Unfunded List Wine Grants

For this episode of #WineGrants, Dave is joined in the booth by Alex Simon who requested “whatever wine has the most syllables.” Alex and Dave have known each other ever since Alex was the “Philanthropy Intern” for the inaugural Nexus Youth Summit. He is involved with the Young President’s Organization, his family’s philanthropy and several other social enterprises. He is the former executive director of Compass Partners and is a world renowned expert on chairs. Tune in to learn about his first philanthropic gift, perching stations and the importance of social enterprise.

Jonathan Beninson is the chief operating officer of House of Genius - an organization that provides feedback to emerging social entrepreneurs. Jonathan joins us in the booth after spending a week at the United Nations General Assembly events as well as the final Clinton Global Initiative. Listen in as Jonathan talks to us about his highlevel New York meetings, gives us a glimpse into what happens at CGI and then Dave and Jonathan have a mansplain contest. Listen in and let us know who you think won. Unfunded List’s Wine Grants Podcast gathers philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and changemakers of all stripes. Hosted by Dave Moss, who started Unfunded List in 2015 to help make sure that the next generation of changemakers get the feedback and recognition they need to be successful. Our mission is to demystify and open the door to private philanthropy for the general public while providing a platform for our guests to discuss their life’s work. Unfunded List reviews funding proposals twice annually from small and mid-size nonprofits and social impact startups. The 300+ philanthropy experts on our evaluation committee give helpful and candid feedback about each grant proposal’s weaknesses & strengths. Then we publish the best proposals to our list that we circulate to a rolodex of foundations and philanthropists in the hopes that we can find some funding and partnerships for these amazing unfunded proposals. Unfunded List is always accepting proposals at www.unfundedlist.com/submit-your-proposal. We invite your org to join the Unfunded List awardees and 100+ other projects that our funding evaluators have given feedback to since 2015. Find out more and submit at www.unfundedlist.com.

Alex Dickinson spends her days as a social media strategist for Beekeeper Group providing strategic support and content guidance to a wide variety of clients including non-profits, trade associations, and Fortune 500 companies. As awesome as that is - she is also the DC "Dean" of the Awesome Foundation. Awesome Foundation employs a giving circle model to a forward the interest of awesome in the universe, $1,000 at a time. Listen in to our chat as we sip a crisp and delicious vino and Dave tells stories of childhood encounters with bees, gives his reasons why Gene Wilder made a better Willy Wonka than Jonny Depp and chats with Alex about the importance of millennial donors supporting the arts. Unfunded List’s Wine Grants Podcast gathers philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and changemakers of all stripes. Hosted by Dave Moss, who started Unfunded List in 2015 to help make sure that the next generation of changemakers get the feedback and recognition they need to be successful. Our mission is to demystify and open the door to private philanthropy for the general public while providing a platform for our guests to discuss their life’s work. Unfunded List reviews funding proposals twice annually from small and mid-size nonprofits and social impact startups. The 300+ philanthropy experts on our evaluation committee give helpful and candid feedback about each grant proposal’s weaknesses & strengths. Then we publish the best proposals to our list that we circulate to a rolodex of foundations and philanthropists in the hopes that we can find some funding and partnerships for these amazing unfunded proposals. Unfunded List is always accepting proposals at www.unfundedlist.com/submit-your-proposal. We invite your org to join the Unfunded List awardees and 100+ other projects that our funding evaluators have given feedback to since 2015. Find out more and submit at www.unfundedlist.com.

I have a hard time spelling the word millennial. I can never remember if it's two Ls or two Ns or how many Es it has (it's both and there's one). Steven Olikara has to spell it all the time as the founder of the Millennial Action Project - a nonprofit dedicated to political cooperation through millennial leadership. Steven stopped by the booth with some of his staff to discuss some of the challenges of running a politically focused 501c3, fundraising and the promise of the millennial generation. In honor of said generation we popped open the first box of wine in #WineGrants history. #millenniels #milennials #millenials #politics #hashtags Unfunded List’s Wine Grants Podcast gathers philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and changemakers of all stripes. Hosted by Dave Moss, who started Unfunded List in 2015 to help make sure that the next generation of changemakers get the feedback and recognition they need to be successful. Our mission is to demystify and open the door to private philanthropy for the general public while providing a platform for our guests to discuss their life’s work. Unfunded List reviews funding proposals twice annually from small and mid-size nonprofits and social impact startups. The 200+ philanthropy experts on our evaluation committee give helpful and candid feedback about each grant proposal’s weaknesses & strengths. Then we publish the best proposals to our list that we circulate to a rolodex of foundations and philanthropists in the hopes that we can find some funding and partnerships for these amazing unfunded proposals. Unfunded List is currently accepting proposals for our Spring 2019 evaluation round until March 15, 2019. We invite your org to join the Unfunded List awardees and 100+ other projects that our funding evaluators have given feedback to since 2015. Find out more and submit at www.unfundedlist.com.

David Searby is the founding grandpa of Komodia - a new nonprofit dedicated to finding comity through comedy. We worked with him to help get his organization up off the ground. We built his website (komodia.lol), helped draft his communications strategy and produced a video for him about Gerrymandering. Starting a new social venture is hard and once we got everything up off the ground we had David by the booth to chat about the process over a nice bottle of Malbec. David dressed appropriately for the occasion by donning his finest bowtie. Unfunded List’s Wine Grants Podcast gathers philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and changemakers of all stripes. Hosted by Dave Moss, who started Unfunded List in 2015 to help make sure that the next generation of changemakers get the feedback and recognition they need to be successful. Our mission is to demystify and open the door to private philanthropy for the general public while providing a platform for our guests to discuss their life’s work. Unfunded List reviews funding proposals twice annually from small and mid-size nonprofits and social impact startups. The 200+ philanthropy experts on our evaluation committee give helpful and candid feedback about each grant proposal’s weaknesses & strengths. Then we publish the best proposals to our list that we circulate to a rolodex of foundations and philanthropists in the hopes that we can find some funding and partnerships for these amazing unfunded proposals. Unfunded List is always accepting proposals at www.unfundedlist.com/submit-your-proposal. We invite your org to join the Unfunded List awardees and 100+ other projects that our funding evaluators have given feedback to since 2015. Find out more and submit at www.unfundedlist.com.

Amy Lazarus's passion is inclusion. She works with businesses, philanthropists and other organizations to create welcoming and effective communities and workplaces the norm. Prior to Inclusion Ventures Amy was the executive director of a national network of campus based dialogues and also once founded a neuroscience based leadership retreat. She has, herself been named to numerous lists, awards and fellowships but found time to stop by the booth and talk about the Unfunded List (for which she serves as an evaluator) with Dave over some Sauvignon Blanc.  Fun fact : Sauvignon Blanc is now the most commonly chosen wine on #WineGrants. Maybe open up a bottle for yourself while you listen to Dave and Amy as they have a wideranging conversation covering topics as diverse as a greek myths, Dave's childhood in Maine, diversity in film and, as you might imagine, grants. Unfunded List’s Wine Grants Podcast gathers philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and changemakers of all stripes. Hosted by Dave Moss, who started Unfunded List in 2015 to help make sure that the next generation of changemakers get the feedback and recognition they need to be successful. Our mission is to demystify and open the door to private philanthropy for the general public while providing a platform for our guests to discuss their life’s work. Unfunded List reviews funding proposals twice annually from small and mid-size nonprofits and social impact startups. The 200+ philanthropy experts on our evaluation committee give helpful and candid feedback about each grant proposal’s weaknesses & strengths. Then we publish the best proposals to our list that we circulate to a rolodex of foundations and philanthropists in the hopes that we can find some funding and partnerships for these amazing unfunded proposals. Unfunded List is always accepting proposals at www.unfundedlist.com/submit-your-proposal. We invite your org to join the Unfunded List awardees and 100+ other projects that our funding evaluators have given feedback to since 2015. Find out more and submit at www.unfundedlist.com.

Myles Lutheran has led a varied life. He's managed a rock band, worked in real estate and finance and has recently finished a funding round for Eco Fuels Kenya - his nut-based bio fuel company. Born in the U.S. he currently lives in Kenya. Now that he's raised the money he needs to run his company he has to get to the actual work of running a company. In the meantime though, he spent some time in the booth to talk about how he was able to raise $1.5 million from impact investors and foundations and the importance of conserving time but also taking risks with your time. Unfunded List’s Wine Grants Podcast gathers philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and changemakers of all stripes. Hosted by Dave Moss, who started Unfunded List in 2015 to help make sure that the next generation of changemakers get the feedback and recognition they need to be successful. Our mission is to demystify and open the door to private philanthropy for the general public while providing a platform for our guests to discuss their life’s work. Unfunded List reviews funding proposals twice annually from small and mid-size nonprofits and social impact startups. The 200+ philanthropy experts on our evaluation committee give helpful and candid feedback about each grant proposal’s weaknesses & strengths. Then we publish the best proposals to our list that we circulate to a rolodex of foundations and philanthropists in the hopes that we can find some funding and partnerships for these amazing unfunded proposals. Unfunded List is always accepting proposals at www.unfundedlist.com/submit-your-proposal. We invite your org to join the Unfunded List awardees and 100+ other projects that our funding evaluators have given feedback to since 2015. Find out more and submit at www.unfundedlist.com.

Rachel Cohen Gerrol has the longest bio Dave has ever read aloud on Wine Grants. She has served in numerous volunteer capacities and is the founder (or co-founder) of more things than we had time to cover. In 2011, she was the Jewish Girl of The Year. She spent some time as our host's boss at the PVBLIC Foundation where they worked together to develop the "It's On Us" campaign in partnership with the White House. For a short time, Dave lived on Rachel's couch. Rachel is co-founder (along w/ Daniel Karpantschof, an Unfunded List evaluation committee member) of the Nexus Global Youth Summit - an innovative gathering of young philanthropists. Today - she spent some time in a booth with Dave Moss and they talked about how to force innovation into a sector that does not naturally innovate, how to be respectful of the asker's time and the importance of being on a list.Unfunded List’s Open Door Philanthropy Podcast gathers philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and changemakers of all stripes. Season Sh3 highlights women in our sector and explores the uniques experiences of being woman-identified in philanthropy. Hosted by Dave Moss, who started Unfunded List in 2015 to help make sure that the next generation of changemakers get the feedback and recognition they need to be successful. Our mission is to demystify and open the door to private philanthropy for the general public while providing a platform for our guests to discuss their life's work. Unfunded List reviews funding proposals twice annually from small and mid-size nonprofits and social impact startups. The 200+ philanthropy experts on our evaluation committee give helpful and candid feedback about each grant proposal’s weaknesses & strengths. Then we publish the best proposals to our list that we circulate to a rolodex of foundations and philanthropists in the hopes that we can find some funding and partnerships for these amazing unfunded proposals. Unfunded List is currently accepting proposals at www.unfundedlist.com/submit-your-proposal. We invite your org to join the Unfunded List awardees and 100+ other projects that our funding evaluators have given feedback to since 2015. Find out more and submit at www.unfundedlist.com.

Matthew Lesko has been interviewed by Larry King and Oprah. He is a New York Times best-selling author and entrepreneur. He is also a member of the Unfunded List Evaluation Committee and stopped by the Moss Family Foundation Office for a glass (or two) of an effervescent white and some unscripted talk about the unfunded.

Russ Finkelstein is a managing partner at Clearly Next and was on the founding team of Idealist.org where he led the team focused on revenue-generating activities. Russ serves or has served in advisory roles for the Point Foundation, the Moss Family Foundation, the Schusterman Foundation, City Hall Fellows, Equalize Youth, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, Selah, Equalize Youth, New Organizing Institute, the Lookout DC and countless others. Most recently he has joined the evaluation committee for the Unfunded List and stopped by the booth to drink some fancy gourmet soda out of a wine glass with Dave Moss (who was drinking wine). Listen to their unscripted chat about the unfunded.

Joanna Cea was executive director of the International Accountability Project and consults for IDEX on impact investing and Jess Rimington is a founder of the One World Youth Project and Director of Organizational Strategy at The Rules. They are currently Stanford Visiting Scholars doing research on funder behavior and attitudes. They recently presented their findings at SOCAP 2015 in San Francisco in a presentation called The Cost of Not Listening: Stifled Innovation and Misguided Investment. This week they spent some time in a booth with Dave Moss drinking a Spanish wine and talking about the importance of listening to the end-user in the for-impact community.

Anne Carlson is a two-time cancer survivor, experienced fundraiser and event planner and executive director of the Colon Cancer Coalition. She stopped by the booth to enjoy a delicious Sauvignon Blanc with Dave. They compare butts, talk grants and also talk about the fact that Colon Cancer Coaliton’s application to the Unfunded List was rejected. Several of our evaluators wanted to know, Why so many cancer organizations? Anne gives you the answer and shares her expertise as a fundraiser and nonprofit executive director.

Ryan Derfler is director of client experience for the philanthropic consulting firm, Geneva Global which Harvard Business Review has described as a “small but mighty philanthropic consultancy punching above their weight around the globe.” Named one of America’s fasting growing companies by Inc. Magazine Geneva Global helps philanthropists do good great. Ryan stopped by the booth for some Congac (which technically counts as wine) and some chat about the unfunded. Also discussed: Finding Truth, Silicon Valley, NASCAR, our respective faiths.

Alexander Berger has the shortest bio Dave has ever read in the booth. But the brevity of his bio shouldn’t mislead you – he’s accomplished a lot. An effective altruist, he runs U.S. programs at GiveWell and is a leader within the Open Philanthropy Project. A philosophy major at Berkeley, he is now a philosopher-philanthropist spending his time thinking about how folks can have the most impact with their dollars. Like the Unfunded List, Alex’s organization has their own list of organizations that make the best use of philanthropic dollars. Alexander sat down in the booth and spoke at length with Dave about philanthropy, the arts, the recent rise of criticism in philanthropy and they finished an entire bottle of Pinot.

Sacha Litman knows Big Data. Not the band, but the actual Data. It’s been said that Big Data is like teenage sex. Everyone is taking about it and pretending that they’re doing it but no one really is. Sacha came into the booth to enjoy a bottle of cool, blended red with Dave and to explain that some people are using Big Data effectively in their philanthropic endeavors.

Someone at the MacArthur Foundation thought Dave Moss and Joel Braunold should meet. Thank goodness they did because it resulted in this highly informative (and particularly Jewish) episode of Wine Grants. Joel runs the Alliance for Middle East Peace which is a coalition of dozens and dozens of on the ground peace-building organizations inside Israel and Palestine. Each organization pays member dues to Joel and he, amongst other activities, lobbies for them on Capitol Hill. Over the past few years he has been able to increase the amount of government funding to this important sector and he stopped by the booth to drink some kosher wine from his families’ home town in Israel and to tell us about lobbying the government on behalf of a nonprofit sector.

Joining Dave in the booth after a long hiatus is Dipanwita Das. Dipanwita is no stranger to being in a tiny room like the booth with Dave as they spent over a year as officemates at Atlas Corps and later worked together again on the “It’s On Us” campaign. Dipanwita’s firm, Das Strategies, was instrumental in the initial development of the Unfunded List website and she has worked with funders and fund seekers all over the world. For her episode she chose Sancerre which we’re pretty sure is the snootiest selection yet.

Dave Moss and Daniel Karpantschof are co-founders of The Moss-Karpantschof Non-stipendiary Global Strategic Planning Ambassadellowship. Daniel was in D.C. to attend the Nexus USA Summit of which he is also a co-founder. A lifelong misfit, Daniel chose Scotch for this episode of Wine Grants. Listen in as Daniel and Dave drunkenly argue about philanthropy, nonsense, micro-grants, guns, the FAA and more.

David Fox is the first Moss Family Foundation grantee to also be a guest on #WineGrants. David founded an organization called Amir which teaches empathy to kids by teaching them to garden. David recently transitioned out of the day-to-day operations at Amir (he is currently hiring an executive director) and found time to drink two bottles of wine in a booth with Dave. If you’ve ever wanted to listen to two Daves in a booth argue about philanthropy for 40 minutes then this is the episode of #WineGrants for you.

Esther Pinnock is an Atlas Corps Fellow from Jamaica. She ran an NGO that advised citizens and now serves directly at Atlas Corps in Washington, DC as part of an innovative fellowship. She is a student of social entrepreneurship who believes in the power of innovation and thinks organizations should be bold and organized. We spent some time today in the booth trying to remember the name of a particular umbrella organization, talking about Hillary’s hair and enjoying some sparkling White.

Michael Robbins is the founder of Span Learning and previously led education partnerships for the White House and Department of Education. He started his career on the developing team for the original AmeriCorps program. He has a lifelong passion for connecting technology and innovation that began when he developed a Dungeons & Dragons software program as a child. Today, he has a much smarter and better looking son who also loves technology and D&D. Michael spent some time as Dave’s boss at The SEED Foundation. He stopped by the booth and together, over a nice red, they discussed partnerships, the time commitment behind fundseeking, value propositions and a host of other topics related to the unfunded. Unfunded List’s Wine Grants Podcast gathers philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and changemakers of all stripes. Hosted by Dave Moss, who started Unfunded List in 2015 to help make sure that the next generation of changemakers get the feedback and recognition they need to be successful. Our mission is to demystify and open the door to private philanthropy for the general public while providing a platform for our guests to discuss their life’s work. Unfunded List reviews funding proposals twice annually from small and mid-size nonprofits and social impact startups. The 200+ philanthropy experts on our evaluation committee give helpful and candid feedback about each grant proposal’s weaknesses & strengths. Then we publish the best proposals to our list that we circulate to a rolodex of foundations and philanthropists in the hopes that we can find some funding and partnerships for these amazing unfunded proposals. Unfunded List is always accepting proposals at www.unfundedlist.com/submit-your-proposal. We invite your org to join the Unfunded List awardees and 100+ other projects that our funding evaluators have given feedback to since 2015. Find out more and submit at www.unfundedlist.com.

Brian Weinberg is an impact investor, serial social entrepreneur, podcast host and generally swell guy. He’s also the Director of Global Operations at the Nexus Global Youth Summit and he spent some time sitting in the booth with Dave Moss talking about the diligence process involved with impact investing, funder motivation and how to have fun when you fail.

Mary Galeti serves on the Unfunded List evaluation committee and runs the Tecovas Foundation. They fund a number of small nonprofits including Accountability Lab founded by Blair Glencorse. He submitted a proposal that made it onto the inaugural Unfunded List. Mary, Dave and Blair are all members of the Nexus Global Youth Summit and Blair and Dave are both Schusterman Reality alums. Listen in on a fascinating conversation and learn how to get funded by a small family foundation like Mary’s, how to scale up an international nonprofit like Blair’s and how to drink more wine than both of your guests like Dave. Unfunded List is currently accepting funding proposals to be named to our 2x annual list at www.unfundedlist.com/submit-your-proposal. We invite your org to join the 100+ projects our funding evaluators have given feedback to since 2015. Find out more at www.unfundedlist.com. Unfunded List reviews funding proposals twice annually from small and mid-size nonprofits and social impact startups. The 200+ philanthropy experts on our evaluation committee give helpful and candid feedback about each grant proposal’s weaknesses & strengths. Then we publish the best proposals to our list that we circulate to a rolodex of foundations and philanthropists in the hopes that we can find some funding and partnerships for these amazing unfunded proposals. We are always looking for evaluators willing to volunteer time to give feedback to unfunded changemakers!

Anastasia Dellaccio is not only the Gelato Queen of DC, she is also a champion for social good and a fixture on the DC social scene. Most importantly though, she is friends with Dave Moss, our host and recently found time in her busy schedule to sit down with Dave for a fruity Spanish Tempranillo and, of course, she brought along some strawberry gelato to pair. While she was at the UN Foundation, Anastasia helped put together the campaign for #GivingTuesday, an annual giving event which happens to be the same day the inaugural Unfunded List will be announced. Listen in as Anastasia and Dave discuss the #GlobalGoals, gelato, the Millennial Action Project and her cool job at Sister Cities International.