Another Milestone...and we're just getting started!

I've got to say, as excited as I am about FFF's rapid development, I feel a little bittersweet as our pilot training program comes to an end with the conclusion of BGIA's "Global Social Entrepreneurship & Strategic Philanthropy" semester course. How can we be winding down? We're just getting started! The students have come so far in their study and practice of social investment. Now, all their hard work culminates this Thursday, May 14th, as the FFF Portfolio Student Directors (13 BGIA students from six countries) present the final youth-to-youth investment selections for their portfolio teams.

Seems like there've been weekly highlights and milestones:

• launching FFF w/former President Clinton at CGIU,
• visits to Acumen Fund, Echoing Green, the Action Center;
• inspiring guest speakers
• a NYC youth-to-youth Investor Pitch,
• a virtual investor pitch featuring entrepreneurs online from Ann Arbor, MI to my hometown, Portland, OR.

And it seems like every week, new potential partners emerge (from New Delhi to New York), new challenges surface (from capitalizing the fund to managing growth strategy), and we're figuring out ways to do things differently (and hopefully better, next time) as we develop and refine FFF's social investment model.

Throughout their semester-long academic training program, the Portfolio Student Directors have been considering 14 youth-led social ventures for FFF youth-to-youth social investment. Nominated by four of our Pipeline Partners (this round: Clinton Global Initiative, Global Engagement Summit, NYWomen Social Entrepreneurs, and Teach for America), these investment opportunities address one or more of our four portfolio global social priorities: Poverty Alleviation, Public Health, Climate Change & Energy, and Human Rights & Peace. I can't wait to see what they come up with Thursday. And can't wait to continue working together well beyond the end of this semester. As the poet Tony Hoagland says, "What I thought was an end, turned out to be a middle." And we've only just begun!

At FFF's launch, forecast ahead to its 10th anniversary!

Amidst celebrities, global social entrepreneurs and world leaders, I couldn't help but think that the participants' Commitments to Action were the real stars at last weekend's Clinton Global Initiative University meeting in Austin, TX. This is where real change happens: the intersection of inspiring vision and hard work. Over a 1000 students, 100 university Presidents, and nearly as many social leaders gathered together to make their commitments of action for global change in: poverty alleviation, climate change & energy, health, human rights & peace, and education. As we launched the Fast Forward Fund, announced by former President Clinton at the CGIU 2009 Press Conference, I felt humbled and inspired to help drive a new path on the global social agenda: youth investment activism.

Through FFF, social investment--how we give and direct philanthropic capital, is a new form of activism, and becomes a means of global civic engagement. To pursue youth social investment as action, we need a better handle on how we give today and how we can imagine giving in the future. So, take a moment of reflection and let us know: what is your current thinking about social giving? What are your associations with and assumptions about strategic philanthropy? What is your experience if any as a social investor? How do you see young adults and college students as philanthropists? Look around and tell us what you see as the most creative, innovative trends in youth giving. And stretch your imagination: if you could forecast youth social investment 10 years into the future, what would it look like? Paint a picture of the Fast Forward Fund on its 10th Anniversary.