the fall festival, the mom organizing the fundraising campaigns, everything. So during those years, Texas has a big expat Mexican population. A lot of people that live in Monterrey or in Mexico City that move to Texas for. Especially when things starting being pretty bad in Mexico in terms of safety, a lot of people move to many cities in Texas. I have, you know, a big group of Latinas, especially Mexican friends there. And we used to get together every Mother's Day just, you know, to celebrate ourselves, I guess. And one year we said, what about charging a little bit more for, you know, this luncheon that we put together and whatever we raise, we can donate to an organization.
- [08:33]
Unknown
But where did that idea come. Come from? Because everybody. I know what it's like when you're just trying to get your kids through school and make sure everybody cooperates. That's tough enough. How did you decide not only that you could cooperate, but did you ask everybody to pitch in and then support something that they couldn't yet see?
- [08:50]
Sara Lomelin
So this was outside of the school. So it was just with, like, my Mexican friends. And there was one of them that was volunteering in an organization in Dallas that was helping Latinos, moms and children. So basically women that were the same age as all of us with young kids, but that they didn't have the opportunities that we have. So we said, you know, this place is amazing. They do a lot of, like, financial empowerment education for the moms while, you know, they take care of the kids. So it was a beautiful organization, and we. It just makes sense. So that first year, I remember we raised around $2,000 to give to this organization called Avanse. And then we continue doing this every year. So it was basically a giving circle. We started a giving circle without knowing that that was called a giving circle. And that giving circle was raising half a million dollars a year at some Point, it was crazy. From a group of 40 women and most of the money was coming from the same group. So people were also offering their gifts. So if there was an artist, she will donate an art piece and someone else will buy it. If another woman was baking cakes, she will donate 10 cakes and someone will buy that gift certificate. So there was a lot of very informal banter, I guess, and just interchange of goods and services and money. But we, you know, we started doing this because for, I think the premise was we are in this country, we're not, you know, in a shopping trip anymore. Like, we live in this country, our kids are, you know, educated in this country and we need to give back. And if we do not support our own communities, how can we ask other people to do it? So we always focus in supporting, in this case, organizations that were helping Latina women. Then in 2010, I came back to the Bay Area, we moved back to the Bay Area and a good friend of mine was on the board of Latino Community foundation in San Francisco. Actually, I have my mug of Latino Community founders.
- [11:28]
Unknown
Culture power. Yes.
- [11:29]
Sara Lomelin
Yeah, yeah. So she said, you would love this organization. Like you should check them out. And at that point, you know, I had closed my business and I really wanted to find a job that was meaningful, you know, something I didn't want to go back to do, you know, to start a business or to go back to the corporate world. For me, it was really important to, to keep in this path of what can I do to, you know, to help. And they were looking. Latino Community foundation was looking for a fundraiser. And it was the very first development position at Latino Community Foundation. And I thought to myself, oh my God, I have never in my life don't work for a nonprofit like, or foundation. Like, I don't even know how this whole world works. And funny enough, I met with the chair and the vice chair of the board. And after that launch, I said, I don't care if they ask me to clean the toilet and go and get the mail. And that's my job. Like, I need to work with these women. Like, I want to work with these women. So I don't know how I convinced them to get the job. I got the job. I was part time, so we were three and a half people. I was a half. My husband got me the Nonprofits for Dummies book. Remember those books, the yellow books? I read the book and then I realized, but hold on a second, this is not a non profit, it's a foundation. So it's another thing. So Really, I showed up saying, okay, I'm here to learn. And I have been learning ever since. So for almost, it's going to be this, at the end of this year is going to be 15 years that I in philanthropy. And when I started at Latino Community foundation, all the funding, I mean, first of all, the organization was tiny at that point. I think the budget was maybe 1, $1.2 million or 1.1. That here in the Bay Area is a very small organization. Most of the funding was coming from foundations, a few corporate sponsorships for an annual gala. Not even the full board was giving. So we didn't have individual donors. It was just a handful of board members. The individual donors that we had where people coming to the annual event and then no one was touching them in a year and they will get invited again to the event. I'm like, no, we cannot do that. So for me, again, it was this idea of, how can I go to different companies or call different foundations and ask them for money? They are going to ask, what about the Latino community? Who are your supporters? I didn't have anything to show. So I thought about, okay, what about starting. My friend actually said, that thing that you started in Texas, it's called a giving circle, and there are many around the world. So I started kind of researching a little bit and I found apip, Asian American Islanders, Pacific Islanders in philanthropy. At that point, they were on a roll to get 50 giving circles started as part of a Kellogg foundation cohort. Amplifier, which is this network of Jewish giving circles based in New York, was just getting started. So I said, okay, we're going to start the giving circle. And we started the San Francisco Latina Giving Circle with a group of 16 women. Each of them was giving $1,000 a year. And all of them decided on the cost that they wanted to support, which was financial empowerment for women. After the first six months, they gave their first $10,000 in grants. One of the wives of one of the board members called me and she said, I really want to be part of this giving circle, but I live in Pleasanton, and Pleasanton is around an hour from San Francisco with traffic. It's horrible. She said, can we start one here? And I said, sure. So she called her neighbors and we started the Pleasanton Latina Giving Circle. And then a year later, we started one in the East Bay and one in the Peninsula. The one in the Peninsula. I was living in the Peninsula. I took the school directory from my kids school and literally, and please, obvious you shouldn't do me doing this. But I did. I was looking at the school directory for looking to Latino surnames, and I was inviting all these women to breakfast at my house. And then, you know, someone would say, like, such and such is Latina. I'm like, she doesn't have a Latino surname. And she's like, no, no, no. But she is. She's from Argentina. So I was calling all these women, and I said, you know, I have this idea. So I have 35 women coming to my house for a breakfast. And the very first thing that I said is like, should we speak in English? Should we speak in Spanish first? Everybody said Spanish, and it was a combination of Spanglish. And I told them about the giving circle. And literally that day, we had 22 women raising their hands and saying, yes, let's get this started.
- [17:13]
Unknown
So where was this hunger coming from? Because was it about, I really want to support an organization, or was it that these people had come together? What was it that stopped them from doing this before? And then it lit the fire for them then?
- [17:28]
Sara Lomelin
You know, I think it was a combination of factors. I think a lot of people in this world want to help, and a lot of times they don't know how. They don't know what is the first step. That is one second one. The social aspect of a given circle. I mean, it's beautiful. It's joyful. You know, most of the times it's around a table and there's food and there's laughter and there's, you know, joy. And it's a little bit of understanding very clearly, because I don't want to be. To sound naive that the challenges that communities face all over the world are extremely overwhelming. And they're, you know, they can paralyze us. But the act of giving should be joyful. It's a privilege to give. It's a privilege to be able to give not only your. Your money, but your talents, your time, your voice to advocate your testimony, right? Like your testimony and your ties. How do you open different doors for the causes that you care about? So I think that was the other factor and the third and very important one in this case, because I'm talking about starting with Latino communities. A lot of these women said, yes, kaoh me. You are the very first person to ask me to give. And that is mind blowing. Why? Because for a lot of, you know, a lot of fundraisers, right, A lot of, like, the big P, philanthropy, Latinos, the black community, the Asian Pacific Islander community, the Native American community, we are seen as recipients of philanthropy. And not as philanthropists. And I feel that that was the, you know, the switch that spark on people. Like, wait a second, you know, my thousand dollars may not have a huge impact by themselves, but if I get together with other women, we can give $25,000.
- [19:51]
Unknown
And I want to ask you about this from another lens, because what you just said is obviously true. And it's also true, and you've talked about this before, that there is very little funding that goes to all these communities. You just identified from Big P philanthropy. But sometimes people need to know how to do it, like you said a moment ago. And that means not only do they get together with others, as you just showed, but they need to have some kind of model so they understand what it is that we're talking about. So I want to go back a little bit. When you first got together with those other women, those other mothers in Texas, and then someone said, let's support this organization, then you collectively decided to do it and kept growing it. Did you already have in your mind and did they, in their minds, have a model for philanthropy? Because I know that there's a lot of informal giving in the Latino Latina community, right? I mean, traditionally through churches, but many other ways. And so there was an example. Maybe it came from parents or from the experience of the church. What was it for you? What did you know of philanthropy before.
- [21:02]
Sara Lomelin
This whole process started back in the day? And, you know, as I mentioned, you know, I was raised Catholic. There was this, you know, sense of service instilled in me from a very early age. Like we, we were volunteering and doing, you know, going to different places to volunteer. When I was in middle school, I was, I don't know, 12, 13 years old. My parents have always, you know, volunteer and. And be engaged in different causes. You know, my dad took. To this day, he supports many young people with their college education, postgraduate education. There is this funny story. My dad lives most of the time in Acapulco, which is by the Pacific coast. And he loves this place that there is a live band to go on Thursdays, right? So he was there one time and he, he. There was this young guy, 20 something years old with a beautiful voice. And my dad came to him at the end and he said, have you. You have a beautiful voice. Have you ever thought about becoming like, have you ever, you know, listened to opera or do you like classical music? And this guy said, yes, I love it. But, you know, I live in Acapulco. Very humble beginnings. Well, this guy is now in New York he's singing in so many places because, you know, my dad gets something in his mind, and he's like, if I can do something for one person, I'm going to do it. And so my mom is an educator. She has a preschool. She's turning 80 years old in a couple of weeks, and she still works every single day. So it's, you know, this sense of there's so much that you can give, but also the joy and the, you know, the fulfillment that you get. It's incredible, right? I always said that giving is a very selfish act because I really believe that you receive a lot more than what you give in terms of this sense of joy and fulfillment. And those years at the Latino Community foundation, because I told you about the few first giving circles that we started. One former board member, a man, said, what about the men? We're just starting giving circles with women. What about the men? And I said, let's start one with men. So we started one with a group of 40 men, the San Francisco Latino Giving Circle. And a colleague and I were just thinking, what are we going to do with a group of men? Like, it was for us, it was very, like, easy and natural, you know, to deal with women. And we were talking about, like, let's talk about our values. You know, to your point, how do you start that conversation? How you show people the way of how you start giving? We always started with a conversation about, what are those values that have guided your life? Who instilled those values in you? Because it's like, literally, like, you know, whose shoulders you stand on and how have those values guide your keeping, right? So, you know, with women, it was always, like, very, you know, touchy feeling. We're like, oh, this is great. We said, what are we going to do with a group of 30, like, professional men? Everybody was coming after work, so most of the people in finance and lawyers and blah, blah. Oh, my God, Jay. It was the most beautiful evening because the moment this group of men, very diverse in terms of ages and socioeconomic status and immigration stories, just family stories, started talking about their values and, you know, their ancestors and their families, one of them started. Started tearing up. And at some point, we have a room of. There were 25 men, like, literally in tears. And we said, this is, you know, this is incredible. So we started opening more giving circles. Latinos in tech, San Diego, Los Angeles. We started 23 giving circles across California, about 500 people involved. And I was facilitating every single meeting of every single giving circle.
- [26:15]
Unknown
That sounds like not only a Lot of work, but very emotional because of what you just said. If these people are coming together for the first time, empowered to do something together, they've probably been kind of sheltering their feelings at work, work and maybe even at home. But now they're in a room with these people eating, talking, laughing, and maybe sharing stories. That's. That's a very emotional experience for them. But also for you.
- [26:41]
Sara Lomelin
It was. And I was, you know, you said it must have been exhausting. Yes. Like, you know, I was literally. I was not eating dinner with my family for days, four nights a week, and I was exhausted. But every single night, when I would jump in my car to drive back home from any given circle or take the plane from LA or San Diego back, I felt so happy because it was, you know, it was like, oh, my God, I want to do this again. Because the moment you see the spark in the eyes of someone that says, wow. I mean, we had so many people, so many members that after the first day that were part of the Giving circle said, oh, my God, I just. I feel that I just came home, that found, you know, home in this group that were strangers two hours before in this group that was never going to get together if it wasn't for something like this. Because again, you know, we have people in their 20s, just out of college with people in their 60s, you know, very seasoned professionals, people just starting their professions, people in, you know, in the not perfect sector in philanthropy, in finance, in law, in tech. And they were all. And people. And this is very important, especially in this moment in time, people from the two sides of the aisle, political affiliations, people that were thinking very differently in those terms, but. Or I should say not but. And they found what make them similar. They found their common values instead of focusing on their differences and what, you know, put them, pull them apart. And they came together behind a common cause.
- [28:50]
Unknown
Had they had that opportunity before? I mean, now you're talking about a community within the community. If it's, let's say, a group of Mexican men, I'm sure they're from other places too. But originally many from Mexico, now they're talking about these things. The immigrant experience is different for every person. You alluded to that before. That's something that listeners may not be attuned to. There are very different points of view politically, culturally, coming from one place and then immigrating to the United States, there's not a uniform view of anything. So had they had much of an opportunity to discuss those things before?
- [29:27]
Sara Lomelin
Maybe not. I mean, Jay, There were some members in the Giving Circle, in the Latino Giving Circle Network, that even the fact of being able to be in a space that they could speak Spanish was new because they said, you know, my. My everyday life is all in English, right? Like, my work is all in English. I. My partner, you know, doesn't speak Spanish. My kids don't speak Spanish. So the only opportunity for them to speak Spanish, maybe it was with their parents or grandparents or this. So that was. I feel that you. You. You really touched on a point that maybe they haven't. And at the same time that we always. And I. And this is something that I love about getting circles all over the world. It's always a safe space. People felt really at home and safe to be able to debate and be vulnerable and, you know, communicate their point of view and knowing that their point of view was going to be respected, like, listened and respected. There were many, because, I mean, getting 25 people or 40 people in consensus to make a decision is not easy. And we did it. Why? Because there was a lot, again, and I'm going with the slide, the tagline of community found of the Latino Community Foundation. There was a lot, lot of love. There was always, like, love in every single interaction. And I feel that that translates in all the giving circles that I have, you know, had the privilege to. To get connected with. Because, you know, during those years, I mentioned that, you know, I was in communication with apib, with Amplifier, but each of us, and there was a group of women, we were all women. For some reason. You know, this. This. I mean, this movement is primarily led by women. So we were having these phone conversations, like, oh, I'm encountering this issue. Have you had this challenge? Oh, yes, I'm doing this. I'm doing that. But at some point in 2017, I got a call from Joelle Berman. She was leading Amplifier in New York. And she said, said, where are you? We're all here in Chicago for the Women's Philanthropy Institute symposium. Like, Marcia Morgan from the Community Investment Network is here. Halle Lee from the Asian Women's Giving Circle, Diane Bailey from what is now Philanos, this network of women's giving circles. Where are you? And I said, friends, I mean, you know that I lead the giving circles, but I also. I'm literally the development person here. Like, go to a conference. And they said, you know, this is so beautiful. Like, as, you know, a group of people that are totally focused on the same thing. And we were just thinking that nothing like that exists for, you know, the giving Circle movement. So we just saw Victoria Branagh from the Gates foundation and told her that we would love to do something like this with the Giving Circle people. And she gave us $25,000 to get some people together. Are you in? And I said, of course I'm in. So at the end of 2017, and I need to backtrack a little bit because in 2016 and released in 2017, the Collective Giving research group, led by, you know, Jason Franklin, Jesse Caberman, Julia Carboni, they came out with this research around Giving Circles. At that point, they said there are 1600 giving circles in the US that have involved 150,000 people in the last two decades. This movement of giving circles has given out $1.3 billion. The $1.3 billion in 20 years. Have everybody like, oh, wow. I mean, it's not that small.
- [33:50]
Unknown
And that was probably a conservative estimate.
- [33:53]
Sara Lomelin
Yes, yes, of course. Because, you know, how, you know, difficult is to, you know, do research. Right, right. So, you know, there was this momentum. So when they approached Victoria, Victoria said, yes, you know, here, $25,000. Get some people together. At the end of 2017, we got about 40 people in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the middle of winter, because you have to, you know, you have to stretch $25,000 to get 40 people for a couple of days. And I met Isis Kraus, our chief strategy officer there, because she, first of all, she has been the consultant that literally put all the architecture behind Amplifier. And she was brought to facilitate that, you know, meeting with given circle leaders. So after those two days, we were discussing, there were some networks that were very sophisticated. Like in that case, you know, the impact 100, when this tail was there, Philanos was very sophisticated. There were some networks that were not really a network. You know, there were a group of three giving circles. So there was a very diverse group of people. And after the two days, we went back to Victoria and we said, we need something as a movement. We need something, but we don't know yet what we need. We need more time and we need more resources. And we want to do this in true Giving circle style. We want to embark in a full year of a co design project. We're going to involve a lot more than the 40 people. And it's not feasible to have 40 people leading this. So we were going to have a core group of six, and then we are going to have working groups and involve more than 100 people in this funders, academics, researchers, giving Circle leaders, Giving circle members, like everybody. So Victoria said, okay, let's do this. She gave us $250,000 and it was a challenge grant. So we raised an extra 170,000 and I was part of that core group.
- [36:21]
Unknown
What was the argument you made to the other funders? I mean, it's one thing to have a challenge that's helpful. You'd already gathered these people together. You could point to the statistics from 2016. But what was the argument you made for giving circles at that point and the need to coordinate them and to raise money to do that?
- [36:38]
Sara Lomelin
Very good point. Because until that up to that point, the, the only, you know, big funder that had been behind collective giving and giving circles had been the Kellogg Foundation. The Kellogg foundation has been funding this kind of work for decades under different names. Right. I think it was phases of giving now, you know, I was part also Latino Community foundation was part of the catalyzing community giving where I met Hallie and I met Marsha from Community Investment Network. Eight people as part of that. So the Kellogg foundation was the only funder there. But also at that point there were also these conversations about Kellogg trying to, you know, kind of move away for that work because let's face it, and this is very sad and I have, you know, I'm not, I'm never going to get tired to make this argument. Big P Philanthropy doesn't see the value of, of educating everyday donors and giving circles. Most of giving circles members are everyday donors. And a lot of the big foundations want to focus on an ultra high net, well, donor on the giving pleasures on the blah, blah, blah. And they, they do not see the value of everyday donors. So, you know, the moment that the Gates foundation said yes, it was like another big check mark, like, oh, there's another big funder like finding value in this. So with that argument saying we are not newbies in this, right? We have been given circle networks that already exist and function. But what we want to do in this very decentralized movement, because the beauty of the movement movement is that it's totally decentralized, right? It's like distributed leadership. But we need something just to be able to have a little bit of economies of scale, right? Not as you know, the big funders were not funding individual giving circles or individual giving circle networks. We said we want to put together a plan. And we don't know if the plan is going to be a website, it's going to be a couple of PDFs or it's going to be an organization. But we want to just research what is needed, what is the Appetite from the field and different players in the field about this. So the Lodestar foundation was the first one that came up to give us some money for that challenge grant. And then we had an individual donor and then Kellogg and a few other donors. So we got to that challenge grant. At that point, I was not at Latino Community foundation anymore. I was working for Opportunity Fund. But I spoke with Jacqueline Garcelle, my boss at the time, and I said, jacqueline, either you or Masha Cherniak, the VP of programs, have to take this on because if we're not there, there is no Latino voice at the table. And I knew that Jacqueline nor Masha had the bandwidth to do it. And I said, you know what, Nevermind, I'll do it as a volunteer. No one has to pay me, but Latinos have to be represented there. So it was so funny because we were having these two hour calls every couple of weeks, weeks, like at 7 in the morning, because all of us had like full time jobs. But we were doing this kind of in our volunteer time. And it was such an incredible process because as I was telling you, we had working groups, we had surveys, we had hundreds of hours of zoom calls before Zoom was popular. Like literally no one knew about Zoom. And we were having zoom calls. This was 2019. And we finished the process at the Gates foundation with a room of 90 people and hundreds of post it notes all over the walls. And then ISIS put beauty into that chaos. And we used to meet every few months around Halle's kitchen table just to give shape to all of this. We went back to the Gates foundation with a business plan for a five year initiative. It didn't have a name. It was the Backbone Infrastructure Project. Like what a horrible name, right? Like that's, that's our grand, like our grand name is that.
- [41:54]
Unknown
And this is, this is 2019.
- [41:56]
Sara Lomelin
You said this is 2019. So in the summer of 2019, we went back to Victoria and we said, okay, this is a plan. We want to create this initiative that is going to be very nimble, kind of like an innovation lab. And we are going to try different things to see if we can supercharge the American Giving Circle movement under four different strategic areas. We're going to showcase, scale, strengthen and sustain the movement. So showcase and scale is to bring new people into giving circles, right? We want to literally take the megaphone and just like we want everybody to know what a given circle is. We want to start new giving circles, you know, with more diverse communities. We want more like younger people, religious minorities, you know, cross class, cross race. Like, we really want to start more giving circles that are diverse, that really, you know, bring younger people, religious minorities, cross class, cross race. Like, we really want giving circles to reflect the beauty of the diversity in the US and then the other two strategic focus areas were strengthen and sustain, and that was to support the existing giving circle movement. So how do we create spaces and communities of practice for the current practitioners in giving circles? So Victoria loved it, and they gave us a seed grant of $2 million to get started.
- [43:41]
Jay Frost
Oh, wow.
- [43:42]
Sara Lomelin
And at that point, you know, we, the team, the core team, you know, split in two. Some of us were raising more money, and then the other half were looking for a search firm to look for the person that was going to lead this initiative. And here comes the joke, because we used to draw, you know, during our meetings around Halle's kitchen table, this little wonder woman that was going to be the charismatic leader of this organization, right? And the joke was always. They always said, like, oh, we hope you don't like your new job, because you should really leave this. And I was like, no, no, no. I'm really liking my new job. And then at some point, I realized, and I need to thank my children for this, because they were the ones who said, mom, what you really, like, are giving circles. Like, that is your passion, and this is your baby. Like, you really need to put your name in the hat, because what is going to happen if someone takes your baby and just, you know, smooshes the baby? Like, no, no, no. You need to put your. Your name in the hat. So I put the name in the hat. My name in the hat. There were incredible people, you know, candidates for the job, and I went through the whole, you know, process, and long story short, I ended up leading what is now philanthropy together, and I have the best job in the world.
- [45:29]
Unknown
Now, this all happened again right at the dawn of the pandemic.
- [45:35]
Sara Lomelin
Yes, yes. So, Jay, imagine this. So I decide to, like, I resigned to my job at Opportunity Fund on end of February. I, you know, I accept the offer for philanthropy together. At the same time, I was going to take. I was going to leave opportunity fund March 15 and have a couple of weeks off before starting philanthropy together. Well, March 13th, the whole world collapsed. And my boss at Opportunity Fund asked me. She said, please, you know, please do not leave until, you know, until I have someone else to take this role. I was doing philanthropy, major gifts. And I said, of course not. I will help you. Like, I will stay. So I had two jobs for Five months. I was literally waking up at, I don't know, 5:30 in the morning, working for three and a half hours in opportunity Fund, working on the weekends on Opportunity Fund, getting philanthropy together. Starting it was ISIS in la and I was in San Francisco. Both of us connecting via Zoom and Slack all day long. And we started from the ground up, like, literally from, okay, we need email addresses, we need to buy. Buy a couple of computers. Like, this was a startup and a startup that we got, you know, up on April 1st of 2020. And the looking back, I know at that point we were like, oh my God, what are we going to do? It was the perfect moment for us to get started because a lot of our audience didn't use technology that much before COVID But with COVID everyone learned how to use Zoom, how to use FaceTime, how to. So it was perfect because our. Our programming was always going to be virtual because we were a national organization. So suddenly, you know, everybody was able to be part of that. And then the very first time that we put the program, we had a couple of guys joining from Germany and a woman in Australia and a woman in Chile and a couple of people from France. And we said, how are these people finding us? Because at that point we had literally like 200 people following us on Facebook and half of them were my cousins in Mexico. So I said, where are they finding us? But people were very hungry, especially, you know, at the beginning of the pandemic to do something. No one wanted to feel helpless. Everybody was, you know, stuck at home feeling, what is mine to give, what can I do? And it was the perfect timing. So at that moment, we just, you know, went back to our mission and we scratch what it says. We're going to democratize and diversify philanthropy through the power of giving circles in the U.S. we just put instead of us, we said global. And we got started. And the only thing that changed from the plan that we put together on paper to what we had to do because of the pandemic was that everything got accelerated. We had built that first few months to really plan and just get things up slowly. And what happened was that we didn't have the privilege of time. We said, okay, no, we need to come up with programming right now. Like, I don't know if you remember, but that was the year when giving Tuesday did GivingTuesday now in May, right? So I was talking with the GivingTuesday team and we said, we'll build a toolkit for giving circles for Giving Tuesday Now. So literally we were starting in April and by March, by, by May, we already have, you know, programming out and you know, the rest. I think you wanted to start with philanthropy together because I feel there's many. All the time I talk about philanthropy together. But these five years have been incredible because that is why I said I have the best job in the world. Every day I get to meet these change makers all over the world.
- [50:31]
Unknown
Sara, as you were talking about this though, it struck me that you were in your. In your home with your kids, probably going to virtual school.
- [50:41]
Sara Lomelin
Yes.
- [50:42]
Unknown
Your husband there, probably working out of the house, and you were working with two organizations starting at 5:30 in the morning every day. How was that experience? I know that this is galvanizing the entire movement and you achieved a lot in a short time, but what was the hardest part of, of setting this thing up for you?
- [51:06]
Sara Lomelin
You know, yes, it was. Now I'm thinking about it and yes it was, it was hard because, you know, even from the very basic things that I had to call AT&T and get, you know, like high speed Internet, like, you know, pronto. Because suddenly, you know. Yes, we had four people because I separated in 2017, so it was just my children and I at that point. But we had four people that were using the Internet all day long. Right. I think it was hard. What was hard? I'm a total extrovert, as you, as you can attest. It was hard not being in an office anymore. But I feel that because it happened to everybody at the same time, I didn't feel it as something that I was just experiencing. It was going to be the reality. My team is all over the US I was never going to have an actual office. So I feel that that is another, you know, if Covid had any silver linings. I feel that feeling that everybody was going through the same thing helped me not feeling isolated. One thing that was, that has been hard is always, you know, the funding. And I am extremely grateful for my funders because we don't have that many funders, but the ones we have, we have such an incredible relationship that is totally based in trust. Most of my grants are general ops because people believe in us, right? People believe in the work that we have done. I cannot be more grateful to Isis Krauss because she is brilliant and from the very get go we have always delivered programs and everything with excellence and with a level of professionalism, but at the same time with authenticity. That I feel that that has been our secret sauce. People feel extremely comfortable with us because we are you know, you asked me at the beginning if there is anything that you don't want to talk about and I told you no. Everything is, you know, everything is, it's on the table. And we lead like that. And when you are living authentically and we, you give yourself permission to be vulnerable, you are giving other people permission to be vulnerable and authentic too. And I think that that has been extremely important. And it's especially, you know, in a relationship with funders. It's important because, you know, I don't want a funder that I'm kind of afraid of telling them, you know, where I'm having challenges. And I think because I have been a grant maker too, like when you don't want your grantees to not be truthful, right? You want to know what are they experiencing. So I am very, very grateful for that. I am extremely grateful for my team. I have an incredible, an incredible hard working team. I'm grateful for all the people that have come along the way in very unexpected ways. Like, you know, our beautiful branding was Don pro bono by a good friend of mine in San Francisco that, you know, at the beginning of COVID he was, you know, literally losing projects. He has this incredibly successful design firm. And he said, I'll do your, your branding pro. I'll do your branding. And I said, I cannot afford to. And he said, I'll do it pro bono because I need a project that is going to excel my team during these very hard times. And I love our branding. And that was beautiful of him. And then I have another friend that reached out and said, hey, I just started this search firm because I want to get more emerging leaders and especially leaders of color in foundations and in nonprofits. And my gift during the pandemic is taking a client pro bono. And I saw that you have a couple of job listings on LinkedIn and I would love to help you find your team. So Kate Bromage found our team pro bono and we had, for one of the positions, Jay, we had 350 resumes and applications, and for the other one it was close to 300. So imagine going through, you know, almost 600 resumes to find two people.
- [56:20]
Unknown
So there's a lot of hunger not just to participate in the circles, but to support the movement of giving circles. And I wonder if that's one of the contrasts that you point to because you've talked several times in this conversation about the difference between the big P philanthropy and the biggest, the circles and their authenticity. I wonder why in the end big philanthropy hasn't Yet I don't think they have yet adopted some of the cultural characteristics of the circles themselves. Is it possible for them to change because of what you're accomplishing, what you're doing here?
- [57:01]
Sara Lomelin
You know, I want to think that, Yes, I want to think. Think that we have, as hard as it has been, we have influenced big philanthropy. A lot of the work that I do is I live on a plane, basically, and thank God this happened, you know, after my kids went to college. But I do go to a lot of philanthropy conferences and speak about, you know, collective giving and especially, you know, giving circles. And a lot of times people look at me and they said, my God, that is so innovative. And I'm like, no, people, it's not. It's not innovative. It's not rocket science. It's literally going back to basics. You said it when you said that, you know, this type of informal philanthropy has been going on for generations, for centuries, all over the world. It's just a matter of going back to basics. I was listening to one of the previous episodes in your podcast, and, you know, there was this conversation around how people are not going to temple or church or, you know, the synagogue or a mosque, that much, and people are not finding those spaces to connect, to find a sense of belonging, to be able to volunteer. And I feel that giving circles are the perfect solution for that, because it's a space where people can find a sense of belonging, can open a space for discourse with people with different perspectives, and learn, again, to debate in a civil way. They can give with trust, and they can give their five T's right? So I want to think that we have influenced big philanthropy. There's a lot to be done, because again, for me, collective giving and especially giving circles and everyday donors is not only about moving more money, but it's about. It's important for our society. We cannot afford to have generations of people that are apathetic and that they don't engage and they are not involved in civic life and in service. Also, right now, what we're seeing in the world and the lack of funding and the freezing funding all over, we need to ignite more everyday people into giving because nonprofits need to diversify their pipeline of funding, and the only way you do it is by growing your base.
- [59:59]
Unknown
That's what I wanted to ask you about, maybe as we get close to the end of this particular conversation. And it's two things. First, with philanthropy together are things today, because they were 1.3 billion for those 20 years before 2016. But it's grown a lot, in part because people see through philanthropy together what is possible, and they can build new circles and they can do these things. So where's the space? But also, in addition to that, what kind of impact do you think this will have on the political and cultural conversation we're going through right now? Because at the time that we're talking, there's a. A lot of consternation about the role of politics and how it may influence philanthropy and culture in general, especially trust. So, you know, where has philanthropy together gone? Where's the circle movement gone? And do you think that it. There's a potential for it to influence some of this negative forces, the negative forces we see in politics and culture?
- [61:06]
Sara Lomelin
Totally. Totally. And, you know, yes, And I'm happy that. I'm so glad, Jay, that you came back to the group growth of the movement, because I completely forgot to say it. And it's, you know, the super exciting part. Right. We commissioned this research that Michael Layton and Adriana Loson Ceballo did a couple of years ago, and it was released last year. And we saw that just in the past six years, the giving struggle movement in the US grew from six 1600 giving circles to more than 4000 giving circles, from involving 150,000 people to involving 370,000 people, and from moving 1.3 billion in 20 years to move 3.1 billion in six years. And this research saw that the movement is poised to double every five years. So this is a. An extremely powerful people power philanthropy movement. Right. And I do believe, I do believe, especially in a time like this when there is so much polarization and division, giving circles can offer again, this space to find, you know, to look people in the eyes, in the eyes to find the humanity of one another, to find what makes us similar instead of being focusing on what separate us. And we see it all over the world, there are giving circles. I know, I have been just talking about the giving circles in the U.S. but the movement is global. We're seeing many giving circles being started in China, in Singapore, in Australia, in Mexico, all over. So I really believe that, you know, and again, going back to. I love this job. If I could do this job for the rest of my life, I will continue doing it because I really believe in this movement, because everybody can be a part of it.
- [63:13]
Jay Frost
Well, that's it for this episode of the PM Podcast. If you would like to learn more about philanthropy together, visit PhilanthropyTogether. Our thanks to our sponsor, Donor Search, the world leader in AI and Donor research for nonprofit fundraising. Our producer is Jack Frost, and our theme music is Moving Out, Moving in by Jay Taylor and is provided courtesy of Epidemic Sound. If you like what you heard, make sure to subscribe wherever you like to listen. Check out our sister shows, Front Lines of Social Good and How to Raise. And come back next weekend for another conversation with a leader in the world of social good. Until then, this is Jay Frost. Thanks for joining me.