What makes an* open future fund?

By inviting a space for experimentation and inquiry across traditional institutional barriers, we believe it is not only possible, but necessary, to model how we can better meet the risk requirements of existing capital markets by following the terms of those intimately familiar with the regions and areas of practice in which we are investing: those who are driven by a deep hope and care for the places they live and embody the wisdom and resilience that these times require.

While this may be achieved in different ways over time, we are committed to the following practices and principles:

1. Open exchange, through access to shared tools and infrastructure that promote shared knowledge, best practices, skills, and metrics, within and between funding ecosystems to enable greater performance at lower cost over time 

2. Open access to tools for compliance, risk, and fund management, opening the door for new fund managers and advancing the field through inclusion of diverse and creative perspectives 

3. An open roster: not naming from day one a specific set of investments, instead including the evolving expertise of subject matter experts, community leaders, and local funders

4. Open boundaries between forms of capital—looking at how we can synchronize philanthropy, debt, equity, public resources, and non-financial capital as a co-catalyzing  ecosystem—and between funds, investing with and as part of an ecosystem 

5. An open continuum of partnership, seeing beyond a binary of “investable” and “not”: instead supporting the path from where communities are to where they want to go, matching the right forms of financial and non-financial support at the right time 

6. Open and transparent criteria and processes, giving equitable access while meeting the reporting and compliance requirements of institutional funders 

7. An open-ended fund, allowing participation to evolve and grow over time: acknowledging that structures and approaches will continually refine from new learnings

8. An open, expansive, and evolving definition of risk, taking into account systemic risks while recognizing social and other non-financial forms of underwriting

9. Openness to being wrong: having the humility to enter our own ecosystem as learners, test our assumptions, and collectively improve based on what emerges (bringing us greater resilience in the long-term) 

10. A future-oriented perspective, designing not for the next 6 months or 6 years, but for  future generations of learning that we cannot yet envision

11. A commitment to the thriving of all life for future generations

* We use the word “an” here quite intentionally. We see ourselves as members of our own broader ecosystem, encouraging others to leverage and improve upon our tools and models. All of our shared activities will be aligned through a core set of practices and principles, which will evolve as we learn together over time.