What new venture fund does

New Venture Fund is a 501(c)(3) public charity and fiscal sponsor that incubates public-interest projects and grantmaking programs. One identified project, Fenomenal Funds, uses a community-led shared-governance model with four private foundations, four women’s funds, and the Prospera Secretariat to allocate pooled resources to women’s funds that are members of Prospera INWF. Its core programs are multi-year Resilience Grants for infrastructure and long-term stability, and Collaboration Grants for thematic work among member funds.

Funding comes from pooled private-foundation grants and individual donations rather than product sales; no pricing or fee structure is disclosed, and resources are distributed directly through the Prospera network and participatory decision processes. The operating technology is principally a governance and learning system: the initiative uses participatory grantmaking, an emergent learning framework, shared knowledge products, and an open-source Salesforce-based Feminist Fund Database. Fenomenal Funds is scheduled to sunset in June 2025, while New Venture Fund remains identified as an operating nonprofit.

Name

new venture fund

Legal name

New Venture Fund

Website

https://fenomenalfunds.org

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Short description

New Venture Fund is a 501(c)(3) public charity that incubates public-interest projects, including Fenomenal Funds, which pools donor and foundation funding to serve women’s funds in the Prospera network through flexible grants and collaborations.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Nonprofit Fiscal Sponsorship & Grantmaking Services

NAICS

Grantmaking Foundations (813211), Grantmaking and Giving Services (81321)

akta.pro primary industry

Public Charities & Grantmaking Intermediaries (BPAGAKAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Trust Funds & Multi-Donor Pooled Funds (BPADAOAE), Gender Lens / Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Funds (FSANAJAM)

Keywords

• Feminist grantmaking
• Nonprofit fiscal sponsorship
• Women's funds support
• Philanthropic collaborative
• Participatory grantmaking programs

Headquarters

HQ city

Washington

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Grant funding and donations: As a 501(c)(3) public charity, New Venture Fund operates as an incubator for public interest projects, receiving pooled funding from private foundations and individual donors to support grantmaking programs like Fenomenal Funds.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

New Venture Fund is a 501(c)(3) public charity that incubates public-interest projects and grantmaking programs; its primary project, Fenomenal Funds, is a feminist funder collaborative that pools resources from four private foundations, four women's funds, and the Prospera Secretariat under a shared-governance model. The collaborative distributes multi-year Resilience Grants for organizational infrastructure and Collaboration Grants for thematic initiatives (collective care, financial resilience, participatory grantmaking, FMEAL) to women's funds that are members of the Prospera International Network of Women's Funds.

Product overview

Fenomenal Funds is a feminist funder collaborative operating as a project of New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. The organization operates as a unified grantmaking platform combining pooled funding, shared governance, and participatory decision-making. The core offering consists of Resilience Grants (flexible, multi-year funding for organizational resilience) and Collaboration Grants (supporting thematic collaborations among women's funds). These are complemented by knowledge products including the Learning Strategy and Theory of Transformation publications. The Collaboration Grants span multiple thematic areas including the Feminist Fund Database (Salesforce-based grantmaking system), Collective Care initiatives, Feminist Financial Resilience programs, FMEAL approaches, and Participatory Grantmaking practices. The model brings together four private foundations, four women's funds, and the Prospera Secretariat with equal voice in governance and resource distribution decisions.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Fenomenal Funds A feminist funder collaborative operating under New Venture Fund (501(c)(3)) that pools resources and uses shared governance with participatory grantmaking to support the resilience of women's funds that are members of the Prospera International Network of Women's Funds (INWF).
• Resilience Grants Multi-year, flexible grants designed to strengthen organizational resilience and infrastructure of women's funds that are members of Prospera INWF, focused on long-term stability rather than project-based funding.
• Collaboration Grants Grants supporting collaborative initiatives among women's funds across thematic areas including collective care, financial resilience, feminist leadership, participatory grantmaking, and organizational development.
• Core/General Operating Grants Flexible, unrestricted funding provided to women's funds to cover organizational costs including staff salaries, infrastructure, and operational expenses.
• Learning Strategy Publication A document outlining Fenomenal Funds' emergent, adaptive learning approach integrated with grantmaking, designed to facilitate deep reflection and real-time learning in collaboration with women's funds.
• Theory of Transformation A framework capturing how Fenomenal Funds' model of pooled funding, shared governance, and participatory grantmaking contributes to change in philanthropic ecosystems toward gender justice.
• Feminist Fund Database (FFDB) An open-source Salesforce package developed collaboratively by women's funds to systematize grantmaking processes and data management, facilitating efficient and accessible data analysis for the feminist funding ecosystem.

Quantifiable outcome

• 92% of small funds said long-term infrastructure-focused approach was vital to transformation
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and supporting.

• Prospera International Network of Women’s Funds (INWF)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2020Fenomenal Funds was designed in partnership with Prospera INWF. Women’s funds who are members of Prospera INWF are the primary beneficiaries. Prospera representatives hold at least 50% of seats on both Steering and Advisory Committees, ensuring equal voice and power in governance.
• Four Women’s Funds (unnamed)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFour women’s funds participate in the shared governance model alongside foundations and Prospera Secretariat, with equal voice in decision-making on strategy and resource distribution.
• KIT (Royal Tropical Institute)supportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerKIT serves as the learning partner for Fenomenal Funds, supporting the learning journey and providing guidance on emergent learning framework implementation.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Global Fund for Women: One of the largest feminist foundations globally, directly comparable as a grantmaking organization funding women's rights organizations worldwide. Both employ participatory grantmaking approaches and target women's movements in the Global South.
• Mama Cash: Amsterdam-based feminist grantmaker, the first international women's fund. Highly comparable as a direct peer — both fund women's rights and feminist movements globally, use flexible multi-year grants, and focus on gender justice.
• Prospera International Network of Women's Funds (INWF): The network of women's funds that Fenomenal Funds specifically serves. Directly comparable as a peer organization supporting feminist funding ecosystems, though it functions as a network rather than a direct grantmaker.
• FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund: A participating Fenomenal Funds Collaboration Grants recipient and a direct peer in feminist participatory grantmaking to young feminist organizations globally.
• Urgent Action Fund for Women's Human Rights: Rapid-response feminist funder providing flexible grants to women human rights defenders. Comparable as a peer in feminist grantmaking with shared network of women's funds and similar target beneficiaries.
• Astrea Lesbian Foundation for Justice: Public foundation resourcing LGBTQI movements, including through regranting to women's funds. Comparable as a peer in pooled feminist funding and power-shifting philanthropy.

Broad incumbents

• Open Society Foundations: Large global foundation with significant women's rights and gender justice grantmaking programs. Comparable as a broader incumbent in philanthropic funding for gender justice, though at a much larger scale and with broader mandate beyond women's funds specifically.
• NoVo Foundation: Major private foundation funding movements for gender justice and women's empowerment globally. Comparable as a broader incumbent funder in gender justice philanthropy that supports feminist infrastructure.

Others

• AWID (Association for Women's Rights in Development): International feminist membership organization working on gender justice. Comparable as an ecosystem participant in the feminist funding and movement infrastructure space, though AWID operates as a membership/advocacy organization rather than a grantmaker.
• Women's Funding Network: A network of women's foundations and funds globally. Comparable as an adjacent ecosystem organization supporting the same constituency of women's funds that Fenomenal Funds serves, providing peer learning and field-building.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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