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It’s time for a Kennedy-like moonshot in the greater Austin community.Greenlights has just announced a
bold, new vision and is calling on everyone in our community to embrace it:
we believe that our biggest, most complex community problems can (and should) be solved. We believe that those of us in the nonprofit and social impact communities should be aiming at and measuring our progress toward achieving that high target, because, if we don’t, then we certainly won’t get there.For the last two years, Greenlights has undertaken an exhaustive strategic planning process, led by our board, engaging outside assistance, and, more importantly, talking with hundreds of nonprofit, philanthropic, government and business leaders.
You told us that we all need to aim higher, that we need new models of collaboration and innovation, and that we at Greenlights could play a bigger, bolder role in catalyzing social change. The result is a new strategic direction for Greenlights, but more importantly a new vision for the community.We know that a good strategy helps an organization focus on what’s most important. Our new strategy does that, focusing us not just on strengthening nonprofit organizations and their partners, but even more importantly on the populations they serve and the bigger problems they are trying to solve. Our strategy is bold, it’s
outcomes-based,
goal-driven, and, most importantly, it has been
collaboratively developed and, we hope, will be
collectively owned by our partners in the community.We will continue to serve great nonprofit organizations with our consulting, education and membership programs. We will continue to conduct and publish great research that drives data-based decision-making by leaders in our community. On top of that we are:
- Accelerating many of our region’s most breakout-ready nonprofits through our Accelerator program.
- Catalyzing systems change and systems leadership through our emerging collective impact work.
- Engaging philanthropists in exciting, impactful new ways through our Social Venture Partners program.
- Creating new means of financing great missions though our work on Pay for Success and related social impact investing methods.
Our goals are simple and clear. We want the greater Austin community to experience broad prosperity, strength, health and opportunity. We want our most promising community leaders, organizations and entrepreneurs to have access to the best human and financial capital available, to equip them to be the best problem-solvers they can be. And we want Austin to be known around the world as the place where intentional collaboration, impactful social innovation, smart decision-making, and cutting-edge funding drive real problem-solving.Greater Austin experiences significant prosperity, and at the same time persistent and complicated social problems. There has never been a better time for our community to come together. This community is uniquely poised to combine the best from our nonprofit sector, philanthropists, business and government to move the needle on big community problems like never before.We believe it can happen, we are honored to be playing a role in it, and we hope you will choose to join us on this mission.
