Dan Vogel, Founder and CEO of Flourish Fund, on the Powerful Synergy of Collaborative Giving Funds (Ep. 149)

Dan Vogel, founder and CEO of Flourish Fund, has carried a lifelong passion for solving big social problems that are close to the heart of God. As a young boy, Dan was drawn to leadership that would make an improved difference in the systems that were meant to address those problems. From the White House to overseas to a consulting firm in Boston, Dan’s extensive professional background working in government, economic development, and nonprofit realms, all set the stage for the launch of Flourish Fund.  

Flourish Fund is a giving fund that channels pooled capital from givers alongside extensive problem area research to bring about large, system level change. Flourish Fund’s unique effectiveness is found in their focus on collaborative giving and cooperation between organizations, both faith-based and secular, who offer various approaches toward the same goal. Their first fund called Flourish Children and Families is focused on reimagining the foster care system, and they’ve already made impressive progress.  

Major Topics Include:

• Dan’s faith and career journey
• The story of Flourish Fund
• Traditional philanthropy vs Christian philanthropy 
• The need for growth in impact assessment in Christian giving spaces
• What Flourish Fund is about and how it works
• Tackling big social problems that matter to the heart of God
• Reimagining foster care in the US with Flourish Fund
• Building strategy and success evaluation into the fund structure
• The portfolio approach to collaborative giving
• Doing collaborative giving well
• Three strategic opportunities to move the needle in foster care
• Navigating collaboration between secular and faith-based organizations
• Knowing where to channel resources 
• Deciding where to focus next
• What to look for in a giving fund
• Tips or givers to engage with the problems that are on God’s heart

QUOTES TO REMEMBER

• “I became convinced that there was room in the marketplace for a new kind of Kingdom problem-solving institution that was trying to connect capital differently with social innovators who were trying to do good work in the name of Jesus.”
• “What might it actually take to move the needle?”
• “No individual organization, even if they are crushing it, is capable of solving a systemic problem on their own.”
• “How might we think differently about what is possible for what we can do together?” 
• “Collaborative giving is the next frontier of effective stewardship”.
• “We want to enable people to have proximity to the problem rather than putting distance between the giver and the receiver.”
• “We want to enable and strengthen local ecosystems of care that are anchored by the Church, working in partnership with community organizations, government, and volunteers doing different sets of things to meet the physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational needs of vulnerable kids and families.”
• “When Christians have been at their best through the ages, we’ve tended to build big tents and work with odd bedfellows. We have unique things that we can bring to bear, but we can’t to it alone so we have to figure out how to work with a bunch of different people, and if we can do that well, it will point people back to Jesus.”

LINKS FROM THE SHOW

• Flourish Fund
• Flourish Children and Families
• Flourish Children and Families Blueprint
• Al Mueller, Founder and President of Excellence in Giving (see our past interview here)
• Simple Charity (see our interview with CEO Brian Grasso)
• EIG Insights (see our interview with cofounder Kate Williams-Whitley)
• Praxis
• IllumiNations Bible Translation Alliance (see our interview with Todd Peterson or John Chesnut)
• Project Belong
• The Contingent
• Solving the World’s Greatest Problems
• The Finish Line Community Facebook Group