Venture Partners Fund

The Venture Partners 2024 Cohort Application is open. Who are we looking for: Individuals from underrepresented communities interested in pursuing careers in venture capital as Associates, investors, or other roles within the industry. Individuals who are already involved in the investment or finance industry and want to deepen their knowledge of venture capital or explore opportunities within the venture capital space. Individuals in entrepreneur-focused organizations seeking to implement/expand investment programs or increase their awareness of venture capital. Community leaders and organizations that support BIPOC, women, and individuals from rural communities who want to learn about venture capital to help their community members access employment and resources. Direct experience in the venture capital, investment, or finance industry is not required for acceptance into the program. However, individuals must demonstrate their interest through past experiences or a history of trying to engage in the industry. Apply Now: https://lnkd.in/gWfHSiXx

Reading (and listening– thanks Spotify for the audiobooks! 😉) is a staple way our team expands our worldviews and keeps our creative energies flowing. On the docket this month:  👓 The Financial Activist Playbook by Jasmine Rashid (a past Just Economy Institute Fellow, like our ED Himalaya Rao-Potlapally). We’re excited to dive into the tangible strategies Jasmine offers for using money as a “tool for widespread wellbeing, instead of a weapon of absurdly increasing inequality".  👓 The Serviceberry, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. We are loving learning more about gift economies in the human and more-than-human worlds and investigating what plants like the serviceberry can teach us about reciprocity and interdependence. 👓Hood Feminism, by Mikki Kendall. A fascinating, much-needed exploration of the failings of mainstream feminism, which too often prioritizes white women’s privilege and power while leaving behind women of color’s basic needs for survival. 👓 The Little Book of Impact Investing by longtime investor Priya Parrish. This pocket-sized book is an incredibly comprehensive, practical guide on the history and future of impact investing, and how smart investors can make a return, minimize risk, AND drive environmental and social benefits at the same time. 👓 Loving Corrections by adrienne marie brown. This series of essays invites us to foster accountability rooted in love, compassion, and growth, rather than default to criticism and harsh binary thinking within our social/political movements. What would you add to our reading list?📚🤔

Hey, Community!👋 We’re starting 2025 with WELLNESS at the front. Our work starts on an individual scale– how can we push for liberation if we aren’t also taking care of ourselves? Too often, our culture’s attitude towards work pushes constant growth at the cost of people’s mental and physical health and quality of life. Nonprofit workplaces are no exception, and in fact can be leading spaces of burnout. We figure there must be a better way! So we’re kicking the year off by trying something new.  During January, our small team will be:  ✴️ Focusing on existing projects (namely, gearing up to launch our 2025 Fellowship!)  ✴️Reflecting on Venture Partners’ future trajectory and how they would like to continue supporting the organization  ✴️Tabling new projects and external meetings until February  ✴️Prioritizing deep, rejuvenating rest, time with loved ones and self, etc. January will be a gentle onramp to the rest of our year– we will continue to advance necessary work, but give our team the time and space we need to cultivate joy, rest, and creativity. We are incredibly grateful to have reached a place of stability where this is possible– an enormous thank you to our partners and supporters.  Stay tuned for updates in February about how we spent the month! 🌟🤸

👀 Been meaning to support our 2024 year-end campaign but haven’t gotten around to it yet? You still have today and tomorrow! Need more info? Read on! 📣 Supporting Venture Partners is a straightforward way to AMPLIFY your year-end donations. 💸 How? Training more diverse people to step into capital allocator roles (think: working at an impact-oriented VC firm, at a community bank, or at a grantmaking foundation) means more equitable investment outcomes. Over time, this means more capital flowing to communities of color, low income communities, women, and rural communities. 🚪The fellows who graduate from our program and get placed in a full-time role go on to advance a lifetime of investment decisions that democratize and decentralize access to capital, opening the door to founders who have lived experience of (and as a result, realistic solutions to) today’s most pressing problems. 🌎 Many of our fellows live and work in Oregon, but not all! We have supported fellows across the country and even internationally, helping to build more diverse and inclusive workplaces in communities worldwide. ⚙️ Our approach is intentionally focused on workforce transformation as a pathway to systemic, lasting change across many different sectors.  👊 As we like to say, change the players, change the game. Scan the QR code or visit https://lnkd.in/gKQabk5Q to make a tax deductible donation today! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thank you as always to our team for keeping the wheels moving! Himalaya Rao-Potlapally Luis Balderas Villagrana Madeline Atmore Chris Magaña Natasha Torres Nathan Foos

Moment of gratitude for our more-than-human kin who have given us laughs, comfort, and love every step of the journey this year. Sending you and yours the warmest of holiday wishes!

📢It’s FELLOW FRIDAY 📢 Today we’re spotlighting the brilliant J.T. Trujillo's journey to find the Venture Partners Fellowship. After a 10-year career working for two fast-paced, now exited FinTechs on the west coast, JT moved to Atlanta to start a family. At the beginning of the pandemic, his life took a HUGE pivot: he dropped everything to attend Georgia State University to become the first person in his family to graduate from college. Motivated by the vision of all generations of his family–including his mom, siblings, wife, and kids–being able to witness him walk across the stage at graduation. While at the innovative, entrepreneurial community of Georgia State University, JT created hand+sum, an inclusive lending platform designed to match lender and borrower profiles to reduce bias in the lending process. He also joined LaunchGSU, the student incubator program, and was accepted into the Main Street Entrepreneur's Seed Fund, where he received a $10K grant to work on his idea. Through his efforts, JT raised a total of $20,000 in non-dilutive capital to develop hand+sum. However, he faced repeated rejection from investors and began to look inward to identify gaps in how he communicated with VCs. This introspection inspired him to pursue an MBA at Emory University to hone his fundraising skills. At Emory, JT became involved with the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund (PMVF), a student-run venture capital firm managing $1MM in catalytic capital to support BIPOC founders. This was another opportunity for him to join a mission-focused organization committed to helping founders who looked like him or shared similar lived experiences. At PMVF, JT worked on three deals, deploying a total of $100K in capital to diverse founders, including the fund's first Latino-led portfolio company. Graduating from the MBA program in Q2 of 2023 was tough–it was a time of mass layoffs, hiring freezes, and inflation. To set himself up for success, JT applied to the Venture Partners Fellowship and was excited by the prospect of boosting his VC expertise and building connections. Despite coming into the program with quite a bit of experience from working as a Venture Scout at LvlUp Ventures and as a Performance Management Associate at Goodie Nation, JT found that the curriculum was exactly what he needed to better understand the inner workings of the VC world. He walked away with a high-quality education, a certificate in Venture Finance from VC University, and a lifelong supportive community. He also graduated from the HBCUvc Fellowship, through which he completed an internship at Open Opportunity Fund. Today, he runs his own micro VC fund, Rojo Ventures, which invests in AI, FinTech, Future of Work, LegalTech, and Healthcare-focused enterprises, with two deals closing in 2024. JT is truly a superstar, and we’re so glad he’s part of our community! 🤩

📢It’s FELLOW FRIDAY 📢 Today we’re honored to spotlight the incredible Sokong Seng and his path to find the Venture Partners Fellowship. As the first person in his family to graduate college and pursue a professional career, Sokong has always been passionate about entrepreneurship and investing. While studying marketing, advertising, and psychology at Portland State University (PSU), Sokong got involved with the PSU Business Accelerator and began bolstering both his knowledge of the industry and his professional network. After graduating, Sokong immediately launched into a career path in marketing, working at several Portland-based software, fintech, and e-commerce firms. But widespread layoffs across the tech world made Sokong pause to re-think and diversify his options. Tapping into his entrepreneurial drive, Sokong began working on a start-up software company, Retentiv.com, designed to empower small businesses with tools for customer retention and repeat business. He also re-connected with folks from the PSU Business Accelerator community– one of whom was Venture Partners’ very own Program Director, Luis Balderas Villagrana! Sokong participated in our most recent 2024 cohort and absolutely thrived with the curriculum and community. He especially enjoyed honing his due diligence skills and deepening his understanding of how to evaluate a good investment by looking beyond financials to analyze industry trends and the competitive landscape. He had a chance to put these skills into practice by being one of three Venture Partners Fellows to perform due diligence on New Economy Track companies pitching at EDCO - Economic Development for Central Oregon's annual Bend Venture Conference. The Fellowship also facilitated many opportunities for sharpening his networking and relationship-building skills. Sokong worked directly with founders on evaluating their companies, attended events with prominent industry leaders, and solidified lifelong friendships with other cohort members. Today, Sokong is working full-time in marketing while also being a cryptocurrency investor and running his start-up, Retentiv.com, on the side. He continues to relationship-build in Portland’s entrepreneurial and VC ecosystem, and has long-term aspirations of opening a small brick and mortar business or even running his own VC Fund. In Sokong’s words, “I’m keeping the options open, that’s what makes life interesting”. We couldn’t agree more. 

🤔💭Do you wish networking events felt different? We definitely do. And honestly, so do most people. When we host events, we’re aiming to foster real, vulnerable connections between attendees. Relationships that transcend beyond the bounds of a single event! We nudge these connections along through a targeted networking process- which lasts about 40 minutes and culminates in the famous MIRROR EXERCISE🪞🪞🪞 First, people are paired up and given human-centered discussion prompts that explore topics beyond typical work conversations, including:  ✨Joy  ❤️🩹Grief  🫂Belonging  🌱Legacy Based on these conversations, everyone then chooses a “mirror” who they connected deeply with. The mirror pairs stand across from one another while making direct eye contact for one minute and reading a poem written by our Executive Director, Himalaya Rao-Potlapally.   Yes- it’s uncomfortable, and there’s a lot of nervous giggling 🤭 BUT in a world where networking often feels transactional and surface level, the mirror exercise invite us to connect first and foremost as humans– all with a unique story and enormous depth. When that one minute is up, a feeling of closeness and familiarity abounds in the room! Hugs and (sometimes even tears!) usually ensue. 🎯Targeted networking is just one of the many ways Venture Partners lives our belief that the status quo *can* and *should* be disrupted. #ChangeThePlayers #ChangeTheGame

📢📢📢Amplifying for the amazing founders in our network- check out these opportunities!

Venture Partners was founded in 2021 when Himalaya Rao-Potlapally and Nathan Foos joined forces to flip the script on entrepreneurship and capital allocation in Oregon. 🔎 They noticed that, while there were many organizations committed to diversifying the industry, most were focused on a single identity aspect (such as race/ethnicity), rather than embracing the multi-dimensionality needed to truly change the game. 🌟Venture Partners was launched to reach everyday people at the intersection of cultural, socioeconomic, and geographic diversity, who are uniquely positioned to understand and subsequently craft solutions to our society's most pressing challenges. 🏋♂️Our flagship 7-month Fellowship program has trained 100+ diverse individuals to-date and helped them land their first role in venture capital or the broader capital allocation ecosystem. They are collective proof that *who* is calling the shots determines *where* money flows. 💲Because we care so deeply about removing traditional wealth and status barriers, our Fellowship has always been 100% free for our Fellows- and we are determined to keep it this way! 🤝This Giving Tuesday, we invite you to stand with us and support our small team in providing workforce development, education, and training to decentralize wealth and build community power. ❤️ You can support us here: https://lnkd.in/gKQabk5Q, tell a friend, or share this with your community! Here's to a powerful year ahead. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #GivingTuesday #VentureCapital #DiversityInVC #CareerChange #ImpactInvesting #CommunityMatters