A Peek Inside Our 2024 Pipeline: A Sustained Focus on Diverse Media, AI for Liberation, Emerging EdTech Solutions & More

Published

By Carlos Salinas & Abi Leung

In the categories:

We just wrapped our funding work for 2024 and recently announced the newest additions to our portfolio: Chorus AI, AI4Abolition, Kinfolk Tech Foundation & Data Nutrition Project. You can read more about them here. This was our fourth year of running the continuous investment cycle and we also launched a grant opportunity to explore responsible, ethical, equitable AI for non profits in collaboration with Kapor Foundation. We reviewed hundreds of impressive organizations across these two opportunities and are intrigued by what we’re seeing. Here are some of the themes that appeared during our diligence processes.

With organizations addressing critical issues in overlooked communities, we're thrilled that our founders represent these groups. This season, our cohort demonstrates remarkable diversity:

  • 100% of our organizations are BIPOC-led

  • 75% have a Black founder

  • 25% have an Asian founder

  • 25% have a Latine founder

  • 50% include a nonbinary founder

It's worth noting that all of our organizations have multiple founders, contributing to these statistics.

We also focus on the budget size of organizations as a metric to gauge how catalytic our funding will be. This year, half of the organizations we supported operate with budgets under $500,000, underscoring the potential impact of our investments.

Now onto more specific insights, broken down between our for-profit and nonprofit pipelines:

First off, what we’re seeing amongst for-profit start-ups that applied to our continuous investment cycle:

  1. Many are building integrative & comprehensive CRM solutions

We’ve watched as long standing technology tools like NGP VAN, Nation Builder, etc., have failed to meet the needs of the progressive movement. We’ve even funded alternatives, like Openfield. This season we saw a rise in tools that are hoping to replace old players in the space - these companies made up 10% of our diligence stage. These organizations cover different areas of work, some planning to have a broader area of focus, while others are honed in on specific tasks, like fundraising. While we acknowledge that easy to use, efficient technology is key to engaging voters and audiences, the market is extremely saturated with tools having little differentiation. Many tools we looked at contained similar features. From our perspective, it’s not enough to have a clean UX/UI (the main differentiator we’ve noticed), the tools need to set themselves with technology that is both proprietary and innovative. 

  1. Sustaining focus on diversity & representation in media

Telling diverse stories feels riskier than ever right now. The far-right is weaponizing the word ‘DEI’ and looking for ways to cut down on basic equitable practices. At the same time, layoffs in the entertainment industry and overall tough economic circumstances have disproportionately affected diversity divisions within companies like Netflix, and tanked entire organizations like Participant Media. Many of our portfolio organizations are facing the same struggles. 

But despite these attacks on DEI efforts and reduced funding for diverse media productions, we still see many organizations in our pipeline that are looking to tell stories authentically for diverse audiences. In light of everything, we are hopeful and happy that founders continue pressing forward and we look forward to supporting more innovative storytelling projects. Areas of innovation we are seeing currently include: an organization building a platform tailored for diverse hiring in the entertainment industry, and niche platforms for Black & Brown gamers.

  1. The incorporation of AI

"AI, everyone’s two favorite letters,” as our Partner Phil loves to say. Generative AI is the new tech trend on the block, and we saw it mentioned in almost every application in our pipeline. With many teams just becoming familiar with the technology, the level of integration varies widely. Organizations are incorporating AI in both creative and operational processes across all industries, including media and civic technology. Its functions range from automating routine tasks, like fundraising calls, to delivering personalized content to users, and even making media more accessible to viewers through translation. 

While we’ve seen many important and innovative use cases for AI in tech tools, we’re also wary of its universal applicability. We encourage founders to ask themselves and their teams, does this idea really require AI – does it add value to the solution? AI incurs various costs: financial, time, and even electricity (which we’ll discuss in the next section, which is why we must ask these questions. As with any tech trend (metaverse, blockchain, etc), it’s easy for entrepreneurs to get caught up in the buzz and incorporate it into our work, but they need to be realistic in knowing if AI is really solving a problem or if it's just a cool new feature that helps garner attention. 

  1. The urgent need for new messaging tools

Messaging has always been important to the progressive movement, but is especially crucial these days with the rise of rampant disinformation, polarization as well as the rapidly changing political environment. Organizations need tools to help them deliver authentic information in a timely manner. Over the years, we've encountered many such tools in our pipeline, but have struggled to fund them due to issues like differentiation, scalability, and adoption. The tools we’ve seen employ a range of mediums, from long-form video to TikTok, messaging, and texting. Among the most promising start-ups in our pipeline, and our latest investment, is Chorus AI. Chorus AI stands out with its sophisticated and proprietary technology that will reduce the time communications teams will need to spend on processes. Chorus AI offers the potential to address longstanding hurdles we’ve seen in the messaging space, offering a fresh perspective on enhancing communication strategies for progressive causes.

Now let’s take a look at our pipeline of nonprofits using AI:

AI has both incredible potential for social change and at the same time, an unprecedented capacity for harm. As AI continues to transform industries and shape our daily lives, a new wave of non-profit organizations has emerged, dedicated to ensuring that this powerful technology is developed and deployed in a manner that benefits all of humanity. In partnership with the Kapor Foundation, we launched our latest open call for AI non-profits at the beginning of the year, hoping to see innovative ideas from activists and entrepreneurs wrestling with the biggest challenges facing our AI-driven future. We're thrilled to have received intakes from more than 31 BIPOC-led startups doing just that. These AI non-profits are at the forefront of a movement to promote diversity, inclusion, transparency, and ethics in the AI landscape, and their work has never been more critical.

  1. Traditionally overlooked founders are looking towards edtech as a powerbuilding solution

Amidst a backdrop of increasing book bans, with 47% of targeted titles by and/or about the queer community and/or people of color, there's a wave of underrepresented founders driving innovation in the EdTech sector. The rapid adoption of technology in classrooms due to COVID-19 has also catalyzed this movement. One example of this is one of our newest grantees, Kinfolk Tech. Kinfolk Tech is leveraging AI to preserve and celebrate the vibrant histories of Black, Brown, and Queer communities. Exposure to a wide range of histories and perspectives through Kinfolk Tech's platform will cultivate empathy, understanding, and critical thinking skills among youth. 

We are also excited about AI4Abolition, another grantee, that is building an AI tool to help facilitate transformative justice processes within schools. Punitive school discipline processes have resulted in what we now know as the school-to-prison pipeline, and restorative justice practices are disrupting this but are currently difficult to replicate at scale. We’re excited about the long-term potential for educational tools, especially given the current political climate, and hopeful that Kinfolk and AI4Abolition will instill a sense of justice in the next generation. 

  1. The need for ethics & transparency in the AI industry

As AI integration accelerates, staying informed about the evolving regulatory landscape is crucial. The EU's leadership in AI regulations highlights the global recognition of proper AI governance. Beyond legal compliance, ethical development and transparency in AI are paramount. Our new grantee, The Data Nutrition Project, exemplifies this focus on transparency. Their "Nutrition Labels" for datasets empower users to make informed decisions about data consumption and sharing, promoting transparent AI development.

This emphasis on ethics and transparency raises critical questions: Who sets regulatory standards? What will transparency achieve long-term? Can regulatory tools effectively reduce bias? How do we hold tech companies and data practitioners accountable?

As the DNP demonstrates, while transparency is essential, it's not a complete solution. Diverse perspectives, especially from BIPOC communities, are vital for inclusive AI technologies. Comprehensive accountability measures, including independent oversight and regular audits, must complement transparency efforts. As we've seen with police accountability, transparency practices alone don't guarantee systemic change. Moving forward, we must balance AI innovation with harm minimization, carefully navigating this complex landscape.

  1. AI as a tool for liberation & building community-informed tools

Our pipeline revealed that while many nonprofits focus on combating the harms of AI and preventing future damage, fewer projects use AI as a core solution for systemic change. However, we did identify some groups building new tools for liberation work. One such organization we funded is AI4Abolition. Because of their abolitionist values and focus on disrupting the school to prison pipeline, an integral element of their strategy is a deeply community-driven lens. AI4Abolition works directly with overlooked communities throughout the development and implementation process, ensuring that their needs, experiences, and perspectives are at the heart of any proposed solutions. 

This collaborative approach builds trust, fosters community buy-in, and ensures that AI-driven solutions are tailored to each community's unique challenges and aspirations. This approach also aligns closely with progressive values of participatory democracy and grassroots organizing, providing a powerful model for other progressive movements to follow. We are hopeful that other organizations in our ecosystem building tools take note and center affected community members in their research and development processes, as that can only help build better tools.

  1. Missing pieces of our pipeline

As we look ahead, it's clear that AI non-profits will play an increasingly vital role in shaping the development and deployment of AI technologies. These organizations are laying the foundation for a more equitable, inclusive, and just society by promoting ethical practices, empowering marginalized communities, and harnessing AI for social good. It's up to all of us – funders, developers, users, and everyone in between – to support and amplify their efforts, ensuring that AI's transformative potential benefits all of humanity. Our progressive, people-first values compel us to consider all ways AI can impact people, both positively and negatively. In our pipeline review, we noticed some crucial conversations were missing:

  1. Climate and energy concerns: Activists and scientists are raising valid issues about AI's environmental impact. AI models require vast amounts of electricity to operate, potentially stripping power from communities to run data centers. This substantial energy consumption results in an outsized carbon footprint, raising ethical questions we must address and find ways to mitigate.

  2. Underrepresented AI initiatives: Some critical areas of AI focus were not represented in our pipeline but are essential to the progressive movement. These include:

    1. Disability AI: Developing technologies that support and empower individuals with disabilities.

    2. Environment-focused AI: Harnessing AI to address pressing environmental challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and sustainable resource management.

While AI holds great potential for positive change, we must be realistic about its possible harms and strive to minimize them. By addressing these gaps and supporting a diverse range of AI initiatives, we can work towards a more comprehensive and responsible approach to AI development and deployment.

What’s next

As we close out our yearly funding work, we’re feeling excited and hopeful about the state of the progressive ecosystem. But we know, regardless of who wins in November, that there is a long road ahead of us and we are dedicated to continuing our work in investing for a liberated future.