Educate · Capital Changes Systems

Training for Foundations, Family Offices, and DAF Holders

Solidarity economy and restorative finance training that makes your capital strategy visible: so your values and your capital move in the same direction.

Align Your Capital Lunch N Learn Capital Alignment Intensive

60Minute Lunch N Learn to open the conversation

6Real-world cases of capital changing systems

4Day capital alignment intensives, built to support foundation strategic planning

5Principles of the solidarity economy, applied to your capital

Overview Lunch N Learn Capital Alignment Intensive Align Your Capital

Training for foundations, family offices & DAF holders

Do you really know where your capital is going, and what impact it’s making?

Most foundations believe their capital is doing transformative work. Most find a gap between their stated values and their capital strategy that is larger than they expected. These two sessions make that gap visible and turn it into a strategic opportunity.

STEP 1

Lunch N Learn

One hour. A new mental model of capital as a systems lever, with six real-world cases.

STEP 2

Capital Alignment Intensive

A 1–4 day deep dive that supports your strategic planning process, mapping your actual capital deployment against four frameworks.

STEP 3 · OPTIONAL

Implementation support

Ongoing consulting to put your alignment priorities into practice.

Align Your Capital

Step 1 · Lunch N Learn

Capital Changes Systems: a one-hour paid session

Grounds participants in the Solidarity Economy framework, walks through five practice groups, and overlays six real-world cases to show exactly how capital creates systemic change. Then it opens a harder question: is your capital doing the same?

60-minute program

0:00–0:10Opening: Capital Changes Systems

Most funders think about impact in terms of what they fund. Today we look at how the structure and deployment of capital itself changes, or entrenches, entire systems.

0:10–0:20The SE framework: principles & practice groups

Five principles and five practice arenas where the solidarity economy already exists. This is not theory. It is already here.

0:20–0:45Six cases across the SE spectrum

One real-world example per practice area, each demonstrating a different capital lever. For each: where does the capital come from, who carries the risk, who captures the value?

0:45–0:54What connects them all

Capital did not just fund solutions. It changed incentives, ownership, access, and the rules shaping entire systems. Which practice areas is your institution engaging, and which levers are missing?

0:54–1:00The closing question

“Do you really know where your capital is going, and what impact it’s making?” If the answer isn’t a confident yes, there is a next step: the Capital Alignment Intensive.

The five principles

According to the Institute for Social Ecology. They form the evaluative lens for every case.

Solidarity. Cooperation, mutualism, altruism

Equity. Across race, gender, class, disability

Democracy. People have a real, direct say

Sustainability. Honoring the rights of Mother Earth

Pluralism. Many paths to the same end

Where it already exists

Source: US Solidarity Economy Network / RIPESS. Select a practice group.

Worker co-ops, care work, community gardens, mutual aid, skill shares

Social currencies, time banks, fair trade, swap meets, gifting, sharing

Credit unions, peer lending, community loan funds, public banking, crowdfunding

Participatory budgeting, community governance, policies, universal basic income

Community land trusts, food co-ops, electric co-ops, housing co-ops, commons

Six cases across the solidarity-economy spectrum

PRODUCTION / REPRODUCTION · DENMARK

Community-Owned Energy Transition

Community ownership
Democracy · Solidarity · Sustainability

DISTRIBUTION & EXCHANGE · GLOBAL

Changing the Terms of Trade

Policy alignment + fair exchange
Equity · Solidarity · Pluralism

FINANCE · BANGLADESH

Access to Capital for Rural Women

Financial inclusion
Equity · Democracy · Solidarity

FINANCE · BRAZIL

Making Forests Worth Protecting

Ecosystem finance
Sustainability · Solidarity · Equity

GOVERNANCE · URUGUAY

A National Renewable Energy Transition

Policy alignment
Democracy · Sustainability · Pluralism

CONSUMPTION · GLOBAL

4 Returns Landscape Restoration

Multi-return investing
Sustainability · Pluralism · Solidarity

FORMAT

1 hour, live or virtual

Facilitated by Venture Partners for up to 30 participants.

INVESTMENT

Custom pricing

Prior foundation range $2,500–$3,500. The Lunch N Learn fee is applied to the Intensive when you book it.

Align Your Capital

Step 2 · Capital Alignment Intensives

1–4 day capital alignment intensives, built to support foundation strategic planning

A rigorous, facilitated 1–4 day deep dive that supports foundations in their strategic planning process. It maps your actual capital deployment against four frameworks and makes the gap between your stated values and your capital strategy visible.

FRAMEWORK 1

The Impact Investing Spectrum

FRAMEWORK 2

The Capital Types Continuum

FRAMEWORK 3

The Solidarity Economy Levers

FRAMEWORK 4

The Two Loops Theory of Change

A sample day in the room · 9 AM–5 PM

9:00–9:30Opening: why this work now

Most funders are being asked to be more strategic with less certainty. A rigorous framework for that conversation: not ideology, but clear-eyed analysis. VP presents a pre-built capital map of your institution from pre-work interviews.

9:30–11:00Module 1: The Impact Investing Spectrum

The Integrated Capital Continuum in depth: grants, recoverable grants, PRIs, debt, MRIs, equity. What each instrument does, who it serves, and what it extracts. The continuum as a planning tool, not a judgment framework.

11:15–12:30Module 2: The Solidarity Economy & capital levers

Impact investing is one lever, not the whole toolkit. Where do each of your program areas currently show up, and where are you absent?

1:15–2:30The Capital Audit: your spectrum maps

Using pre-work data, participants plot their actual capital across the Impact Investing Continuum, SE levers represented, and the Two Loops distribution (stabilizing vs. transformative). Visuals are built live from VP’s pre-prepared audit maps.

2:30–3:15The Mirror Moment

Facilitated reflection on the gap between stated values and actual capital deployment. This is not a judgment; it is strategic information. Most funders find significant capital sitting in stabilization when they thought they were in transformation.

3:30–4:30Strategic recalibration & priority-setting

Where does your institution want to be in 3–5 years? Small-group sessions identify one to three concrete capital alignment priorities for the next funding cycle.

4:30–5:00Close & next steps

Summary of audit findings and priority commitments delivered within two weeks. Optional ongoing consulting for implementation.

Pre-work: how we prepare your audit

We don’t show up cold. In the weeks before your session, we map where your capital is actually going, so participants arrive to find their real capital picture already on the table.

Up to four 45-minute structured conversations with each program area lead or portfolio officer, 3–4 weeks before the session. All conversations are confidential within the facilitation team.

For each program area: current grantees and investees, capital instruments used (grants, PRIs, loans, equity), and any explicit impact thesis or theory of change.

A VP-prepared audit map created before the session, so the day opens with your actual capital picture on the table, not a blank canvas.

RADICAL CLARITY

An honest, data-driven picture of where your capital actually sits on the impact spectrum.

STRATEGIC LEVERAGE

The highest-leverage opportunities to shift capital toward your actual theory of change.

SHARED FRAMEWORK

A common language across your team, board, and investment committee.

PRIORITY SETTING

Concrete 3–5 year priorities, directly applicable to strategic planning.

FORMAT

1–4 days, in person or virtual

Up to 20 participants, VP-facilitated throughout. Required pre-work. Length is scoped to your strategic planning process.

INVESTMENT

Starting at $13,000

Pricing is scoped to the number of days. Organizations that completed the Lunch N Learn may apply that fee toward the Intensive.

Align Your Capital

Let’s talk

Ready to align your capital?

Bring your team, board, or family to a conversation about where your capital sits today and where it could go. We will follow up to talk through scope, timing, and pricing.

Align Your Capital

Explore the full pathway

More ways to build with us

TrainRotational Training ProgramA structured, paid rotational pathway into impact investing.

BuildResidency & RetreatsTwenty people, two years, ten community-rooted capital vehicles.

PlaceRecruitment & TrainingFor employers: trained fund associates and organizational readiness training.