Announcing our newest way to amplify impact: The Grapevine Giving Foundation

Grapevine is the only platform dedicated to Giving Circles. ​​We help like-minded people come together to connect, pool their donations, discover nonprofits, and make a collective impact. We have facilitated nearly $20M to more than 2,000 small, local nonprofits across the country from over 40,000 Giving Circle members. Our free online platform provides over 800 Giving Circles with the charitable infrastructure that enables their members to connect with each other, make donations, get charitable tax receipts, discover small nonprofits, learn about philanthropy, nominate and vote on nonprofits, and more.

While the free Grapevine.org platform serves as the online home for Giving Circles, Grapevine has also recently launched the Grapevine Giving Foundation to further Grapevine’s mission to support and scale the collective giving movement that is democratizing and diversifying philanthropy.

The Giving Circle movement has been around since the early 1980’s in the United States, but its growth has been rapidly accelerating over the past few years with the continued support of giving circle networks like 100 Who Care Alliance, Amplifier, Community Investment Network, Philanos, and more, as well as the more recent launch of industry-wide Giving Circle support organizations like Philanthropy Together and Grapevine.

We started our work by launching Giving Circles on Grapevine in March 2020. We wanted to help giving circles that were jumping through hoops to pool their donations, communicate with members, provide tax-deductible donation receipts, and more. Our platform was designed in collaboration with giving circles to address all of these challenges and to provide groups with an online home during a period where Covid-19 meant most could no longer meet in person to do their work. Since then, we have effectively brought the movement online and have democratized access to this high impact form of giving by making it easy for anyone to find, start, or join a giving circle in minutes.

Together with various Giving Circle networks, leaders and partners, Grapevine has been able to help support and modernize the Giving Circle model and raise much greater awareness for the movement. One particularly exciting moment this past year was the launch of this inspiring TED Talk on Giving Circles, delivered by our friend and partner, Sara Lomelin, CEO of Philanthropy Together.

The Grapevine Giving Foundation is the new 501.c.3 public charity (EIN #87-2389502) organization associated with Grapevine.

Previously, Grapevine worked with a 501.c.3 nonprofit fiscal sponsor to enable it to pool charitable donations for giving circles, provide donors with charitable tax receipts, and then grant those funds to nonprofits chosen by the groups. With the newly established Grapevine Giving Foundation, the platform will continue this work through the foundation, enabling a faster and improved process for receiving and granting donations. The foundation will also support the broader Giving Circle movement by helping to raise and distribute philanthropic gifts to provide additional seed funding, donation matching opportunities, and more for Giving Circles.

Like Grapevine, the purpose of the Grapevine Giving Foundation is to support and scale the collective giving movement that is democratizing and diversifying philanthropy. We are doing this by further collaborating with Grapevine and other Giving Circle and philanthropy partners to support the launch of new Giving Circles across the country and around a broad range of cause areas and networks. Beyond the launch, we are helping to facilitate charitable donations, train leaders, build community capacity to facilitate and adapt these new giving circles to their own context and purpose, and support the learning and experience for new members.

The Grapevine Giving Foundation will expand upon our work building a more diverse, community-driven, and collaborative future of philanthropy by enabling us to further:

1. Democratize and diversify the philanthropy sector by inviting and enabling a broad range of new people to join and start giving circles across racial/ethnic backgrounds, economic, industry, and functional experience;
2. In collaboration with partners like Philanthropy Together, recruit, train, and support diverse leadership teams to thoughtfully facilitate Giving Circles locally and across cause areas;
3. Expand awareness and understanding of effective philanthropic strategies and best practices;
4. Catalyze a culture of belonging within communities by fostering connection and collaboration through the identification of shared goals and causes to give back to as a collective;
5. Facilitate a broader community of support and connection across giving circles through peer support groups, social and educational events, and more;
6. Amplify the impact of these diverse groups by providing them with donation matching funds. Every $1 in matching funds can generate more than $40 in donations from and for communities across the country, according to the results from our $100K pilot fund in 2021.

Grapevine launched over 200 new giving circles in 2022 and engaged more than 12,000 new giving circle members who collectively donated $700,000. The foundation will help Grapevine to launch thousands more giving circles by 2024. Through this work, we expect to support more than 6,000 nonprofit organizations across the country, facilitate meaningful learning about philanthropy and connections between 100,000 new members we recruit into the movement, and set off significant ripple effects of impact for years to come from the recurring donations these members will give into the future and the viral growth these new members will propel by spreading the word and growing the movement. Grapevine is on track to move $100 million in donations from giving circles on its platform by 2024.

Clive Chang

Founder’s Circle Member

Clive Chang is Executive Vice President, Chief Advancement & Innovation Officer for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. In this capacity, he oversees fundraising, strategic partnerships, and innovation programs for the world’s pre-eminent performing arts complex—home to 11 world class arts organizations across its 16-acre campus. He had previously served as Director, Strategy & Business Development (2012-14) and Special Assistant to the President (2011-12). From 2014 to 2019, Mr. Chang was Director, Strategy & Business Development for Disney Theatrical Group, where he led strategic planning and growth initiatives for Disney’s commercial live entertainment businesses worldwide. During his tenure, Mr. Chang established Disney’s new stage-to-screen business, including the digital capture and distribution deals for NEWSIES (2016) and ALADDIN (2019).

Jessan Hutchison-Quillian

Founder’s Circle Member

Jessan is an engineering leader, executive coach, and founder of MTGenerosity.com. Previously, he worked for Google where he helped build Google’s video chat products, co-founded Google’s Giving Week, and led their giving platform. Jessan combines engineering leadership with more than a decade of experience in the nonprofit space, including chairing Social Justice Fund NW, a network of giving circles in the pacific northwest.

Scott Jackson

Founder’s Circle Member

Scott Jackson is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Global Impact. A global development, fundraising and marketing professional with more than 20 years of experience, Jackson provides leadership, direction and oversight for all aspects of the organization, which has raised almost $2 billion for charitable causes since inception. He’s the author of the 2017 book “Take Me With You,” which was rereleased with new content in 2021. Previously, Jackson served as Vice President for External Relations at PATH, as Senior Vice President of World Vision US and as President of APCO Seattle. He sits on boards and advisory councils of several nonprofits. Jackson received a Master of Business Administration from the University of Edinburgh. He also holds a bachelor’s degree and an honorary doctorate from the University of Puget Sound.

Sara Lomelin

Founder’s Circle Member

Sara Lomelin is the founding CEO of Philanthropy Together (PhT), a 5-year global initiative to grow and strengthen the global giving circle movement. She is also credited with starting the Latino Giving Circle Network (LGCN), which has become the largest network of Latinx Philanthropists in the United States. Sara has trained hundreds of individuals in 12 countries. Her innovative thought leadership on Giving Circles has been featured in Newsweek, ForbesWomen, SSIR, Alliance Magazine, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and at high-profile conferences including TED, Netroots Nation and Unity Summit. Sara’s small but mighty team of disruptors at PhT is on a mission to grow the collective giving movement to boost civic engagement, resource grassroots nonprofits, shift power dynamics, and promote widespread philanthropy.

Jonah Nigh

Director & Founder’s Circle Member

Jonah Nigh is the Senior Vice President of Development and Alumni Engagement at The New School. In this role, Jonah leads The New School’s strategic fundraising, institutional advancement, alumni engagement, corporate, and foundation relations. Before this, he worked for the Jewish Museum, where he served as the Director of Major Gifts, Senior Director of Individual Giving, and Acting Deputy Director of Development before being appointed Chief Development Officer. Other prior development roles include positions at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Columbia University, Opera America, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has served as speaker, talent, emcee, moderator, or panelist for NBC, Peacock TV, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, NYC Pride March, Association of Fundraising Professionals, The Aspen Leadership Group, Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design, Development Debrief and DonorScape podcasts, Con Edison Musicians’ Residency Program, Columbia Business School, Florida State University, Lawrence University, The Jewish Museum, The New School, Phi Sigma Pi National Convention, among other organizations. In 2019, he was appointed to Bronx Community Board Four by former Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and served on its executive and economic development committees.

Michael Pace

Founder’s Circle Member

Michael Pace is the Founder, President and Executive Director of Social Good Fund, a fiscal sponsor organization which helps people start and operate charitable projects throughout the US. He has over 20 years of experience in managing both non-profit and for-profit organizations, and has worked on a range of issues, including environmental justice, youth development, municipal programming, and urban health. Additionally, Michael has served as a board member for several nonprofit organizations over the last 10 years. He has been honored to serve on the boards of: Niroga Institute, Your Special Child Development Center, Swan School, and Jefferson Community Foundation.

Emily Rasmussen

Founder & Chairman

Emily Rasmussen is the Founder and CEO of Grapevine, a collective giving platform. She was the founding Executive Director of NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, launched the Lincoln Center at the Movies global media initiative, and developed innovative financing models for impact at Enterprise Solutions to Poverty. Emily has consulted on event cinema for Disney Theatrical Group, taught Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship at SUNY Purchase, and spent two years developing microfinance and fair trade programs in India. She is a board member of the Harvard Business School Women’s Association, a member of the LISC Emerging Leaders Council, the AfterArts group, NOVA Impact, and a founding member of UNTITLED, an arts & business innovation initiative. Previously, she was a professional ballet dancer and performed with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, among others. Emily holds a B.A. from Occidental College in Diplomacy, World Affairs, and Economics and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Danielle Schiffman

Secretary & Founder’s Circle Member

Danielle Schiffman heads business and legal affairs for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. As the Associate General Counsel, Senior Director of Business and Legal Affairs, her work touches on all legal and strategic aspects of the organization, from new artistic commissions to performances seen on-stage and on-screens, to educational, innovation and accessibility initiatives, to venue and in-house operations. Danielle oversees the center’s television series Live From Lincoln Center and led its first efforts to bring content to cinemas and streaming platforms around the world – overseeing the launch of Lincoln Center at the Movies and Lincoln Center at Home during the COVID-19 pandemic. As Lincoln Center continues to experiment with new mediums and technologies to achieve its core mission of making art accessible for all, Danielle is responsible for designing and structuring novel partnerships that address the challenges and opportunities of new platforms and business models – balancing artists’ rights with revenue and reach. She received her JD from Georgetown Law and graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University.

Do you want to support Grapevine and amplify your impact through the power of tens of thousands of donors across the country in hundreds of giving circles? Support Grapevine’s work by donating to the Grapevine Giving Foundation! Your donation will help us to launch new giving circles, train new giving circle leaders, provide matching donations to help giving circles to get started and grow, and much more!

If you’d prefer to be in touch directly about your gift and how you can support us, please email us at gifts@grapevine.foundation.