- \n
- Focus on communities \u2013 not nonprofit leaders. <\/strong>While many donors back high-performing social entrepreneurs, GreenLight emphasizes cities\u2019 needs first.<\/li>\n
- Patience is key to growth. <\/strong>GreenLight spent eight years proving its approach at a single site before expanding slowly. That\u2019s allowed it to be a dependable partner for local institutions.<\/li>\n
- Impact influences donor behavior. <\/strong>By prioritizing local needs and sustainable revenue models, GreenLight is reshaping how local donors think about giving \u2014 moving some beyond reactive giving or their own philanthropic passions.<\/li>\n
- Navigating local skepticism.<\/strong> Importing outside solutions can raise hackles locally, especially in communities wary of short-term efforts. GreenLight is still navigating these waters, but has worked to build trust, including by compensating everyday residents in some cities for input.<\/li>\n
- Financial sustainability comes with trade-offs. <\/strong>The focus on charities that can produce more than 50 percent of their own revenue often favors tech-heavy groups over staff-intensive ones. That approach hasn\u2019t always translated into impact.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
With a Food Connect driver now making weekly pickups, volunteers at the Department of Indian Work, a division of a larger Twin Cities charity, could shift their focus to what they valued most: working directly with people who rely on the pantry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe help from Food Connect fell into our laps \u2014 it was a breath of fresh air,\u201d says Halvorson-Lee, who is also the department\u2019s director. \u201cOur volunteers were just expressing their discontent in continuing to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Halvorson-Lee didn\u2019t spend much time dwelling on how Food Connect had arrived in the Twin Cities or why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The answer to those questions is the work of the GreenLight Fund, which helps cities identify urgent needs and finds outside charities that can help. GreenLight is one of the most successful attempts to resolve a persistent tension in modern philanthropy: between social entrepreneurs and philanthropists who want to expand anti-poverty efforts and low-income communities that are rightfully wary of outsiders imposing solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Its approach \u2014 adding just one nonprofit per year in each city after an intensive, community-driven vetting process \u2014 has made it one of the clearest examples of how philanthropy can expand proven ideas without overwhelming local organizations. Nationwide, GreenLight sites have helped launch 71 charitable programs, and those programs now reach more than 1.3 million individuals and families per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GreenLight raised $30 million for its latest national fund last year \u2014 twice as much as its previous fund. Its broad list of financial supporters include Bain Capital, Bank of America, the NFL, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. MacKenzie Scott has given the organization two gifts totaling $28 million since 2021. And the core principles of GreenLight\u2019s work \u2014 such as emphasizing local needs over a given charity\u2019s capabilities and insisting that every charity it sponsors has a solid financial base from earned revenue or government grants or contracts \u2014 are having a spillover effect. Many of the individual donors who support GreenLight also adopt some of its methods in their donations to other projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the GreenLight model also raises persistent questions, such as whether importing nonprofits to a city risks sidelining homegrown groups and their fundraising. What\u2019s more, some wonder whether GreenLight\u2019s emphasis on financial stability reflects strategic restraint or leaves potentially effective groups out of the running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GreenLight was founded in Boston in 2004, near the height of the \u201cventure philanthropy\u201d era,<\/a> when donors sought to expand promising nonprofits quickly across the country \u2014 often with mixed results. The period was an important part of the evolution of the nonprofit sector, says Jeffrey Bradach, a partner at the Bridgespan Group who co-founded the firm in 2000. But outsiders often acted as if they had better insight into what communities needed than the people who lived there, he admits.<\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/div>\n \nRead more deep reporting on major philanthropic investments<\/a> \u2014 what worked, what didn\u2019t, and what it takes to drive real change.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
\u201cEvery community isn’t waiting with open arms for whatever you think is the best idea,\u201d Bradach says. \u201cI would say we all had a little hubris.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GreenLight took a different approach \u2014 and in Bradach\u2019s view, came up with a better mousetrap. Co-founders John Simon and Margaret Hall spent eight years refining the model in Boston before expanding it to other cities. GreenLight has grown at a deliberately measured pace ever since. It starts its work in each city with a local committee of experts to get community buy-in \u2014 the \u201cgreen light\u201d to bring a new charity to town. Simon, who made a fortune with two venture-capital firms, and his wife, Susan, have contributed close to $20 million to GreenLight, and he says that amount will \u201cgrow substantially in the coming years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The GreenLight approach is simple and highly structured: Bring in one new charity per year in each city where it works. First, GreenLight raises enough money locally \u2014 typically $5 million to $6 million \u2014 to support the program for five years, including paying for a full-time executive director. Then the annual rhythm begins. GreenLight and a volunteer committee of local experts from government, philanthropy, business, education, and nonprofits spend months identifying the city\u2019s biggest need or problem. GreenLight then goes out to find the best charity in the country that can tackle that issue. GreenLight offers local support and introductions and a multiyear grant averaging $600,000 to $800,000 if the charity agrees to begin working in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t push,\u201d says Simon, who remains GreenLight\u2019s highly active board chair. \u201cWe pull organizations in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finding the Right Fit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
GreenLight\u2019s Twin Cities site opened in 2020, a chaotic year that included the worst of the pandemic and the racial uprising following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even as the city began to recover, some measures of well-being worsened. The number of food-pantry visits statewide hit a record for a third consecutive year in 2024. The GreenLight site\u2019s Selection Advisory Committee identified hunger as the city\u2019s most pressing problem that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Food Connect stood out as a strong candidate to address that problem: It had already expanded to two cities with GreenLight\u2019s help. Food Connect is one of about 2,000 charities in GreenLight\u2019s database of vetted organizations \u2014 groups that have demonstrated results, a proven ability to grow bigger, and some form of sustainable revenue beyond philanthropy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simone Hardeman-Jones, the executive director of GreenLight Fund Twin Cities, traveled to another GreenLight site in Kansas City to see Food Connect in action. Then Food Connect leaders came to Minneapolis to make their pitch to the Selection Advisory Committee. Ultimately, the GreenLight site tapped Food Connect as its chosen charity for 2024, providing a $600,000 multiyear grant and helping introduce Food Connect to local leaders and donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since its founding in Philadelphia in 2014, Food Connect has now spread to four more cities, each time with GreenLight\u2019s help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Megha Kulshreshtha, Food Connect\u2019s founder and CEO, expanding outside Philadelphia was always part of the dream. But doing it alone would have been filled with risks, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWho needs what we offer? How do we approach it? Do we have anchor partners?\u201d Kulshreshtha says. \u201cWe don’t always have the capacity to decipher all of that. So to have somebody that’s already identified a community, already lined up funding, and can do warm handoffs \u2014 that makes it an easy yes for us to be responsive to that community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Growth Through Discipline<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
GreenLight\u2019s national expansion is moving at about the same pace as its local sites \u2014 the charity is adding roughly one more city per year. Dallas opened in late 2025, and Nashville and the District of Columbia are up next.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GreenLight-map-with-cities-670x492.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThe Simons were generous supporters of charities throughout Boston in the early 2000s. But when they became familiar with the work of Harvard economist Raj Chetty \u2014 and the long odds that children in certain cities have of escaping poverty<\/a> \u2014 the couple began to ask: \u201cAre we doing enough?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simon has been all in on GreenLight ever since. Ultimately, he sees the charity becoming part of the national nonprofit firmament, not unlike United Ways and community foundations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simon often frames GreenLight\u2019s impact in terms familiar to for-profit investors: compounding returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One common strategy is to use philanthropic dollars to leverage public funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GreenLight Fund Boston made a grant worth $600,000 in 2008 to bring in Youth Villages LifeSet<\/a>, which helps older kids transition from foster care to adulthood. Simon goes into a math-laced riff to illustrate the return GreenLight is getting from its modest investment. The state is now spending $2,000 to $3,000 on each child LifeSet works with. Two thousand kids a year equals $5 million a year \u2014 and potentially $100 million of government spending over 20 years, Simon says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn a 20-year period, if we reach a couple thousand kids on average, we could change 40,000 lives,\u201d Simon says. \u201cIf we hadn\u2019t done GreenLight, it wouldn\u2019t have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His infectious enthusiasm for GreenLight, coupled with his deep Rolodex from decades in venture capital, wins Simon entr\u00e9e to meetings with wealthy investors and businesspeople all over the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike Dickerson, a technology CEO in Atlanta, met with Simon after a mutual friend introduced them as GreenLight was making plans to open a site there in 2019. He became one of more than 50 supporters \u2014 others include the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation<\/a>, Chick-fil-A, and Delta Air Lines \u2014 to help get the site off the ground, pledging $50,000 over five years. Dickerson has since supported GreenLight\u2019s move to three additional cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJohn talks a lot about the ladder of opportunity and fixing one broken rung on the ladder at a time,\u201d Dickerson says. \u201cThere are so many people doing great things, but GreenLight is just focusing on one thing that’s been missed. \u2026 And doing it in 15 \u2014 on the way to 17 \u2014 cities. The network effect and the compounding effect become pretty massive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat Hamill, a homebuilder who supports GreenLight Denver, says he learned a valuable lesson in observing how GreenLight insists on charities with sustainable revenues. Hamill\u2019s foundation started a construction academy to teach the trades to young people, but costs ballooned. <\/strong>\u201cIf not for me putting in millions a year, the academy would have gone away,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The GreenLight experience prompted him to work with Community College of Aurora to build a permanent home<\/a> for the BuildStrong Academy of Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Balancing Sustainability and Impact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Elements of GreenLight\u2019s model can seem gimmicky. Does it make sense in a huge city like Chicago, for example, to focus on just one problem and one charity per year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Simon says there\u2019s good reason for the measured approach. It takes time to identify the biggest problem and a sustainable charitable program that can help solve it; going through the process more than once a year would likely be too much work. Yet committing to an annual schedule makes GreenLight a consistent partner \u2014 an entity that the mayor, school superintendent, and local foundations can come to depend on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf we can do one thing a year, it becomes part of the fabric,\u201d Simon says. \u201cIt\u2019s a predictable delivery.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of GreenLight\u2019s nonnegotiables is financial sustainability. It only brings in charities that have substantial nonphilanthropic revenues. Some of the charities charge fees for their services, while others rely heavily on federal or state grants and contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, GreenLight brought Compass Working Capital, which helps people living in low-income housing build savings, to both Philadelphia and Chicago. The charity earns revenue through contracts with housing authorities to provide financial coaching that helps participants tap into savings incentives. Springboard Collaborative, which holds workshops that teach parents how to become more involved in teaching early reading skills, has opened in Detroit and the Bay Area with GreenLight\u2019s help. The charity signs contracts with school districts and keeps costs low by relying on seasonal workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Boston site was so close to bringing in Child First, another mental-health provider, that GreenLight created a page for the charity that still exists.<\/a> Multiple times, Massachusetts nearly agreed to pay for the charity\u2019s services, but it ultimately backed away \u2014 so GreenLight did, too.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/John-and-Ali-Sept-2024-2-670x446.jpg\")
GreenLight Fund<\/div>Ali Knight, who became CEO of the GreenLight Fund in 2024, works closely with John Simon, GreenLight’s co-founder and board chair.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n If a school or government entity backs out at the last minute, GreenLight will often pull the plug on its own support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Twin Cities site was very close to bringing in a charity focused on mental health for schoolchildren a few years ago, but it gave up on the effort when local school districts, facing budget deficits and executive turnover, couldn\u2019t commit funding, Hardeman-Jones says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GreenLight isn\u2019t immune from the broader challenges facing the nonprofit world. Federal cuts and fundraising challenges have combined to create \u201can incredibly challenging\u201d year, says Ali Knight, who became Greenlight\u2019s CEO in 2024. \u201cWe’ve leaned into the mantra of being steady and strategic,\u201d he says. \u201cOur model has worked for 20 years through political cycles, economic cycles, pandemics, and crises.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Getting Bigger Comes With Challenges<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
One of the risks of the GreenLight approach is that the focus on financial sustainability becomes too extreme: Will GreenLight favor charities that have an attractive revenue profile, even if its programs are lackluster?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simon insists GreenLight has never brought in a charity that has failed, but at least one nonprofit it previously supported has fallen out of favor. GreenLight brought Single Stop USA to Boston and Philadelphia: Both decisions were made more than a decade ago. Single Stop, which got absorbed by a larger nonprofit in 2023, relies heavily on software to help college students and others access programs like food stamps and Medicaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A randomized, controlled study<\/a> by Rand in 2025 found that the Single Stop model did not produce significant improvements in student outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GreenLight tracks such information and adds it to its database, Simon says. As for Single Stop, Simon says, it\u2019s telling that the last time it helped the charity expand was in Philadelphia in 2013. \u201cWe haven’t brought them anywhere since,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Raising money is one of the easier aspects of establishing a new site, Simon says. Winning over the nonprofit community and grassroots leaders isn\u2019t always as simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When GreenLight explored opening in Miami, United Way Miami wanted assurance from Simon that GreenLight would be bringing new national funding to the city, not hitting up local donors exclusively. One early concern, says Norie del Valle, chief impact officer at United Way Miami: \u201cIs he just coming to raise money from the same exact folks that we are all fundraising from?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
United Way eventually signed on as an early investor and has become a strong collaborator with GreenLight since the official opening of the site in early 2025, del Valle says. Greenlight has raised substantial national dollars for the Miami site, she says, and she isn\u2019t aware of any charities that have faced rejected grant applications from donors that also supported GreenLight\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though the GreenLight process starts with a city\u2019s needs, some local leaders and community members remain wary about the organization\u2019s belief that the best solution will come from somewhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least three GreenLight sites \u2014 Boston, Detroit, and the Bay Area \u2014 have tried to win more community buy-in by creating a second committee in addition to the Selection Advisory Committee that is made up of everyday citizens. The participants are often low income, are typically paid for their time, and in many cases have previously benefited from the charitable programs that Greenlight has brought in.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/230809-Kate-Schwass-133210-0019-670x431.jpg\")
GreenLight Fund<\/div>Kate Schwass, vice president of site success at GreenLight and executive director of GreenLight Fund Bay Area, says at least three GreenLight sites have created a formal process for getting regular feedback from everyday citizens.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n “The ask is different,\u201d says Kate Schwass, executive director of GreenLight Fund Bay Area, and vice president of site success for the national organization. \u201cWe’re asking for them to share from their personal lens versus the professional lens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Hardemann-Jones launched GreenLight in the Twin Cities, a prominent Black leader in the community \u2014 someone she remembered from her years growing up in the city \u2014 said he couldn\u2019t support a group that favored outside charities over grassroots local organizations. Hardemann-Jones noted that any new charities would \u201cbe additive,\u201d not competitive, but the two argued round and round until the call ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2023, the GreenLight site brought in Irth, a nonprofit app that addresses racial disparities in maternal and infant health by allowing women to leave reviews and sends the feedback to hospitals. The GreenLight critic came to Irth\u2019s launch event \u2014 and changed his views on the organization\u2019s work. \u201cI get it and I\u2019m sorry,\u201d Hardeman-Jones recalls him telling her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The process may take time, given GreenLight\u2019s rapid expansion, but communities will ultimately come to appreciate the organization\u2019s commitment, says Knight, GreenLight\u2019s CEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are in these cities to stay,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to bring some things and leave. We really intend to be a core part of the social fabric \u2014 the service fabric \u2014 of each city. And that’s a core tenet of place-based philanthropy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation is a financial supporter of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reporting for this article was underwritten by a Lilly Endowment grant to enhance public understanding of philanthropy. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. See <\/em>more about the Chronicle<\/em><\/a>, the grant, how our foundation-supported journalism works, and our <\/em>gift-acceptance policy<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How the GreenLight Fund scales anti-poverty work one city at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365131,"featured_media":4402231484943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","cop_editorial_slug":"Lilly-Gose-GreenLight-0426","cop_asana_id":"","editorial_asana_id":"","editorial_doc_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[81925],"issue":[],"profile":[],"role":[191049],"series":[191189],"topic":[191090],"coauthors":[189918],"class_list":{"0":"post-4402231484899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-news","8":"role-leading","9":"series-results","10":"topic-innovation","12":"has-featured-image"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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That\u2019s allowed it to be a dependable partner for local institutions.<\/li>\n