Real-World Examples and Fresh Perspectives on How to Take Impact Mainstream From the SOCAP25 Brief & Bold Talks
During the SOCAP25 “Brief & Bold Lightning Talks,” seven leaders shared how their innovative organizations are tackling some of the world’s most significant social and environmental challenges. During these short and insightful sessions, the presenters introduced diverse approaches to building inclusive, cross-sector partnerships and unlocking capital at scale.
Learn from the powerful initiatives being undertaken by the speakers’ organizations, hear real-world examples of the change they are driving, and take in fresh perspectives that illuminate how the community is moving impact from a niche to mainstream. You’ll hear about issues related to emerging technology, limited access to capital, and underserved communities, all offering forward-thinking and scalable solutions.
Watch their presentations below for insight into their ventures and actionable ideas to drive collaboration and accelerate impact within your own work and across the broader ecosystem.
Jacqueline Biner, WHEN Ventures | Democratizing Litigation Funding
“WHEN started as a shared vision between a philanthropic entrepreneur and a reformed corporate lawyer, with a collective conscience to overhaul a broken system and start a movement… We’ve entered the scene with a simple yet bold idea. Two entities, one mission: To make harm expensive.”
Shaped by her science education and substantial legal career in the corporate sector, Jacqueline Biner is determined to make the harmful effects of negligence widely known, ensuring that wrongdoers are held responsible for the harm they cause. Prior to starting WHEN, Biner spent more than two decades navigating the complex world of corporate America. She assumed roles in government affairs, regulatory and compliance, in-house counsel, and general counsel for some of the biggest names in the oil & gas, energy, and consumer goods industries. Biner and the WHEN team aim to revolutionize how fundraising for litigation on behalf of carefully selected causes can bridge purpose and profit, while accelerating the shift toward an economic model that values and sustains the health of people and planet.
Tracey Grose, Center for Growth | Turning Individual Passion Into Collective Capability
“The future truly is collaborative because it’s the only way we can scale to meet today’s challenges. We need to help people emerge from the debilitating weight of fear and overwhelm. We need to bring people together so that we can scale passion into impact.”
Tracey Grose is the Chief of Staff at the Center for Growth, an activation center that helps individuals, organizations, and societies overcome internal barriers, such as uncertainty and fear of the future. The Center serves as a catalyst for positive change, providing the framework, community, and support that enable individuals to thrive. Grose is also the founding principal of TG Strategic Insights and serves on the board of directors of SalesPhase, a CRM software startup. She co-chairs the Cleantech Industry Group of the German American Business Association.
Jieun Lee, Giboo | Connecting Nonprofits to Mission-Aligned Funders
“My invitation is simple: Let’s create this new philanthropy ecosystem together, where transparency is not feared but welcomed. … Let’s build a philanthropy ecosystem where visibility replaces privilege, data replaces bias, and where we can support the best solutions, not the best-connected ones.”
Jieun Lee believes that if we direct resources to the right organizations at the right time, we can solve urgent social and environmental challenges — and unlock new forms of socio-economic capital. She is the co-founder and CEO of Giboo, an AI-powered philanthropic platform to close the global funding gap between nonprofits and donors. Before joining Giboo, Jieun spent six years traveling across 30 countries, documenting the stories of more than 800 social entrepreneurs and activists. What she saw was clear: Money flows to the wealthiest communities while the organizations solving the most challenging problems are left behind. Giboo simplifies the funding process through intelligent matchmaking, ensuring that high-impact organizations, particularly those in overlooked regions, gain access to the resources they need.
Meradith Leebrick, Fòs Feminista | Investing in Sexual and Reproductive Health in the Global South
“Right now, the availability of women’s health funding across the world is fickle and fragile. In a matter of months, we have seen $600 million in cuts to global family planning and reproductive health programming, unraveling decades of progress towards achieving health outcomes. It’s times like these when urgency truly becomes our greatest ally.”
Meradith Leebrick has 15 years of experience working in social innovation, social enterprise business model design, and impact investing, collaborating one-on-one with nonprofit organizations and social entrepreneurs across the Global South to develop scalable models for growth and impact. Fòs Feminista is an international alliance of more than 180 organizations across 35 countries in the Global South, dedicated to advancing sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice for women, girls, and gender-diverse people. Leebrick is responsible for coordinating the work of Fòs Feminista’s Social Innovation and Financing Unit, providing strategic direction to develop, grow, and manage opportunities for flexible and repayable funding and engagement in collaborative social innovation initiatives. These are accessible to partners across the alliance to resource and advance their work with women, girls, and gender-diverse populations.
Cleve Mesidor, Blockchain Foundation | Demystifying the Language of Cryptocurrency
“I want people to have access to trusted content from reputable sources. Just as the world trusts that data is in the cloud, a cloud they don’t even understand, I want to get us to the point where we can have that level of confidence in blockchain and cryptocurrency.”
Cleve Mesidor is the Executive Director of Blockchain Foundation. She is also a Forbes Contributor and part of Money20/20’s RiseUp network. Previously, Mesidor served as a Policy Advisor to the Blockchain Association and was a mayoral appointee to the DC Innovation and Tech Inclusion Council. A Washington insider, she served in the Obama Administration and as a senior staffer in Congress. A web3 expert with eight years of experience in crypto, she has been profiled in NPR’s Morning Edition, Bloomberg, POLITICO, CNBC, ABC, PBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and TIME. She was also featured in the PBS Documentary, “CRYPTO DECODED”, as well as the Coinbase documentary, “COIN: A Founder’s Story.”
John Simon, Total Impact Capital | Expanding Access to Capital for Underserved Communities
“Investment is about being responsive to what people on the ground want. It’s about empowering local enterprises. It’s about focusing not on what goes in but what comes out, the results that are created. It’s about leveraging all the resources in a community, including private capital. It’s about identifying what works best by testing out different models and identifying which ones are going to make a difference. And it’s about integrating solutions into local systems and local opportunities.”
John Simon is a founder and the Managing Partner/CEO of Total Impact Capital, an impact investing firm that structures, markets, and manages financing vehicles for underserved communities. Prior to founding Total Impact Capital, Ambassador Simon served as a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development, where he co-authored “More than Money,” a report on impact investing as a development tool. Previously, he held various posts in the U.S. Federal government, including serving most recently as the United States Ambassador to the African Union and as the Executive Vice President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, where he championed the Agency’s involvement in the social impact investment marketplace, spearheading efforts to finance affordable housing, small and medium businesses, and renewable energy.
Mark Surman, Mozilla | Building Pro-Human AI Focused on Trust, Privacy & Openness
“We need a rebel alliance to bend tech in a better direction. And it’s really important that we do that because big tech, the mainstream of tech, is wired to harvest our creativity, to harvest our data, to harvest our money, and only to benefit a few people. We can and must build a different kind of tech industry that has humans in mind and that shares the wealth with all of us.”
Mark Surman has spent three decades building a better internet, from the advent of the web to the rise of artificial intelligence. As President of Mozilla, a global nonprofit technology company that does everything from developing Firefox to advocating for a more open and equitable internet, Mark’s current focus is on ensuring that the various Mozilla organizations work in concert to make trustworthy AI a reality. Mark led the creation of Mozilla.ai (a commercial AI R&D lab) and Mozilla Ventures (an impact venture fund with a strong focus on AI). Previously, Surman was the Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation for 15 years. He grew the organization into an international movement-building force, renowned for its fellowships, philanthropy, advocacy, and insights work.
