Introducing The Solid Foundation – Investing in Human Potential

After fifteen years as an entrepreneur and another fifteen as a VC, I’m excited to share what I’m up to as part of this next chapter. 

I’ve founded The Solid Foundation to make nonprofit grants and impact investments to tech entrepreneurs leading organizations that help compound human potential. We landed on our name because we think that “reaching potential starts with a solid foundation”. You can see who we’ve invested in and more on our new website.

As much as I’ve preferred to stay behind the scenes in my work life, I’m going to try to step out of my comfort zone, and write sometimes about my experiences with Solid. The past few years of thinking, learning and doing has led up to this moment for our “entrepreneurial foundation”, and I hope that we can share insights that will prove useful to others in their own work.

More on that in a bit. First, some basics about Solid…

Why the focus on ‘human potential’?

We started out exploring and investing broadly across five issue areas and narrowed our focus over time. As we considered the possible sectors to focus on, I reflected on what themes are most personally important in my life, what are the most pressing issues of the day, and how to generate a strong ROI on dollars and time.

The opportunities I’ve had in my life are a result of “compounding potential”. My grandfathers, Leonard and Sam, were immigrants with grade-school educations. Their hard work created a pathway forward for others, including for me. They are an important part of who I am, and I feel that they live inside me. 

When I thought about the causes and organizations that I’ve been drawn to, starting with my high school years, the most consistent theme that I’ve come back to is trying to support people who face barriers to build a path to a better life. Unfortunately, the income and opportunity gap has gotten worse, not better, over the past several decades. The state of our public education and incarceration systems are far from where we’d hope for them to be, and millions of people have the inspiration and talent but lack the support they need.

Investing in people’s potential can yield direct, measurable ROI in the form of improved student outcomes and worker incomes. It can also have a compounding effect. When we invest in a person’s potential, the positive impact can spread to her family, her community, and to future generations. When we remove barriers to opportunity, these inspired people can, in turn, help tackle the many daunting challenges we face.

Who are we investing in?

We make grants to nonprofits, and invest in companies and VC funds that are aligned with our mission. In addition to capital, we provide resources to help these organizations scale up their impact. A “solid foundation” is also what we seek to provide to talented entrepreneurs so that they can reach their own potential.

The two areas of human potential that we’re most focused on supporting are kids’ well-being and economic mobility. We back entrepreneurs who work in these sectors, and who apply technology to scale their impact. More specifically:

• Kids well-being - We support entrepreneurs who help kids, especially those from underserved communities, to lead healthy internal lives at school and at home. We fund a range of approaches to help kids thrive, including improving self-directed learning and purpose, mental health, literacy, and healthy use of technology and social media. Some of the organizations we’ve funded and are excited about are Koko, CommonLit and CloseGap.

• Economic mobility - We support entrepreneurs who help people with high motivation but limited opportunity, get access to meaningful work so that they can improve life for themselves, their families, and their communities. This includes improved mentoring and career access for high potential youth, and a path to employment for people who need a second chance. We’ve backed talent development organizations and employment social enterprises, and we’re also working on ways to scale funding and access through employers and government. Some of the organizations we’ve funded and are excited about are Recidiviz, CareerVillage and Generation.

Please check out startsolid.org for more examples of the organizations we’ve partnered with so far. In addition to the nonprofits listed above, we’ve also funded companies and VC firms that are aligned with our mission.

Why are we talking about this publicly?

I got lucky moving to Silicon Valley and starting to work in tech in the early 1990s, at the dawn of the commercial internet. Right place, right time! I’ve seen the ways that tech can help scale up from an idea to a thriving business. We want to redeploy our capital in the same way it was made - through helping exceptional tech entrepreneurs do their best work - this time with a primary focus on social impact.

We’re grateful to the many people who’ve been generous with their time, advice and connections while we’ve been finding our way with this new work. We want to pay this forward and, while we certainly don’t have it all figured out, we want to share what we learn along the way. We’re learning by doing. Yes, there’s been research and analysis, but we’ve made the most progress in our work by getting out, meeting entrepreneurs, and making grants and investments.

We hope that our model of an entrepreneurial foundation will resonate with other tech entrepreneurs and investors, and will be something they can build from in their own work. We know that we’re far from alone. We believe there are a lot of people in the tech industry - investors, entrepreneurs, operating executives - who are applying their resources, networks, expertise and passion to have an impact on issues they care about, and maybe we can learn from each other. 

Sometimes it’s challenging to get going. Life is busy with work and family commitments, and it’s easy to put off until later or just not get the momentum that you want. There are a lot of organizations doing similar things, so it can be hard to choose who to fund, and to understand whether your dollars and effort will actually make a true difference.

We relate to all of that. We want to be clear and transparent about our work, so that beyond connecting with more great entrepreneurs and investors about new opportunities to increase human potential, we can be a resource to others in the tech community who may be considering philanthropy or impact investing. 

There’s a lot more to say, but I think that’s enough for now! We look forward to hearing from you, and to opportunities to work together.

Stay solid! 

James

Über uns 

The Solid Foundation is a philanthropic organization that makes charitable grants and social impact investments to compound human potential. This includes supporting nonprofits and startups that leverage technology, and mission-driven VC funds. Solid backs entrepreneurs who foster kids well-being or unlock economic mobility for people facing barriers to employment. The team is also a resource to those in the tech community interested in social impact giving and investing. Solid is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and was founded by James Slavet, a former Co-Managing Partner of Greylock VC firm. Since its founding in 2022, Solid has made over 50 grants and investments.