Merton Capital Partners (MCP) is venture philanthropy targeting at solving massive social and environmental challenges by engaging donors to actively scale their giving. Since MCP is still under its initial stage, I directly worked with the CEO Sean Davis, who put me to the frontline of fundraising and developing the first two funds – housing and water infrastructure philanthropic funds. To be specific, my job responsibilities included reaching out to potential donors through email/cold call/LinkedIn, researching the US affordable housing issue, and establishing the pitch decks. I focused on three donor categories: hedge fund managers, private equity firms, and technology companies. There were no structural guidance or name lists, so I took ownership to do research, build up a brand new donor list, scan the news, and draft short message as well as long emails to cold call potential donors. The response rate of my cold calling was over 15 percent. After hearing back from the donors, I set up Zoom meetings between MCP and the donor, sat in the meeting, briefly introduced MCP’s mission, and was involve in the discussion about venture philanthropy ideas. Besides fundraising, I also researched the donor advised funds (DAFs) and the US affordable housing issue, collected statistics of homeless and single mothers, and translated the data into more presentable formats in the pitching decks.

Most of the soft skills I learned at Columbia Business School were extremely helpful in this internship. What I learned in the Managerial Negotiation course contributed a lot to my conversations with potential donors. Instead of asking for donations, I usually started by introducing the concept of venture philanthropy and asked for advice on our ideas. I was also willing to learn from their philanthropy experience and their planning in the following years, which helped me know their purposes and further considered what I could help. I applied a lot of communication toolkits in the Negotiation course to be transparent, honest, and trustworthy. The response rate surprised me, and I really appreciated the opportunity to have direct conversations with some very senior leaders in large charitable funds or family foundations. I also applied what I learned in the Marketing and Strategy courses when identifying the key issues to emphasize in the pitch decks and uncovering the value proposition to potential donors. CBS alumni resources also helped me a lot in this internship – all alumni I reached out to responded promptly and chatted with me through phone or Zoom. Their experience in philanthropy or social entrepreneurship provided us a bigger picture of DAFs and a clear direction to focus on in the long term.

When starting to cold call potential donors, I was very struggling since the cold call was not a mainstream way to raise capital in Asian culture. After realizing there was a barrier for me to pick up the phone and call some random people, I spoke with the CEO and asked for advice. He was surprised to hear that I had never cold called in my previous jobs, but he was willing to help me with my first one. He told me how to express my purpose in a more acceptable way in the phone call and make my words concise and convincing. I was surprised that there were so many technics behind a 30-second short pitch in a call, and from then on, I knew I should show more respect to people who were cold calling me and were able to persuade me in less than one minute. After rehearsal several times, I finally found my courage to make the first call. The person on the other side was the program manager of a family foundation, and she was very patient to hear me ending my short speech. After that, she said sorry that they were not accepting any external investing ideas, but she was willing to keep in touch and introduce us to other funds she knew. I felt really motivated when I hang off the phone – the respectful way I was treated in the call was over my expectations. Therefore, I kept practicing and continuing calling over 50 funds, and finally set up over ten donor meetings.

The internship motivated me to learn about DAFs, philanthropy, and giving pledges. It was astonishing that a large amount of philanthropy money has been put aside without the right channels to build a better society. I also realized how hard it is to start a business from a brand new idea, even though people agreed it was a great idea. During this internship, I was given opportunities to initiate my research and outreach process, and I was encouraged to take ownership in initiating conversations with senior management. The preparation and practice made perfect. To be comfortable to speak with extremely experienced people, I need to do tons of research before the meeting to ensure my questions were thoughtful. It was also a great opportunity for me to observe the different communication styles of different donors – how they organized their sentences to make counterparts feel comfortable and engaged in the conversations. Philanthropy was a very new and exciting area to me, and I plan to take relevant classes at CBS during the second year and hope to be involved in the philanthropic world in the long term.