GreenLight Fund argues nonprofits need infrastructure to scale proven programs
Venture capitalist Dan Cardinali of GreenLight Fund says philanthropy funds new pilots instead of helping proven nonprofits reach more communities, and describes a model that builds local infrastructure once to bring successful solutions to multiple cities.
Roughly 35 million Americans lived below the poverty line in 2024, a threshold of about $32,000 a year for a family of four. Expanding the measure to families earning up to twice that level, roughly $64,000 for a family of four, pushes the number of Americans struggling to afford housing, childcare, healthcare and groceries past 100 million, nearly one-third of the population. In a guest essay for Fortune, the head of the GreenLight Fund argues that the nonprofit sector has a scaling problem: promising programs stay confined to the communities where they started, while donors keep funding new pilots.
The author writes that extraordinary nonprofits are developing solutions to these challenges across the country, yet a program that transforms lives in one community rarely reaches the hundreds of others that could benefit from it. Philanthropists often fund new initiatives without realizing that a proven solution already exists elsewhere. The core issue, he argues, is that philanthropy is largely organized around supporting local organizations rather than helping successful ones expand nationally. He maintains that the two approaches should not be an either-or choice but should work together.
The essay draws on his 26 years in venture capital, including time as co-founder and former co-managing partner of General Catalyst Partners and as co-managing partner of Sigma Prime Ventures. He contrasts the business world with the nonprofit sector. In venture capital, he writes, growth generates revenue, which attracts investment, which fuels further growth. Airbnb, which began in San Francisco and used investment to enter new markets, is his example. Nonprofits, by contrast, must raise enough money to sustain their operations but rarely generate the extra revenue needed for rapid expansion, and they lack investors willing to fund growth in anticipation of future profits.
He describes his own experience to illustrate the problem. While studying at Oxford, he founded Kids Enjoy Exercise Now, known as KEEN, to provide recreational opportunities for children with disabilities. He later co-founded the Steppingstone Foundation in Boston to expand educational opportunities for underserved students. Both organizations, he writes, had the potential to serve far more communities, but expansion was extraordinarily difficult. Every new city meant starting almost from scratch, finding local funders, building relationships and securing resources. KEEN eventually reached eight U.S. cities and Steppingstone three. He stresses that the obstacle was not a lack of ambition or demand, but the absence of a revenue stream from one city that could finance the next.
That experience led to the idea behind GreenLight Fund, which he presents as a model that builds local infrastructure once and then uses it to help multiple proven organizations expand. In each city the fund operates, it works over the course of a year with local leaders, government officials and other stakeholders to identify the community's most pressing unmet needs. It then searches the country for a proven solution that addresses the greatest gap and works with local partners to bring it in, providing funding, relationships and public-sector partnerships. He describes the process as one in which the community pulls in the solution rather than having it pushed on them. By doing this groundwork in advance, he writes, GreenLight can help an organization establish itself in a new city in six months to a year, instead of years of relationship-building on its own. The fund also helps connect organizations with local revenue streams such as school systems, government agencies and other community partners.
He summarizes the approach as building railroad tracks that other nonprofits can travel on. According to the essay, GreenLight now operates in 15 cities, soon to be 18, with another 10 to 15 communities waiting. Its latest annual impact report cites 71 nonprofit investments that reached 1.6 million individuals and families in a single year and unlocked more than $450 million in follow-on funding. Looking ahead, he writes that at the current pace the organization projects being in more than 28 cities within 10 years, with over 250 additional nonprofit solutions reaching close to 10 million children and families annually.
The author concludes that the problem is less a shortage of money than how philanthropic resources are deployed. Funding an individual program can change lives in one community, he writes, while investing in the infrastructure to bring proven programs to new communities can multiply that impact for decades. He is careful to say this is not the failure of any individual donor or nonprofit, since local philanthropists are doing what they are supposed to do. He calls for more funders willing to invest in the infrastructure that lets proven solutions expand, and more community leaders willing to look beyond their own backyards for answers. New ideas will always be necessary, he acknowledges, but before funding another pilot, donors should consider whether a proven solution already exists.
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