Home Our Partners

Our Partners

Our Partners are a group of results-oriented philanthropists seeking to transform the life trajectories of our nation’s young people and families in poverty by investing in solutions to the problems that limit economic and social mobility.

Working Together to Make Change

Our Partners are united by a shared belief that we must get significant capital flowing to the most promising solutions in order to improve the life trajectories of millions of young people and families in poverty. Blue Meridian’s partnership structure allows our Partners to pool their philanthropic resources and invest more effectively and efficiently than any one of us could individually.

Impact
Arrow Impact

Arrow Impact supports initiatives that create pathways to economic prosperity for communities that have been under-resourced. It does this by investing in organizations that have high potential for achieving systemic impact. It also supports funder collaboration efforts to promote a more equitable and efficient philanthropic ecosystem.

Visit Website
Impact
Ascendium Education Group

Ascendium Education Group is a nonprofit committed to helping people reach their education and career goals. Ascendium invests in initiatives designed to increase the number of learners from low-income backgrounds who complete postsecondary degrees, certificates, and workforce training programs, with an emphasis on first-generation students, incarcerated adults, rural community members, students of color, and veterans.

Visit Website
Impact
Aviv Foundation

The Aviv Foundation is committed to empowering disadvantaged children with opportunities to better their lives, promoting deep Jewish engagement in an inclusive framework, investing in Israeli society, and strengthening civic engagement in the United States.

General
Ballmer Group, Philanthropy

Ballmer Group supports efforts to improve economic mobility for children and families in the United States who are disproportionately likely to remain in poverty. They envision a country where every child, regardless of background and circumstance, has an equal chance to achieve the American Dream.

Visit Website
Regional Partner
Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation

The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation is a philanthropy founded to help transform lives and communities by uniting people across differences to find common cause. Started in 1995 by Arthur M. Blank, co-founder of The Home Depot, the foundation has granted over $1.5 billion to charitable causes. Rooted in the courage and compassion of communities, the foundation focuses on Atlanta’s Westside, Democracy, Environment, Mental Health and Well-Being, Youth Development, and a portfolio of founder-led initiatives.

Visit Website
General
Charles​ ​and​ ​Lynn​ ​Schusterman​ ​Family​ ​Philanthropies

The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies is a global organization that seeks to ignite the passion and unleash the power in young people to create positive change. Schusterman's work emphasizes efforts to improve public education in the US, strengthen the global Jewish community and Israel, and enhance the quality of life in its founders’ hometown of Tulsa, OK.

Visit Website
Impact
Coleman Family Ventures

Coleman Family Ventures (CFV) is a philanthropic investment organization that aims to create a sustainable, more equitable world where people and planet can thrive together. Focused on early childhood, the climate, and New York City, CFV is poised to grow its impact by supporting innovative leaders.

General
The​ ​Druckenmiller Foundation

The Druckenmiller Foundation works to transform lives through its support of education, medical research and the fight against poverty. Mr. and Mrs. Druckenmiller’s philanthropy also extends to universities, scholarship funds, educational programs for at-risk youth and environmental groups.

General
The​ ​Duke​ ​Endowment 

Based in Charlotte and established in 1924 by industrialist and philanthropist James B. Duke, The Duke Endowment is a private foundation that strengthens communities in North Carolina and South Carolina by nurturing children, promoting health, educating minds and enriching spirits. The Endowment shares a name with Duke University and Duke Energy, but all are separate organizations.

Visit Website
General
​The​ ​Edna​ ​McConnell​ ​Clark​ ​Foundation

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation makes large, long-term investments to help high-performing nonprofits lift the life prospects of more children and youth living in poverty. EMCF first piloted capital aggregation in the social sector with three organizations in 2007, and has since made it integral to the Foundation’s investment strategy.

Visit Website
Impact
Eugene and Marilyn Stein Family Foundation

The Eugene and Marilyn Stein Family Foundation seeks to improve the lives of at-risk children by investing in the child, their family and their community. The Foundation promotes the development and nurturing of these children with emphasis on infants and toddlers - creating a foundation for them to become healthy, productive and caring adults.

Impact
Gates Foundation

Guided by the belief that all lives have equal value, Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.

Visit Website
General
​George​ ​Kaiser​ ​Family​ ​Foundation

The George Kaiser Family Foundation's mission of providing every child with an equal opportunity is deeply reflected in its work and impact in the Tulsa community. GKFF's three focus areas – early childhood education and parent engagement, health and family well-being, and civic enhancement – are woven with a common goal of making a meaningful difference in the lives of young children in Tulsa.

Visit Website
General
Knight Foundation

The Knight Foundation is the family foundation of Phil and Penelope Knight.

Impact
Loud Hound Foundation

Loud Hound Foundation is a San Francisco-based family foundation affiliated with Crankstart. Crankstart is devoted to bolstering the foundations of a just society - wider access to better education, jobs with prospects for advancement, housing security, social welfare and the protection of civil rights. Crankstart also supports the arts, basic science and efforts to mitigate climate change. About 60% of grants go to groups in the San Francisco Bay Area.

General
MacKenzie Scott

MacKenzie Scott signed the Giving Pledge in Spring 2019.

Read The Letter
Impact
The Monarch Foundation

The Monarch Foundation, founded and led by Holly Fogle and Jeff Lieberman, is a private family foundation based in New York City. It focuses on scaling simple and inclusive solutions to disrupt cycles of early childhood poverty and advance climate change efforts. The foundation supports grassroots organizations, community-led initiatives, and direct cash programs with the potential to drive long-term impact.

Visit Website
General
Pivotal

Founded by Melinda French Gates in 2015, Pivotal works to advance social progress and expand women's power and influence in the U.S. and around the world. Through high-impact investments, philanthropy, partnerships, and advocacy, Pivotal seeks to remove the barriers that hold women—and all people—back.

General
The​ ​Samberg​ ​Family​ ​Foundation 

The Samberg Family Foundation is committed to quality education and learning for children and youth, better health outcomes for families, and the strengthening of Jewish life.

Visit Website
General
The Sergey Brin Family Foundation

The Sergey Brin Family Foundation operates with a guiding philosophy that is rooted in the experience of its founder.

General
The​ ​​Tepper​ ​Foundation

The Tepper Foundation is a family foundation that supports effective organizations in New Jersey and across the United States. Through these grantee partnerships, the foundation works to meet people’s basic needs like food and housing; provide relief in the face of disasters; support the Jewish community; safeguard rights; and strengthen the nonprofit sector. Founded in 1996 by David Tepper, the foundation has supported grantees with hundreds of millions of dollars in direct support since its inception and continues to expand its giving.

Visit Website
Impact
Valhalla Foundation

Valhalla Foundation works to drive measurable and meaningful improvement in outcomes that matter in four issue areas: early childhood development in the U.S., K12 education in the U.S., medical research and talent, and environmental innovation. Early childhood is Valhalla's primary area of focus, with a goal of improving Kindergarten readiness rates nationwide.

Visit Website
General
ZOOM Foundation

The ZOOM Foundation focuses its philanthropic investments on innovative change efforts that have high potential for sustainable impact, particularly in the areas of education and the environment. To realize education equity, ZOOM invests in transformative and sustainable change efforts at the school, community and system levels. ZOOM also supports science-based environmental policy and strategies that will stop and reverse climate change.

Visit Website

Collaborative Philanthropy

Blue Meridian brings together leading philanthropists to amplify impact. The individuals and philanthropic institutions joining forces in Blue Meridian’s work all contribute in different ways, depending on their interests and funding capacity. Our Partners work collaboratively—sharing the costs, risks and rewards of our efforts. To create distinct leverage for every dollar invested, we design our investments to catalyze additional public and private funding—enabling aggregated capital to go further than any single funder could alone.

Blue Meridian Partners is redefining expectations for what’s possible when large-scale capital is effectively deployed. We believe in creating economic and social mobility for all by making transformative investments in scalable solutions across multiple domains and geographies. Ultimately, the Blue Meridian platform forges a community of philanthropists and social sector leaders, working together to change life trajectories for generations to come.

We welcome new Partners seeking to invest significant capital.

Partner​ ​Benefits

Blue Meridian’s pioneering model of philanthropy offers our Partners an unprecedented opportunity to make a profound difference in the lives of young people and families across the country.

Our singular focus on issues related to US poverty, along with the size of our fund, makes Blue Meridian a formidable leader in a growing field of philanthropic aggregators.

Our platform is designed to amplify the impact of Partners’ aggregated capital through four primary and unique benefits: distinct leverage, investment expertise, a robust learning community, and access to our curated opportunities.

Distinct Leverage
Blue Meridian Partners brings leading philanthropists together to create distinct leverage for every dollar invested. By pooling and deploying their resources through our platform, our Partners invest more effectively than they could alone. We also design our investments to catalyze and align additional public and private funding, unlocking resources to scale and sustain the impact, reach, and influence of investees’ work long after our investment ends.

Investment Expertise
Partners benefit from Blue Meridian’s expertise in scaling solutions that propel economic and social mobility. Our seasoned team brings acumen—informed by cross-sector experience—to sourcing, rigorous diligence, deal structuring, ongoing investment management, and other key functions which support Partners’ philanthropy or leaders’ scaling success. This model can function as an “outsourced” service for philanthropists who seek to expand their work in more issue areas, or we can augment the work of those with existing teams.

Learning Community
Partners engage in an intentional and immersive learning community that enables them to expand their social sector knowledge and become more effective philanthropists. Through curated experiences and connection with investee leaders, fellow philanthropists, as well as Blue Meridian’s management team, partners join a network of values-aligned leaders seeking to improve life trajectories for generations of young people and families to come.

Curated Opportunities
Through regular engagement with our team, Partners gain access to unique investment opportunities in the social sector that are poised to leverage right-sized capital for impact at scale. Our platform allows Partners to efficiently flow significant funding to innovative ideas while limiting their exposure to risk. To date, we have committed $4.1 billion to such opportunities in pursuit of propelling economic and social mobility in the US and creating enduring change.

General Partners

General Partners engage in decision-making across all aspects of Blue Meridian's investment strategy, from individual investment decisions to portfolio allocation. Each General Partner makes an initial $50M commitment, contributed over time, with the projection to deepen their investment as the partnership grows.

Impact Partners

Impact Partners support investment decisions across Blue Meridian, as well as benefit from engaging with and learning from other Partners and social sector leaders. Impact Partners make an initial commitment of at least $15M contributed over time.

Regional Partner

Regional Partners anchor investments in communities, helping scale ​strategies across states, regions, and within neighborhoods.​ Their capital is split between place-specific investments and Blue Meridian’s central pool.

Contributor

Each Contributor directs their commitment to Blue Meridian’s existing approach, whether to individual investments or a full portfolio. For example, in 2020 Contributors supported our COVID-19 emergency response.

Contact​ ​us​ ​to​ ​learn​ ​more​ ​about​ ​becoming​ ​a​ ​Partner​.