Our core belief is that people with equal talent deserve equal access to opportunity. We strive to close the network gap and create opportunities for underserved communities.
Current focus areas include compassion, economic opportunity, education, and underrepresented community development.
Westbound Equity Partners is an early stage investment platform focused on capitalizing underrepresented founders, investing in companies serving underrepresented consumers, and helping early stage companies build diverse teams. In addition to driving impact through investments, Westbound commits 50% of net proceeds to their foundation, which identifies and funds nonprofits closing opportunity gaps for underrepresented talent in America. Jeff is a founding LP and serves on the Investment Committee, and Brian is an LP.
The Compassion Project is a first-of-its-kind national initiative to provide compassion education to elementary school students across the US. It’s mission is to ensure that every primary school student in the US understands what compassion is and how to practice it.
In less than two years, over 16,000 schools and 29,000 teachers have registered, with almost 400,000 students impacted. The Compassion Project is a collaboration between Jeff, a vocal leader on compassionate management, and global education innovator EVERFI, who was named to Fast Company’s 2020 List of World’s Most Innovative Companies for its work developing The Compassion Project.
The Boys and Girls Clubs of the Peninsula’s mission is to provide the low-income youth of our community with the opportunities they need to achieve school success. BGCP serves East Palo Alto, Redwood City, and Menlo Park, and in total 2,500 students attend BGCP programs 4 days a week. Students receive 740 hours of expanded learning time, a 60% increase over the school day alone. 85% of the youth avoid summer learning loss by participating in our Summer Learning Academy. 90% of our youth graduate from high school with a post-secondary education plan.
Jeff has served on the Advisory Board since 2011 and Brian has been on the Board of Directors since 2015.
DonorsChoose’s mission is to make it easy for anyone to help a classroom in need, moving us closer to a nation where students in every community have the tools and experiences they need for a great education. Public school teachers from every corner of America create classroom project requests, and you can give any amount to the project that inspires you. Since 2000, teachers at 84% of public schools in America have posted a project on DonorsChoose, reaching 4.2M donors, who have contributed $964M in classroom funding, benefiting 40M students.
Jeff has served on the Board of Directors since 2007.
Him For Her is a social impact venture aimed at accelerating diversity on corporate boards. To bridge the network gap responsible for the sparsity of women in the boardroom, Him For Her engages business luminaries to connect the world’s most talented “Hers” to board service.
Since its founding in 2018, Him For Her has built a referral-only talent network of 1,500+ board-ready women and delivered free board-referral lists to 200+ companies ranging from start-ups to S&P 100. Him For Her creates warm introductions between board candidates and CEOs through its series of events guest-hosted by renowned leaders. Jeff has been a supporter and advisor since 2018.
