EP #126: Rising Together with Kasey Reiter
You can make a profit and make a difference. Each person and each company has their own special skill set that can be used for individual gain and also for the greater good. The most productive of any group has the chance to make the most difference.
Kasey Reiter is a founding partner of Rise Together Ventures, a firm dedicated to social entrepreneurship. They believe that every company has a role to play in human progress and work to seed scaling startups’ impact dreams. Find out how the for-profit world and non-profit world can work together in this episode. Kasey makes it very clear that each is important to maximizing impact. Which every sector you work in, this episode will motivate you to make a difference.
What You'll Learn In Today's Episode:
How Rise Together came to be named
Kasey’s journey from the finance world to venture capital
Why Kasey thinks startups can make a big impact
The mentality of the start-up world
About the philanthropic mirror
How Rise Together invested in companies
About an education project Rise Together is working on
About economic mobility, health and wellness, and sustainability
How Kasey likes to motivate founders for impact
How it’s harder to garner excitement in the early stages
How size allows for more resources
The importance of building a social give-back culture
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“Their solutions are really constrained by their annual budget.” - Kasey Reiter talking about non-profits
“We think that for-profit companies can develop solutions that can scale exponentially.” - Kasey Reiter
“We’re trying to create that connective tissue between the non-profit and for-profit worlds.” - Kasey Reiter
“There’s so much room for companies that are already doing something that somehow adds value.” - Kasey Reiter
“We want everyone to chip in.” - Kasey Reiter
“We can all rise together if we’re just leveraging what we’re individually already good at.” - Kasey Reiter
“I did not set out to start my own venture company.” - Kasey Reiter
“There’s a new term called venture philanthropy.” - Kasey Reiter
“We’re not really totally sure where we want to donate our money to always but we know that we want the tax benefits.” - Kasey Reiter
“How can we also motivate people to move this money off of their balance sheets.” - Kasey Reiter speaking about Donor Advised Funds
“We want to find companies that are in a position to leverage philanthropic capital.” - Kasey Reiter
“We try to be opportunistic in nature.” - Kasey Reiter
“There’s things that non-profits should do and things that for-profits should do.” - Kasey Reiter
“It attracts a different type of personality.” - Kasey Reiter speaking of employment in the non-profit sector and for-profit sector
“How can we make the dollars stretch the most?” - Kasey Reiter
“It’s allowing the social entrepreneurs to emerge.” - Kasey Reiter
“If I were to give you a quarter of a million dollars to use philanthropically, how would you think about deploying that money?” - Kasey Reiter
“It’s really kind of unleashing that social entrepreneur…” - Kasey Reiter
“We’re here to provide catalytic capital to these companies.” - Kasey Reiter
“We hope their impact capabilities will grow along with them.” - Kasey Reiter
“There are so many ways to practice giving back at the early stages.” - Kasey Reiter
“It would be rare for the companies we invest in to not have some type of volunteer one-day-a-year program.” - Kasey Reiter
“Our mission is to really challenge companies.” - Kasey Reiter
“It’s about challenging these CEOs that have so much on their plate.” - Kasey Reiter
“The concept of rising together is probably not something completely new but you all are putting it into action.” - Bob DePasquale
“The most effective organizations have some way of collaborating.” - Bob DePasquale
“You all are being radical in a great way.” - Bob DePasquale speaking about Rise Together
Resources In Today's Episode:
Rise Together - Website
Sasha Dichter - “The Generosity Experiment” Ted Talk
Bob’s Book - Personal Finance in a Public World
This week’s E-Impact Blog Entry
Episodes Referenced:
EP #63: Maximizing Your Philanthropic Impact with Sylvia Brown
EP #70: Building Legacy and Understanding The Family Office with Brian Adams
