Blue Meridian Partners is a pioneering philanthropic model for finding and funding scalable solutions to the problems that trap America’s young people and families in poverty and limit economic mobility.
Blue Meridian’s model helps unlock unprecedented resources for social sector leaders and organizations, so they can scale our nation’s most promising strategies to solve problems trapping youth and families in poverty and limiting economic mobility.
In October 2018, Blue Meridian Partners announced plans to become an independent enterprise and embark on a new phase of growth, expanding its capital base, which now totals $2 billion, and its portfolio of national grantees and regional strategies striving to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty for millions of Americans.
Visit BlueMeridian.org for more information.
Launched in 2016 and incubated by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, Blue Meridian Partners builds on EMCF’s decades-long experience making performance-based investments and its leadership in aggregating growth capital. Its large, unrestricted grants provide visionary social sector leaders the upfront growth capital they require to scale their programs and achieve national impact, while providing philanthropists a way to pool resources and invest more effectively and efficiently than any one of them could individually, sharing the costs, risks and rewards of their collaboration.
As it opens a second chapter in its growth and in its goals, Blue Meridian welcomes new Partners to join in helping solve problems confronting children and youth living in poverty in America by meeting scale with scale.
Blue Meridian in the News:
Blue Meridian - The Big Picture
CEO Nancy Roob describes the Partners' vision: "to really move the needle on social problems in this country."
HOW DOES BLUE MERIDIAN PARTNERS DIFFER FROM THE EDNA MCCONNELL CLARK FOUNDATION?
First, although EMCF’s approach to identifying, investing in and holding nonprofits accountable for performance is the “engine” driving Blue Meridian Partners’ investments, this initiative is exploring opportunities to invest in programs serving a broader age range of youth, from birth to age 30. The areas in which these programs are working are also broader and include early childhood development and learning, K-12 education, and the child welfare and juvenile/criminal justice systems.
Second, the size of the commitments made by Blue Meridian Partners will make possible investments that are significantly larger and longer than EMCF’s have been -- totaling up to $200 million (over 5 to 10 years) for each grantee.
Finally, in contrast to EMCF’s previous ventures in capital aggregation, General Partners share in Blue Meridian Partners’ decision-making and sit on its board, which is chaired by Stanley Druckenmiller.