True Impact

It’s not every day that you get to meet a legend—let alone two of them—and engage in a rich discussion about the problems and opportunities facing our city and our time. It’s also not every day that you get to learn from two of the bravest and most inspiring people in many generations. For everyone who attended True University 2014, that day was yesterday.

Yesterday, we welcomed The Reverend Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani, the Founders of GLIDE, to True University. GLIDE is a radically inclusive, just and loving community mobilized to alleviate suffering and break the cycles of poverty and marginalization. For 50 years, GLIDE has provided over 80 programs to the residents of San Francisco, including feeding the hungry, violence prevention education, healthcare, “greening” the Tenderloin, spiritual services, leadership development and more. GLIDE aims to meet people where they are and help them become self-sufficient, joyful, strong leaders.

Cecil and Jan spoke to the over 250 attendees of #TrueU about risk, empathy, openness and humanity. Risk, Cecil reminded us, is required for greatness to occur: his very first words to us were, “In order to make an impact, you must take risk.” There is much impact to be made right here in San Francisco, and Cecil is from (his words) the religion of “Do it.”

Cecil and Jan are two of the bravest and most daring entrepreneurs we’ve ever met. After 50 years of daily dedication to making the world a better place through kindness, focus, creativity and love, they’ve transformed San Francisco. Their work has redefined what it means to be in touch with your humanity for all who have experienced GLIDE, and they have inspired countless other organizations across the world to do brave, bold, good things as well.

The inclusion of GLIDE in our True U agenda was no accident. Monday at our kickoff, we launched True Impact, an initiative we created after many years of thinking about how to mobilize our firm’s resources to positively impact the communities around us. Our mission at True is to make the world a better place for entrepreneurs and to have a deep and lasting impact on those with whom we work. We believe that creative entrepreneurship is a source of global good. The True mission has led us to create a culture of collaboration and openness that has been essential to the success of our firm and our portfolio companies. True Founder Camp, True University, True Forums, The True Entrepreneur Corps and our Industry Series all came out of this mission and our beliefs.

With True Impact, we are taking these beliefs a step further. True Impact allows us to reach beyond our portfolio to extend the power of our creative platform, our people and our brand to nonprofit organizations in our communities. We believe that the Founders and employees in the True portfolio will change the world for the better, and we believe that it’s crucial for all companies today to build a culture that emphasizes service and enriches the communities in which they work. True Impact provides a bridge between the True community and the broader world in a manner wholly consistent with our mission.

With over 3,500 employees in our portfolio, we have a powerful group, and True Impact will support the causes our community cares about. Each year, we’ll award the True Impact Prize to a nonprofit organization nominated by anyone in any True portfolio company. The winner of the prize will receive:

• Service days where we harness the power of our portfolio to help the organization achieve its mission in any way it deems important.
• Inclusion of the organization’s leadership in the True platform, including True University, TEC, Founder Camp, and our Founder events.
• An opportunity to teach, inspire, and request help and ideas from our community at True University or Founder Camp.
• Access to our platform for any and all requests or opportunities for help.
• A $25,000 donation to advance the organization’s growth and vision.

This initiative is the culmination of significant conversation on our team and encouragement from our Founders, CEOs and employees in the portfolio. We recognize that this is not a perfect set of solutions, but rather than continuing to debate options, we are jumping in.

True Impact is about new possibilities of engagement and value creation. It’s about sharing the openness and collaboration of our platform with organizations that are helping our world. As Cecil reminded us, “Something needs to be done,” and Jan suggested, “Engage with us. Talk to us.” And so we are.

True Impact is about action and doing. And it’s starting now.

GLIDE is the 2014 True Impact Prize winner, and its mission is a wonderful fit with our values and with our goals for this initiative. We are proud to launch this initiative with such a tremendous example of inspiration, dedication, creativity and humanity. Our thanks go to Amy Errett, Founder of True portfolio company Madison Reed, Special Advisor to True and Chair of the Board of Trustees at GLIDE. Amy’s leadership and dedication to GLIDE are an inspiration to us all.

The True Impact Prize is another way we live our mission of making the world a better place and having a deep and lasting impact on the lives of the people we touch. Better, stronger communities make better families and a better world, and we hope that True Impact and the True Impact Prize will allow us to do more to support organizations like GLIDE and many others in the years ahead.

Please join us.