A Small Step and A Giant Leap

Growing up, my father was always solving something. That’s how I understood his work at NASA: a series of very specific problems to be solved, one after the other. A propulsion model that needed tweaking. A calculation that wasn’t adding up. A new material that was too heavy. In my mind, he was hyper-focused on the problem immediately in front of him.

What I didn’t see as clearly at the time were the links between those immediate problems and the extraordinarily long-term vision that was animating him. Just before he retired from NASA two decades ago, I saw him give a presentation on the future of aerospace. Among other things, he mentioned that personal flying vehicles (like in the Jetsons!) would be commonplace in the short term. When I asked him what he meant by short term, he said that NASA considers the short term to be within the next 50 years.

It dawned on me that he had always been doing two things at once. He had been envisioning a long-term future that wasn’t yet close to existing—maybe not even imaginable by most people— and, at the same time, he and his colleagues were taking small steps toward it every day. They weren’t predicting the future of aerospace. They were imagining what it could look like and then taking steps to build it.

There’s something profound in that approach. In the social impact sector, we often say that systems change is generational work. Yet our timelines, our funding cycles, and even our measures of success rarely play out on that scale. And navigating the challenges of today leaves little space for looking out past the horizon. What my father’s work taught me is that the short term and the long term are not in competition. They are the same work, seen at different scales. The question is whether we have the courage to hold both, and to ask ourselves:

What is required of us today in order to create the future we desire?

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I’m stepping into the role of CEO at New Profit at a time when the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors are at an inflection point. Organizations of all sizes, stages, and models face significant challenges today: fundraising volatility, policy headwinds, increased demand for services. We are also living through the largest economic, technological, and demographic transition of our lifetimes. The communities our social entrepreneurs serve—communities that were already navigating systems not built for them—are feeling that disruption first and hardest. That is not background context but the problem that is in front of us. 

And yet, this inflection point also presents us with a window through which to reimagine, redesign, and rebuild the systems around us. At its best, philanthropy is not reactive but catalytic. It resources the present while investing in the future. That has never felt more relevant than it does today. 

The name New Profit was built on the idea that we needed a new social sector that could combine the strategy and rigor of business with the purpose and vision of nonprofits. We have been successful as a venture philanthropy organization precisely because we exist at the intersection of today and tomorrow. 

Today, we ask ourselves how we can best support leaders and organizations navigating this moment. Over the past year, we offered accelerated disbursements to maximize flexibility for organizations in our portfolio; we launched a new cohort in direct response to feedback from alumni; and we deployed nearly $19 million in unrestricted funding to 30 organizations working across education, economic mobility, democracy, and beyond.

Looking to the future, we ask ourselves: What do we want the world to look like, and what steps can we take today to build it? That question requires us to dream out loud, to name hypotheses and test them, and to invest boldly in what we believe is coming rather than wait for the field to catch up. This is how transformational change happens, and it happens in close relationship with donors, social entrepreneurs, and the communities we aim to serve.

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Nearly ten years ago, Bryan Stevenson encouraged us to see proximity as expertise and that those closest to the challenges are also closest to the solutions. We applied that thinking to our investment approach and under Tulaine Montgomery’s leadership, we launched the Proximate Capital Fund. A decade later and that initial idea now has become part of our DNA.

More recently, we heard from social entrepreneurs in our community that the funding cliff in philanthropy was real. In partnership with our donor community, we started to explore how we could build a bridge for nonprofits that were on the precipice of societal-level scale. That led us to pilot our Transform Investments vehicle, which is now a major component of our investment strategy.

You cannot build a future you haven’t first allowed yourself to imagine. As Alice Walker said, “Look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look like the future you are dreaming.” 

To be effective across both the present and the future, we operate at the intersection of invention, intentionality, and community. 

Invention: We are not trying to predict the future; we are working to create it. We experiment and iterate, place bold bets on leaders and ideas, and anticipate what is needed to drive meaningful, lasting change. Insight comes in more than one form, including from data, research, and from the experience of those closest to the work. Both shape what we do and how we do it.

Intentionality: We are deliberate, rigorous, and structured in how we invest and innovate, because we are clear on what we are trying to achieve. We utilize a set of practices that center proximity in our investment selection and support processes, ensuring our stance translates into real action. We embed continuous learning and improvement into our work. And we remain diligent about unearthing and addressing our blind spots.

Community: We believe proximity is the key to real change, and it is embedded in every aspect of our approach. Our core capability is bringing people together to co-design solutions, whether through our investment selection or convenings. To engage with New Profit is to be part of a diverse and action-oriented community of social entrepreneurs, donors, and ecosystem leaders. That is and will always be the beating heart of New Profit. 

What makes these three things powerful is not only where they intersect, but the productive tension between them. Invention connects Community to our ambition to the full scale of what’s possible. Intentionality keeps Invention focused, effective, and purpose-driven. Community keeps Intentionality grounded in our shared humanity. We need all three in the room when we’re dreaming and building, or we end up with something that works on paper but not out in the world.

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My father never described his work as balancing the immediate against the long term. That framing wouldn’t have made sense to him. Every calculation he ran, every material constraint he solved was all part of the same work. There was no separation between the problem in front of him and the mission on the horizon. He held both as a single practice.

That’s the orientation I bring to this work, and I believe it is what this moment is asking of all of us: to take a small step and a giant leap at the same time. Every organization that finds a way to thrive and serve more people through this period of turbulence is doing both. Every social entrepreneur who builds greater trust in their community in this moment of polarization is doing both. Every funder who stays invested through uncertainty and volatility is doing both.

A small step and a giant leap. That is how you get to the moon.