Reflecting the experience of our founder, our goal is to be an entrepreneurial foundation. As such, we embrace the following entrepreneurial traits which we hope make for strong grantmaking:

• Innovation: We are committed to pursuing innovative approaches to longstanding issues and problems in so far as it enables an expansion of impact. However, we also recognize that impact can grow by appropriately resourcing ideas that have been around for years.

• Partnership: We are committed to conducting our work in coordination with grantees and other funders to increase the chances of success. We strive to build a community where we can learn from each others' successes and failures.

• Resource Leveraging: Our grantmaking capabilities are limited, and we understand that many of our grantees operate on very tight budgets. We look for opportunities to leverage the effectiveness of our grants through collaboration and synergy.

• Risk-taking: Pursuing innovative, unproven approaches increases the level of risk both for the foundation and its grantees. We believe such risks are worth taking.

• High performance: We strive to be as efficient and effective as possible in our own work and expect the same from our grantees. We seek the highest return on our investments

• Effective Leadership: We believe that, to a large degree, an organization can only be as effective as its leaders. We support our grantees with resources to improve the quality of their leadership.

• Responsiveness: Now more than ever, responsiveness, flexibility, and nimbleness characterize the best organizations. We strive to exhibit these qualities in our work and cultivate them in the groups we support.