PJC interview: Grapevine
PJC Interview with Emily Rasmussen, CEO & Founder of Grapevine
“The freedom of being able to create something that’s new and valuable as well as feeling very connected to your experience and what you care about - I think we should all be fortunate to have that in our lives.”
- Emily Rasmussen, CEO & Founder of Grapevine
About Grapevine: Grapevine is a modern home for giving. The platform helps groups, like families, employees, alumni, and more come together in Giving Circles to pool their donations, discover nonprofits, and give back together. You can learn more about Grapevine or start your own giving circle by visiting their website here: https://www.grapevine.org/
About Emily: Emily is the Founder and CEO of Grapevine. She has over 10 years of experience within Microfinance, crowdfunding, nonprofit and social enterprise leadership. Formerly 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. Emily is a member of the board of the Harvard Business School Women’s Association of New York, 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. Connect with Emily on LinkedIn.
What motivated her to start Grapevine: Emily’s motivation for Grapevine came from her experience within community based financing and her interest in developing a more engaged experience within the crowdfunding movement. After studying Microfinance as an undergrad, Emily worked on various Microfinance models in countries across the globe from India and China to Mexico and Kenya. As technology and crowdfunding movements gained momentum so did Emily’s interest in how it could amplify the opportunities around community financing. After attending business school and working at the Lincoln Center she really saw how some philanthropists were being underserved in this area of crowdfunding and she saw an opportunity to help unlock additional funds for nonprofits by creating a more purposeful giving experience for donors. Through this idea and concept of collaborative giving came Grapevine, which is a platform for group giving that supports Giving Circles, funder groups, and more.
On her experience with PJC: “PJC has been super supportive and respectful. What’s great is that they understand and value your time as a founder. Every touch point with PJC has been around how they can add value.”
Q&A with Emily Rasmussen
What is a giving circle?
The simple way to describe it is a group of people that come together to pool their donations and then decide together where to give the total amount. Usually giving circles will donate at some recurring cadence, such as each month or quarter, or year, whatever makes sense for the group. There are also pop up giving circles and event-based giving circles, which can be fun for team meetings, offsites for donor engagement events, and more. The idea of the model though is that it’s community driven. For example, a group of donors within a particular community may come together and create a giving circle and will decide later where they want to donate their money.
How does the process of where to pool funds typically work?
The process of deciding where to send funds varies quite a bit. However, one popular model right now is having 100 people each contribute $100 and then come together every quarter to decide on the non-profit to receive the funding. So, say a group has a $10,000 check to give away, the members of the group can nominate different nonprofits for consideration and then ultimately three are selected by the group for members to pitch. The pitch event is typically on zoom these days, but can be in person where members will hear the three pitches and learn why the member cares about this organization, why the funding is needed, and can ask questions. After each pitch there is a vote and whoever wins receives the check. Another great part of this event is that many times the group will bring the grantee from the previous cycle to talk about what they did with the money from the previous quarter. They'll often share a video and imagery and explain how the grant has helped them in the last 3 months. This recurring community model is a great way to feel super connected to that impact, and not only be able to receive updates but also ask questions. Another great aspect of giving circles is that a lot of them are location-based. So you can have a giving circle called “100 Women Who Care Nashville, Tennessee,” and women from across Nashville are coming together and connecting while also supporting important causes or issues right there within their community. So they're often smaller, more local organizations, and this allows them to actually say drive by and see the amazing park, memorial, etc that they helped build in a community or that soup kitchen that the group supported to launch, whatever it is, and that impact becomes very tangible.
What other kinds of giving circles have you seen gaining momentum?
We have seen more and more giving circles that are caused based. I think with technology the concept of community is broadening and so we have groups like “Black Trans Lives Thrive” and the “Bi-Visibility Fund” and racial justice groups popping up more. These community groups are not always just rooted in location, but that concept of community is still really strong for building bonds between the organization and the donors.
You recently announced the launch of the first ever Global Giving Circle Directory, can you tell me a bit more on what that means?
The Global Giving Circle Directory is the first-ever directory of all giving circles that we know of globally and what that means is that now there is actually a place where you can go to search for a giving circle near you or a giving circle that is supporting a cause or community that you care about and you might want to join. Then on the other side, if you're a non-profit, you can find a giving circle that you think might be a fit for your organization to reach out to for a potential grant. You could also just have fun browsing these different groups of people doing amazing things and get inspired to start your own giving circle. We’re also launching an embeddable version so it can be embedded on many other donor platforms. It’s a great way to introduce the giving circle model to donors and to give them an easy way to join groups or start their own.
What are you most excited about with Grapevine right now?
I'm really excited about the overall movement and how it's taking off right now. Today, for example, is the inaugural launch of the We Give Summit, which is the first-ever global convening of giving circles and philanthropists. And just a few weeks ago we launched the first-ever global giving circle directory. It’s events like these that are really exciting to be a part of and shows how the movement is growing. We also receive frequent requests to talk at various conferences or introduce giving circles to a broader audience and so even though a lot of the work to date for us has been focused on building tools to support existing giving circles, the next phase that we are super excited about is taking this model and our tools to a much broader community for it to be adopted. Groups such as alumni associations, book groups, friends and family groups, etc.
Where do you see Grapevine going in the next few years?
Our goal is to move a billion dollars across the platform in 2025. We want to do that by capturing the majority of the existing giving circle community and bringing them onto the platform. But also, as I mentioned, dramatically expanding from that. We have our work cut out for us but it's an exciting movement and I think it’s possible. One other thing is as we are building these tools for individual giving groups, we are also finding how these groups want to connect with each other as well. So we have a broader vision of a global social giving platform.
What has been the most challenging aspect about starting your own company?
We often hear how founders need that big vision and to see the gaps, which is all very true, and exciting but then translating that into something real, and something specific and tangible has probably been the most challenging piece for me. I also didn’t come from a tech background so there has been a lot of learning and navigating which has had its challenges. However, things start to fall into place and you figure it out, but that starting point can be a bit messy at first.
What has been the best piece of business advice you have received?
I don't know if this is business advice but what comes to mind is what an advisor recently said to me, which was, ‘you might as well bet on yourself.’ It was in response to hedging bets and when you might question yourself, Should I do this? Should I do that? And there are so many unknowns, but in the end, you might as well bet on yourself, which I found helpful.
What has been the worst piece of business advice you have received?
I don’t have an example of bad advice but I will say something I wouldn’t recommend, which is asking for business advice from the wrong people. I did that early on when I talked to people who weren't in the startup space and had different frameworks that they brought to my ideas along with a lot of feedback that I probably overvalued at that point and now have debunked. So I’d say to be really thoughtful about who you're getting advice from because early on you could get sidelined with people who don't understand it and for their own reasons don’t trust or believe in it. You have to just trust and believe in yourself at that point which can be difficult at first, but worth it.
What is the most rewarding aspect/or what are you most proud of about starting your own company?
It’s amazing to see how everything starts to develop beyond your initial idea and extend beyond what you thought or imagined. I feel very grateful for that whole opportunity. The flexibility and the freedom of being able to create something that’s new and valuable as well as feeling very connected to your experience and what you care about - I think we should all be fortunate to have that in our lives.
This interview was conducted on May 4, 2021.