Merging Trust-Based Philanthropy and VC-Style Support to Help Communities Bloom

Say you’re a nice boy from New York who’s made it big and you want to start giving back in earnest. How do you get started?

You might ask your friends for advice.

This was the approach taken by Peter Levine, a tech sales and marketing executive turned investor, and current general partner at the venture capital firm a16z. Levine, an avid rock and ice climber, happens to count among his friends Alex Honnold, known for free climbing — as in, without a rope — Yosemite’s El Capitan (a feat documented in the Academy Award-winning film Free Solo.) Honnold, who is sponsored by a half-dozen major athletic brands, founded the environmental nonprofit Honnold Foundation, which uses trust-based practices to fund solar power in marginalized communities.

As Honnold has said when describing his approach to giving, “In climbing, you build a relationship, and then you trust your partner with your life. Why should philanthropy be any different?”

Levine decided to follow in Honnold’s footsteps (or handholds, to use a climbing term), launching Levine Impact Lab (LIL) in 2023 and running it through Honnold Foundation. He chose his first four grantees from among Honnold’s grantee partners. These include Native Renewables, committed to educating tribal members “about the potential for solar energy and the basics of electricity;” BK ROT, a Brooklyn-based, bike-powered trash hauling and composting service; the New Orleans-based cultural nonprofit Feed the Second Line and Chicago-based Southside Blooms. These groups align with Levine’s vision of having deep roots in their communities and a focus on workforce development and social and environmental justice.

Each grantee partner received $175,000 in unrestricted funding in 2023, the first of what will be three grants of the same amount, as well as additional money for executive coaching and organizational consulting. In a slight deviation from the Honnold Foundation’s approach, LIL is piloting a version of trust-based philanthropy that leans into multi-year general operating support, and also taps into Levine’s VC background and ethos. Each grantee receives a full suite of non-monetary support designed around the start-up incubator model of VC. This includes support for organizational and leadership development, community- and multisector partnership-building — and a direct line to Levine’s personal contacts. LIL’s driving raison d’etre is the climate crisis, which, as its website puts it, not only brings emergencies, but also “opportunities to shed old models, to embrace ingenuity.”

The climate crisis as an opportunity for innovation? Written like someone who made it big in VC.

Seeding opportunity through flower farming

Climate funding from a heavy-hitter venture capitalist doesn’t necessarily conjure up images of at-risk teens and young adults on Chicago’s South Side growing flowers and arranging bouquets. But LIL grantee Southside Blooms does just that.

With the tagline, “Flowers that Empower,” this farm-to-vase florist trains and employs neighborhood residents aged 16 to 24 as flower farmers or florists. The work gets them outside in the sun, breathing fresh air, loading mulch with pitchforks — and arranging cut flowers into bouquets for events at some of the city’s swankiest venues, including the Hyatt Regency Chicago, Field Museum and McCormick Place. The nonprofit also has a retail shop on the South Side, and with help from Levine, has plans to open a second this year on Chicago’s West Side. While most work development programs are time-limited, Southside Blooms’ participants can work for the organization as long as they want.

“No one else is using flowers as a means of community development and gang violence reduction, as far as I know,” said Quilen Blackwell, who cofounded Southside Blooms in 2020 with his wife as a way to alleviate poverty through employment. Blackwell had moved to Chicago from Madison, Wisconsin, to attend ministry school. He began tutoring kids in Englewood and found himself face to face with urban poverty at a scale that was new to him. He also noticed tens of thousands of vacant lots in the neighborhood, left after the city knocked down condemned buildings. He hit upon flower farming as a way to address the economic and urban blight problems simultaneously — by tapping into the $35 billion U.S. flower market, 80% of which is served by imports.

Blackwell admitted that the notion of flower finance was a tough sell to local youth at first. “We had to get over some of the stigmas about flowers: It’s girly. It’s for your mom or girlfriend. But once they saw they could make money in it and that they’re good at it, they got interested. It’s now a lot easier to recruit people,” he said. Working with flowers has other benefits. “Youth will say it clears their head. It’s therapeutic to be out amongst flowers and bees and birds. They can see the fruits of their labor, the full process.”

Southside Blooms already had backing from philanthropy and government and covers about 40% of its budget through sales. Blackwell said that the non-monetary support from LIL has taken the nonprofit to a new level. Blackwell meets with Peter Levine monthly for coaching and troubleshooting, attends the annual retreat of grantees and speakers, and taps the knowledge base of Levine’s friends and business contacts. One of these contacts in Chicago: Berlin Packaging.

Though this connection, Berlin Packaging’s CEO Bill Hayes became “one of my closest mentors,” said Blackwell. “That’s one of the best attributes of being in the Levine Impact Lab. If they know someone in their network, they have no problem opening that door for you. We’re a small nonprofit. You’re talking about billionaires. When someone like Peter vouches for you, it’s a huge deal.”

Berlin Packaging has helped Southside Blooms with all kinds of business details, including designing the packaging for national shipping of flowers, sourcing suppliers, building an inventory management system, HR and business acquisition. “I’ve only been in the program for a year, and we’ve gone from being a $700,000 organization in 2022 to $1.7 million after the first year with the Levine Impact Lab. That’s explosive growth,” said Blackwell.

Bringing in the family

About halfway through the first year, Peter Levine, who is 63, decided he wanted his foundation to spin off from the Honnold Foundation. He called his younger brother, Gary, 60, and asked him to join his soon-to-be freestanding foundation as executive director. Gary had founded and run an art licensing business for 20 years, was ready for a new challenge and excited to work with his big brother.

“We’ve always had trust and this very special relationship. We really have a great brotherhood,” said the younger Levine. “When he went to summer camp, I followed in his footsteps. When he went to college, I followed to college. Peter is 1,000% the visionary and big-picture guy. I am 100% the execution and detail guy. We make for a great team.”

LIL also hired the nonprofit and philanthropy professional Nellie Barrett as program director for the foundation, which now has a budget of just over $1 million. “We have our model of the intersection of philanthropy and venture capital,” said Gary Levine. “We have a fresh and open approach to this. As opposed to bringing in only people from nonprofit, we’re also surrounding ourselves with people in the for-profit world.”

In April, LIL hired a finance and budgeting person who will serve as an advisor or “coach” for grantees. “It’s our vision to develop staff to advise and guide our grant partners in areas such as fundraising, marketing and human resources," said Gary Levine. "We’re not going to stop connecting people, but like with the VC model, we’ll have a team of experts who can offer coaching in these areas where many organizations have needs."

The foundation is still deciding how many members will be in the next grantee cohort, which will start in 2025, how big the grants will be, and what other services grantees might need. It is looking for its new grant partners through referrals from existing ones. “We want our relationships to be inclusive and not top-down,” said Levine. “We would love our relationship with our existing organizations to go on past the contract.”

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