At SmartJob, we have reached a new milestone, launching the donor counseling experience for new “donor pools” to the SmartJob Fund at ImpactAssets’ Donor Advised Fund. Donor pool members work together to make decisions about catalytic investment and philanthropic opportunities in a small group, under the guidance and counseling of the SmartJob team.
After beta testing this new feature of our platform during the first half of this year, we have observed the power of a diverse small group of donors coming together in common cause to close the disability wealth gap, while we at SmartJob source deals and opportunities to build meaningful change in the disability market, provide strategic insight, and measure the impact. It’s been thrilling!
Here’s what we know so far: we have learned that when donors unite together to pool and invest their philanthropic assets, they have access not just to a dynamic experience, but also to a collective scale and powerful set of insights often out of reach if they sought to invest in impact opportunities individually. This democratizes impact investing, allowing more people to participate at a range of contribution levels, and it unlocks the considerable possibility for learning and change in donors, investees, and grantees. Together, we are building an ecosystem and community for disability innovation.
Individual donors can approach SmartJob with a target area of disability impact that they are passionate about (i.e. investing in entrepreneurs with autism or the next generation of blind technology), or alternatively, donor pools can be groups interested in investing and philanthropic opportunities across SmartJob’s areas of impact to close the disability wealth gap (i.e. circles of friends or family, alumni clubs, corporate ERGs or affinity groups). If one is not already a part of a group, SmartJob can pair donors with a pool.
How it works is quite simple: individuals donate their tax-deductible philanthropic dollars to the SmartJob Fund at ImpactAssets, are brought together in a multi-donor pool, and start impact investing (and making grants) as a small group as soon as the total pooled capital reaches $300,000 across no more than 10 pool members.
SmartJob just released a short informational video that you can view here (and, an Audio Described version is here). If you want to learn more, visit www.smartjob.net, and if you're ready to start your journey with us, you can donate via credit card here. For more information as to how to transfer money via ACH or between DAFs, please email comms@smartjob.net.
The information contained within this blog post is not a solicitation to buy or sell securities, nor a private placement offering. It describes charitable donations, and charitable activities that may be undertaken therewith. The investment activity that is described is made from the donor pool to charitably oriented, social purpose investments that do not accrue financial benefit to donors other than the potential tax deduction for the donation.