Blue Meridian is dedicated to increasing economic mobility in the US and maintains diverse investment portfolios that address the problems trapping young people and families in poverty.
Our innovative investment approach is designed to address the complexity and scope of poverty in the US. With a rigorous investor mindset, we pool substantial philanthropic capital in order to provide flexible, upfront investments to social sector leaders to help them significantly scale the reach, impact, and influence of their solutions.
We recognize both the power of national scaling to touch more lives and the importance of local solutions, as people’s life chances are inextricably tied to where they live.
Therefore, we invest in both nationwide and place-based strategies in order to amplify impact both across the country and within communities.
In light of the COVID-19 crisis, we are adapting our strategy across our portfolios, which support the comprehensive approaches required to create avenues of opportunity for long-term equitable recovery.
With a pioneering spirit, Blue Meridian continues to explore solutions that can remove barriers to economic mobility on a transformative scale, build strategic collaborations that invest philanthropic capital for greater impact, and advance the work of a wider range of visionary social sector leaders and organizations.
Blue Meridian maintains five portfolios of philanthropic investments that seek to solve the problems that limit economic mobility:
The Nationwide Solutions portfolio makes significant, long-term investments to address the causes and drivers of poverty and bring evidence-based solutions to a national scale. Our investments are right-sized to meet the scale of the problem and provide the unrestricted growth capital required to help strategies that are already producing results to deepen their impact and expand nationwide.
The Regional Strategies portfolio invests to increase the number of place-based partnerships that realize impact. We recognize the importance of communities and living environments in determining access to opportunity, and focus on the people and inequities specific to a region. We complement local investments with national strategies, creating a continuum of services designed to generate inclusive economic mobility.
The Justice and Mobility Fund is a collaboration working to boost economic mobility and improve the life trajectories of people impacted by the criminal justice system. Co-created by Blue Meridian and the Ford Foundation, the Fund invests in solutions that reduce convictions and incarcerations and mitigate the negative downstream effects on individuals, families, and communities.
The Studio @ Blue Meridian embraces experimentation and seeks to empower leaders in order to catalyze more organizations’ readiness for significant scaling. The Studio addresses the current gap in the funding market by providing social sector leaders the flexible capital and tailored support they need to experiment with and refine their strategies, ultimately preparing them for scale.
Our COVID-19 Emergency Relief is focused on organizations serving vulnerable communities as an immediate response to the current crisis. Blue Meridian has allocated over $150 million in emergency relief to organizations helping populations hardest hit by the crisis. We also are supporting existing investees to address urgent needs and work long-term toward an equitable recovery. Three mantras guide our approach: act now, partner with others, and trust social sector leaders and community members to know what meets their needs.
