We are living in an era where for-profit companies are not just acknowledging the importance of contributing to societal and environmental betterment but are making it a mainstream commitment. This shift is becoming a significant lever for creating value for both shareholders and customers alike.

It was not my intention when I started Rise Together Ventures to begin a drone investment fund, but weirdly I keep falling in love with drone companies…first DroneDeploy, then Saildrone, and now a “drone as a first responder” company called Aerodome. Aerodome is focused on enhancing emergency response capabilities of public safety agencies such as Police and Fire Departments through the use of advanced unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - i.e. drones.

For those of you who have seen the movie Billy Madison, you may remember Adam Sandler’s famous scene where he purposely splashes water on his pants to make a little boy feel less awkward about peeing his pants: “it’s the coolest to pee your pants!” Well, in real life, and especially as an adult, it is NOT cool to pee your pants. Nor should it be the norm.

DroneDeploy is the leading cloud-based drone mapping and analytics platform to help businesses get things done. DroneDeploy built the software that enables images and videos captured by drones and robots to be useful to a variety of industries.

Entrepreneurs are often celebrated for their ability to innovate, take risks, and build successful businesses. However, beyond their entrepreneurial prowess, many successful business leaders also possess a deep commitment to philanthropy and are emerging as powerful philanthropists (think Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Pierre Omidyar).

You’ve likely heard about, or even made a purchase on, the Etsy website – but you may not know as much about Etsy’s corporate social responsibility program. One of their core impact goals of 2023 is to build more diversity into their marketplaces and increase underrepresented seller shops. In service of this goal, Etsy announced a partnership with Grameen America, a nonprofit that facilitates microloans to female entrepreneurs in the US.

According to Oxford Languages (Google’s dictionary), Philanthropy is defined as “the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes.”

The world of philanthropy has grown in myriad ways over the past few years. The opportunities to invest in the betterment of the world have grown beyond the typical means, and thereby opened up new ways of increasing impact for every dollar given.

It has undoubtedly been quite a volatile couple of weeks for the tech + banking sectors. Beginning with the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank fallouts, and resulting worry spreading to First Republic and now the Credit Suisse situation, it is a fragile time for banks, startups and investors alike.