About Aepoch Fund
Mission
Started in 2006, Aepoch Fund is a small experimental foundation that supports people, organizations and movements engaged in transformational work to create the conditions for all people and the planet to thrive.
We support those working to:
- amplify the voices, lives, and art of people who have been marginalized;
- create alternatives to current economic, political and social systems of inequality, violence, and environmental degradation;
- support healing and resiliency in individuals, communities, and movements, including healing from societal trauma; and
- illuminate and bring attention to positive social and environmental transformation that is already happening around the world.
We see and support the powerful role that artists, healers and activists play in linking ecological, cultural, economic, and social issues to create viable solutions to our most complex and pressing challenges.
Guiding Principles
- Flexibility:
- Our mission and strategies are evolving over time. We adapt our processes to meet the needs of particular individuals or communities.
- Accessibility:
- We recognize and accommodate persons of all physical and intellectual abilities so that people are able to access resources.
- Self-reflection:
- We strive to be self-reflective and continually reinvent the organization to become more humane, authentic, and accessible.
- Empowerment:
- We respect the wisdom in communities and support self-determination and empowerment for all people. We support people to trust in themselves, their own inventiveness, and in their power to change.
- Collaboration:
- We are committed to co-creating, sharing resources, networks, perspectives and information.
- Passion:
- We invite advisors, partners and staff where it is their passion and in ways that enable them to thrive.
- Integrity:
- We seek to develop authentic relationships with all constituencies.
- Inclusion:
- When engaging with other funders, networks and movements, we take a stand for integrity, inclusion and marginalized voices being at the table.
Programs
We made our first grants in November 2006, through the Arts Fund. Since then, we have created several other funding streams including the Community Healing Fund and the Creative Solutions Fund. In the last four years, we have distributed more than $3 million in grants. Please note that currently, all grantmaking is done by invitation only. Because we have a small staff and rely on community advisors and partners in our grantmaking process, we do not accept unsolicited proposals.
From the beginning, we have taken an experimental approach to our work – both in what we support, and how we operate. We have often been an early seed funder, providing money to nurture out of the box ideas or approaches that might be too new or radical for other funders. We have established a series of Flow Funds, which provide community leaders with small grantmaking pools dedicated to a specific purpose and an opportunity to make grant recommendations. Another successful experiment has been the Aepoch Coaching Fund, which provides our grantees with access to low-cost high-quality leadership coaching. We have engaged community leaders in some of our grants decision-making committees, and we have created simple, flexible application and reporting processes. We have also partnered with others to leverage our grantmaking, such as through the Other Worlds are Possible Giving Circle and the Seasons Fund for Social Transformation. Please see the Grants section for more details.
We also provide fiscal sponsorship for a few select projects.
Our Community
Aepoch is an ever-evolving organization. With a small staff, most of our work is undertaken by a creative group of community advisors and partners. See the list of people who have served as key advisors, grants committee members, Flow Funders, staff, consultants and board members over the years.
Our day-to-day operations are conducted by a team of part-time staff and consultants who are all also engaged in other work in the world:
- Lara Barth
- Program Coordinator (also works for Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA)
- Amanda Coslor
- Co-Founder & President (is also a midwife)
- Benita Kline
- Grants Manager (is also a Principal at Leventhal Kline Management)
- Laura Loescher
- Co-Founder & Director (is also a leadership coach and philanthropic advisor)
- Zak Sinclair
- Program Coordinator (is also a philanthropic consultant and a psychotherapist)
We also want to acknowledge Todd Herman as Co-Founder of Aepoch Fund.
Grants management and operational support is provided by Leventhal Kline Management. www.philanthropicadvisor.com
Money and Values
A small handful of donors provided the early financial support for Aepoch Fund. With the input of some community advisors, we decided that rather than establishing an endowment and giving away 5-10% each year as most foundations do, we would flow the money through to the community within five or six years. While we haven’t had a long-term endowment to manage, we have always been mindful of managing our funds with investments that as closely align with the values underlying our grantmaking as possible. For example, we currently bank with Community Bank of the Bay, a local community institution in Oakland. For short-term and mid-term cash and fixed income investments, we have mostly used Calvert Community Investment Notes, and CDs and Money Market Funds at South Shore Bank, a community bank in the Midwest. We also have a relationship with RSF Social Finance and their Social Investment Fund.
