People's Liberty is a five-year experiment to see how philanthropy can be done differently and possibly even more effectively, CEO Eric Avner explains in an "Innovator of the Week" profile story from Urban Innovation Exchange. Avner and his team didn't want something permanent but instead devised a timeline with a sense of urgency.
"Building this as a separate brand from the (
Haile/U.S. Bank Foundation) gives us ability to be more experimental, to have a slightly cheekier tone, a different pace, a different way of using tech and design," Avner tells UIX. "All of these things, whether storytelling or design or metrics or outreach or work culture, will ultimately make us better grant makers. It also sets the tone for how to reach people in ways that are more authentic without seeming stuffy, but do it in a different way than foundations typically operate."
Avner, Vice President and Senior Program Manager at the Haile Foundation,
launched People's Liberty in summer 2014 and
awarded its first grants later that year.
Detroit-based Urban Innovation Exchange is an initiative to advance the growing movement of people leading change in cities. Launched in 2012 as a three-year project funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, UIX now showcases catalytic talent transforming cities and neighborhoods across the U.S.
Soapbox's parent company, Issue Media Group, is a UIX national partner.
Read the full Urban Innovation Exchange story
here.
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