Kim Dempsey Joins Greater Share as COO

Our new chief operating officer, Kim Dempsey, has a background in impact investing and philanthropy. She is the former executive vice president of capital markets for the Housing Partnership Network, and before that she was deputy director of the social investment practice for the Kresge Foundation. Below in this interview, she gives some thoughts about her previous work, her new role and the potential for the Greater Share platform. 

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Hi Kim. You've had a very interesting career journey, so we'll just start with, how did you pick Greater Share as your next adventure? 

Well, thank you for saying I’ve had an interesting career journey. Let's see. There were a handful of things that really attracted me to Greater Share. One is our global footprint. I have spent my career focused on the United States and thought it would be quite exciting to work on a global platform. And it has been so far! Figuring out how to type the euro sign on my keyboard, that was one of the things I did in my first week. 

Two, my career up to this point has focused on debt and debt-like instruments, structured funds, etc. And I thought, "My goodness, private equity is a multi-trillion-dollar market. If this platform really does enable this asset class to share a portion of its economics with people and organizations who are making the world a better place, I want to get in on that.”  

The potential scale and reach of Greater Share are also exciting. My career has been exclusively in the “impact investment” space, where we fight over a very limited number of dollars that have been allocated for “impact” — certainly a much smaller market than private equity. Greater Share is designed to move dollars that have not, primarily, been segmented or tagged for impact. And we’re doing so through the generosity of both private individuals, family offices, etc., and the private equity firms. This is quite an exciting model. 

And the world of start-ups is totally new for me. The youngest NGO I've ever worked for was about 25 years old when I joined them, all the way to the Kresge Foundation, which is going to turn 100 next year. And I thought that the opportunity at this point in my career to take a leadership role and help build something from its start would be a great challenge. 

Finally, of course, the opportunity to work with our CEO Dana Bezerra. I have known Dana for decades. We have been in and out of the same circles around impact, her mostly at the Heron Foundation and me in these other places that we just discussed, but always keeping one eye on each other. I think she's brilliant. I think she's brave. And, frankly, I thought if Dana thinks that this is a compelling opportunity, if Dana thinks that Greater Share could unlock bigger pots of money to do more good in the world, then I want to be part of that.  

I love all the framing. You've been pretty much drinking from a fire hose, trying to get up to speed since you started in November. We've had a transition with you taking over all operations from the Bain & Company team previously assisting us. What have you learned so far that you find interesting? 

So many things! Let's start with something that just has to be said: The generosity of Bain & Co. to provide pro bono labor over the last 18 plus months as Greater Share was getting up and going was invaluable. I don't think Greater Share would be to the point of development it is today without that tremendous support and expertise. And I was not that familiar with the capacities of Bain to do that kind of pro bono work for NGOs. So, I found that interesting, in addition to my gratitude, that they dedicated some of their capacity to Greater Share. 

Back to our earlier discussion of new things for me, the capital I've raised throughout my career has been mostly institutional – from philanthropy, banks, other institution types and capital already dedicated to impact. Greater Share is raising capital mostly from high-net-worth individuals and families and through the people that manage their money. So, I have found it very interesting to think about how you approach fundraising differently when we're talking about individual or family wealth (and their gatekeepers!) as opposed to raising from institutions who are not writing checks from their own, literal bank accounts.  

Finally, I am so fascinated, surprised and humbled by the number and high quality of the partners that have signed on to help Greater Share pro bono. I mean, Simpson Thacher, Bain & Co., Apex Group and their affiliate FundRock, Hamilton Lane, Goji — these are best-in-class folks in and around the private equity world who have committed their time and energy and intellectual capital for free to support the launch and sustainability of this platform. I think that's tremendous.  

I want to talk a little bit about trying to thread the needle with philanthropy and private equity. You have talked about the opportunity and the interest, but where do you see Greater Share potentially going, knowing what you know? 

I would say that a top priority and pain point for NGOs is the difficulty of raising sufficient, consistent, multi-year unrestricted funds. There is just some greater good work that must be supported by grants and not debt or equity. Believe me, I have spent most of my career trying to figure out what part of positive, social impact work in the world can be financed. And we can finance a lot! Affordable housing, small businesses, public infrastructure, etc. But I cannot finance the food at a food bank, or literacy programs, or so many other necessary things because they won’t generate cashflow to repay investors.  

Despite the fact that we know this, most grants to NGOs are highly restricted, highly bespoke, and highly specific to the strategies of a particular foundation, and therefore there's quite a lot of burden put on nonprofits in exchange for grants when it comes to reporting and financial accounting, not to mention what they can and cannot spend the money on. And most nonprofits do a complex multitude of things, and having to separately account for and report on, on a grant-by-grant basis, specific to certain activities and not others can distract from mission and takes time away from the good work they were set up to do. 

My hope is that one of the wild successes of Greater Share will be the creation of a regular and repeatable source of this unrestricted, multi-year funding for nonprofits, so that they can focus on what they do best. I know that goal was part of the founders’ intention, and it's absolutely something that I'm passionate about. For me, having spent years in and around philanthropy, that's probably the thing that's most compelling about Greater Share. 

I love that. I was tooling around on the internet, and I saw a Kresge Foundation post from several years ago where people on your team discussed their favorite deals. Your two favorites focused largely on green infrastructure, particularly water management. So, as we're considering Greater Share’s next round of investments, what gets you excited about the possibilities within the climate and sustainability space? 

Oh, so much! First of all, it's an imperative. I think some would say – and it would be tough to argue with them – that we should all be dropping everything we're doing and focus on climate resilience, particularly for the people that will be the most adversely affected, which are also the same people that have least contributed to the problem. So full stop, this is one of the most important emergencies of our time, and certainly of my professional life. Two, we know what to do! That's the frustration and the irony. We have effective technologies. We have proven interventions. And what that means is we have multiple investment opportunities. You can make grants. You can invest. You can create new companies, technologies, and services. There is so much we can do. 

Years ago, when we had someone in the White House questioning whether climate change was real, there was some concern in the philanthropic sector about what impact that belief would have. I said, "That ship has sailed." Markets are already responding to the crisis. If you're not mitigating climate risk, your project is probably not going to be insurable, your fund will have more difficulty attracting capital, and a city’s bond rating will be at risk. We already have people and technologies and businesses that are doing the things that need to be done for mitigating and ameliorating and creating the resilience that we need to address climate change. My hope is that we can direct capital to where it will do the most good to power these approaches. 

What you said brought up a lot of things for me, so what's top-of-mind for you right now? Do you have anything else you want to say to our potential audience?  

Yes! To be honest, we haven't quite figured all of this out yet. Greater Share is very much a startup that's attempting to create a new bridge between private equity and NGOs on a global scale. We can point to some early successes in attracting partners and raising funding, but we still have a way to go before we are sustainable. 

I guess if I were to put an ask out there, it's that we need more partners, advocates, allies to help us figure out how to strengthen the model. Our mission is clear. I think that the infrastructure is in place. We have these incredibly high-quality organizations that are helping us figure out the technical and tactical aspects, but we haven't quite figured out how to optimize our ability to unlock the investors whose capital we need to really power this thing for the long term…frankly, to really power NGOs for the long term. That’s what’s top-of-mind for me every day.

So, what's the 2.0 version of Greater Share? What's the next evolution of the platform so that we can reach our ultimate common goal, which is creating a conduit for unrestricted, multi-year funding for these high-impact NGOs? What's the right combination of adjustments we should be making to our approach and model that will position us better for impact and sustainability over the long run? I don't think we've quite figured it out yet, but I’m excited to work with our team and partners to do so.

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