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Elliott Donnelley

Chairman of the Board

Forward Global

Beyond traditional philanthropy: The rise of trust networks for collective impact

As traditional philanthropic models falter in addressing the complexity of global crises, the emergence of trust networks presents a groundbreaking solution for collective impact through interconnected efforts.This innovative approach harnesses financial ingenuity, cutting-edge technology and intuitive decision-making to overcome the limitations of isolated initiatives. It reshapes the philanthropy landscape to prioritize collective benefit over individual gain, according to Elliott Donnelley (pictured), chairman of the board of Forward Global (The Philanthropy Workshop Inc.), an organization focused on philanthropy and social change

play_circle_outline Impact of political situation, community, and cross-pollination in philanthropy

play_circle_outline Allocation of capital across silos and blending finance for impact

play_circle_outline Elliot Donnelley's journey and involvement with Forward Global

play_circle_outline Recontextualizing philanthropy and philanthropists

play_circle_outline Importance of trust, flexibility, and open source

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Elliott Donnelly, Forward Global

Elliott Donnelley

Chairman of the Board Forward Global

In this segment from the Forward Global Summit 2025, Elliott Donnelley, chairman of the board at Forward Global, joins theCUBE's John Furrier for an in-depth discussion about philanthropy, technology and impactful change. The conversation centers on how Forward Global navigates the complex intersection of finance, technology and global solutions.

Donnelley, with a rich background in finance and philanthropy, shares their journey and expertise on the transformation within Forward Global. He explores the critical themes of the summit, emphasizing emergin... Read more

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What are some key observations at the conference regarding changes in philanthropy and community involvement? add

What is the speaker's background and journey that led them to focus on philanthropy and impacting the world? add

What was the significance of joining the Forward Global community in 2006 for the individual? add

What is the importance of recontextualizing the word philanthropy and focusing on leveraging resources for the most good and highest effectiveness? add

What are some key factors to consider when redefining impact and resources for a community initiative? add

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Elliott Donnelly, Forward Global

>> Welcome back everyone to theCube here in LA for Forward Global Summit 2025. I'm John Furrier, your host of theCube. We're here with Elliot Donnelley, who's the chairman of the board of Forward Global, friend of theCube, really changing the game, really leveling the playing field for democratizing kind of how money works and how the role of money to make change. Elliot's a great thinker, also an investor. Elliot, great to see you. Thanks for coming on theCube.

Elliott Donnelley

>> John, thanks. So great to be here.

>> So Forward Global is doing some very innovative things. We'll put a pin in that for a second. The conference is going on right now. Suze McCormick is up there. There's a change in the air in philanthropy. Confidence levels are on one hand shaky with the political situation, democracy, news media, enthusiastic on the other. You're seeing community being a big part of the theme here. You're seeing people cross pollinating. It's like as people get together, this shared values and people are rubbing and meeting each other and the systems discussion things are going on. So the game is kind of still the same, but there's new kind systems and new ways or new ways to engage, new ways to make things happen, new ways to move the needle in the world and philanthropy. What's your thoughts on that? I think this is a key takeaway so far here at the event.

Elliott Donnelley

>> Yes, so much to say and I also want to just thank you and theCube, you guys are pioneers and leaders, not only in the tech space, but I think now emergence into the impact space. And I think I just want to mention that you are now a fiscally sponsored project of Forward Global, so we now are spinning up theCube.org. I'm incredibly excited about that. Incredibly encouraged by your leadership there and kind of the ability of theCube and people like you to start embracing this because this is a time where we need it more than any other time I think that I've lived through at least.

>> Thank you.

Elliott Donnelley

>> So yeah, so maybe I'll take a step back to just give you a little context about my journey, if that's helpful.

>> Definitely, yeah.

Elliott Donnelley

>> Yeah. So I mean, I think I kind of had the benefit of being from a multi-generational family, but was what grew up in Berkeley, California, moved there in 1969 when I was three, and I had the benefit of my family's kind of shielding us from the family legacy. They gave me the opportunity to kind of grow up into an environment with a first-generation mentality. My best friends were the sons and daughters of Berkeley professors. I had a wonderful influence of what I would call the radical and very liberal and progressive world of Berkeley, California in the 1960s, but at the same time going back to Industrial Republic in Chicago. So I had a chance to be in both worlds and I think really my life's story has been an arc, kind of bringing those two worlds together really in service using different levers to do that, finance and other things. I'm now a venture capitalist. I've also in the past been in finance, but in the earlier part of my life it was service working at the US government in Capitol Hill teaching after Tienanmen Square in 1989 at a university there and then launching two social enterprises, eventually getting into finance. But a big life-changing moment for me was in 2006 when I joined the Forward Global community. It gave me an opportunity to be with some of the most, I think, innovative minds and impact some of the smartest business people, some of the most incredible entrepreneurs. And we had an opportunity over nine months to take a look at the best practices in the world and how people are deploying capital for impact. So that was a life-changing moment. It's launched me into all the things that I'm doing today, and I went through the stint first as a co-chair of Forward Global with Lisa Kleisner and another group of amazing people, but now have come back in the last four years to kind of store the organization through its next iteration. I think one of the things to mention is the first part of my... When I was coming to Forward Global, I was really focused on one question, which was how do we allocate capital more broadly across silos to more effectively solve global problems? And that's been something I'm still passionate about. You look at ways of blending finance. In the old days, you made your money, you had a foundation you'd set up and you would give it away in grants. The new world is how you work across silos, how you work between finance, through technology and through philanthropic lenses to kind of solve global problems in innovative and more effective ways. So in the past, your pool of philanthropic capital is not just something that you gave way. You can now integrate it with finance to underrate new tranches of risk and the furtherance of impact outcomes. And there's brilliant things that are being done. We have members that are doing this. Sue McCormick, who you mentioned before, is a leader in this field and there's a whole group of us who've been thinking deeply about how we understand and basically create impact alpha by unlocking these kind of large opportunities that have been stuck in silos. And so to me there's a huge, huge amount of work that's been done since 2006. Some of our members started the impact investing movement. They were I think great... They helped to shape it. They weren't founders, but they were part of the early group that helped to lead it. And today, now impact investing is a huge source of opportunity for this sector. I think where I'm now moving, and I think this is what we speak to now, is when you look at the power of networks and the power of trusted networks, this is a time where we need this more than ever. The world is becoming more and more in terms of tribal silos, nation-states affiliations, people in the states of fear, they revert to areas of kind of their most basic, I think, constructs of safety. And we are herd creatures. If we have to think about homo sapiens as a species, what did we need to do to survive? We had to congregate herds. If we were not the apex predators would eat us. We also had deference to alpha. We also had to constantly scan for threats. If the bush moved, if we didn't think it was a tiger, we'd be eaten. So these types of traits have allowed us to survive through millennium. But I think now we are at a point with the exponential growth in technology, which allows us have a dispersion of outcomes both for the good and for the bad. If we don't change, our fundamental orientation is a species we are not going to be able to survive. And so maybe I'll just two other things before we get there. But I think that right now what I feel like changing their entire framework is no longer a choice. It's no longer a luxury. It's an imperative if we're going to survive, I believe.

>> Yeah. And the bush is shaking. We don't know what's behind it. Love that analogy. Trust networks, I know we've talked about this privately off camera many times is an innovation that's an ad hoc thing that happens when you connect things. You mentioned silos in computer science. Silos are death to innovation because you want to have data available. In our world, we as species signal to each other all the time. And having that collective group connection is key. Talk about that piece because the word ecosystem has come up a lot here. And that's usually, you hear that in tech companies like, hey, I want to build an ecosystem, partner network. Forward Global's doing partnerships. And you also have interdisciplinary domain experts, entrepreneurs, scientists, contributing. And then you also have people who are donors. And so there's a lot of a melting pot, but it's also connecting. Talk about that trust network angle because I think that scales. That is a point where it's on top of, it's not a separate thing. It's an abstraction on top of the world. It's a group of people getting together. This is a phenomenon. We've seen this in technology, the internet, IP addresses, and then you had domain names and then you had keyword navigation, a world I'm familiar with. So each layer built on top of the other, this trust network is forming.

Elliott Donnelley

>> It is.

>> And there's results that could come from it.

Elliott Donnelley

>> Massive results. And I'm so excited about it. I think, look, we as a species, again, are predisposed to kind of networks. That's kind of how we've again survived. If we are in herds or tribal affiliations or nation state affiliations, we need to kind of rely on one another in very basic ways. And I think today there's a lot of networks that are out there that are in favor of what I would call systems that have been helpful for us. Capitalism has been helpful in many ways, but it also has areas where it's not been helpful. But in a way, the root of capitalism oftentimes I would say you could posit is really about the maximization of shareholder value, at least in a lot of the ways that the systems operate and the way that think about, and that is really a system at the end is around personal benefit or small group interest. So that if I am a family, I invest in the stock market or a hedge fund, I can become a billionaire. That's really about the maximizing wealth for individuals. And the root of that, I think I would posit is a lot to do with fear and safety. We as humans want to be safe. We want to be free from fear. And the way that we do that is we aggregate resources and we continue to grow them. This unlocks a lot of other benefits. But at its root, those networks I would posit are based a lot on fear and kind of self-interest. What's interesting about philanthropy. If you look at the root of philanthropy, the Greek root of it's the love of humankind. So these are networks that are not based on personal or self-interest but collective interests. And that to me unlocks a huge amount of potential for where we are today. And so I think once you bring people into the room who are no longer thinking about I need to win, I need to be safe, I need to get more because I'm not enough, you then change the dialogue of the conversation in very profound and subtle ways, not so subtle ways.

>> And the collective idea too is you see with AI right now, collective intelligence is a collection of data. So data is a big part of it. In the old world, well, the world of tech that we cut love and cover, there's two concepts, bolt-on and then re-architect. So we're kind of in an area now where we have bolt-on philanthropy and bolt-on systems. And the other trend that's happening, and I want to get your reaction to is this idea of systems thinking. We always go through these waves. Oh, design thinking. There's always a wave of some kind of construct or metaphor. But systems thinking is a state-of-the-art right now and some of the large technical systems. And then you apply that to people. What Forward Global's doing is a system of connections, trust networks, people together. When you have that kind of disruption to the existing system, people might get afraid, but you know disruptive enablement is a positive thing. So if you're disrupting something, it has to have an enablement piece, otherwise it's just destructive. So what's your thoughts on that? Because you've got systems thinking. You've got this idea of how do we look at the future and how do we set it up? And so there's all kinds. I know you're thinking about this, why I asked the question because there's a system going on here at Forward Global. I mean the talks are all structured in a way that's not your classic, let's donate to this cause. It's different. Talk about how you view that because I think this is something that we're seeing now in the innovators world today, whether it's using NVIDIA clusters to build a supercomputing or build an application on the cloud or the innovators who are moving the needle are building new systems.

Elliott Donnelley

>> They are. And I think partially when you look at, again, what we're doing is we're working across silo, we're working networks, even the board, we're beginning to think about no longer as a board with the top-down governance structure with fiduciary rules. That has to exist. But how do each members of this community, including boards at the governance level become nodes in a wider network and how do we leverage networks of networks in the tradition way? A fear-based modality? I have to raise money. I can't bring in other networks. If I bring in another network because it's a competitor. If I bring in somebody from the giving pledge, we lose the giving pledge or we bring it from another network that they're receiving contributions from, then we all have a mindset scarcity. But if you kind of flip it and say, no, we have to lean in to kind of collaboration, we have to lead it into networks and networks. If the underlying I think intellectual construct is about collective good, then we have to create deep trust and we have to move at the speed of trust, in which case you can activate these networks very quickly. And you have to be flexible in your thinking. Again, part of the problem is as you're saying, people get afraid because they're stuck in silos that they know. And if they leave the silo, anything that new oftentimes becomes challenging for us as humans. And so I think the idea is you have to... Once you get away from fear, and I think it's a very fundamental thing, you see a lot of movements around the world. You see even new innovations and governance have tried to mitigate the ways that humans are in their fear-based states and tribal states. Why is democracy an innovation? Because we take away the primacy of the individual king, a ruler, and we supersede that by law. And that was actually, if you start to think about that, that was enabled in part by the technological revolution of the printing press. With the printing press you now had the distribution of ideas. It wasn't held in areas. And then you could allow for the belief in laws that could guide and basically modulate or moderate human species bad tendencies. And so kind of what I think now is the power of trust networks, the power of building networks that are not on fear, that are out of fear based on trust, compassion, kind of confidence as you were saying before. Things unlock. And so I think really when you look at these structures, when we start to take what's these human networks that we have now, and when you start to have the technology that's being built, one of the things I also do is run a venture capital fund KDX, which is looking at the future of investing. It is the only investment technology fund that's out there. And why is that important? Is because we through Ashby Monk, who's the co-founder of it, one of the top thought leaders and practitioners in the field of institutional finance, he understands that it's $140 trillion, the base of capitalism has held in these systems. And so when you start to layer on technology that starts to unlock this, but it's not necessarily just at the service of maximization of shareholder value, although that's where our fund is and that's my fiduciary responsibility, but you layer on the capacity through blended finance for other types of things to unlock these types of innovations, not in the service of again, shareholder value, but in the service of all things shift. So I think we're at this really interesting opportunity where Forward Global is playing, both in terms of how humans are orienting themselves on a collective basis, but they're now beginning to implement with new entrepreneurs from Tech Valley, it is no longer just a philanthropist and wealth is no longer just about financial or philanthropic capital. We have to broaden our conversation. When we think about wealth and what wealth is, and it goes beyond, it goes back into what is your financial... Not only your financial capital, what is your relational capital? What is your intellectual capital? What is your temporal capital? What is your brand capital? What is your intuitive capital? Intuition is another thing we could talk about, which I think is a really under-looked and under-appreciated source of value for our species. I think then you can do magical things. But I think again, so much of the construct that we have in the world of philanthropy, the traditional way, and this is why I don't consider any of us really philanthropists. I think everyone, you're a philanthropist. I think in the end what we're effect trying to do is affect change in the world ultimately at this moment to allow the safe passage for our species. Because I think what's coming with the growth of technology that's doubling exponentially every year is we're coming to a point where we I think are... There's a threat to our continued existence and the range of outcomes when you have, if you believe that technology is doubling exponentially widens, and one side is species extension and the other side is radical, flourishing and evolution.

>> This idea that everyone can be a philanthropist is really a strong idea. Because I was at a session yesterday and someone said, John, you're a philanthropist. I'm like, I'm not a philanthropist. You're donating your time and capital into news, solving the news problem. I'm like, yeah, that's true. But I'm like, that's my cause. And they're like, yeah, you're right. So I think there's this idea that impact is not just a department or a group, it's the system. Totally agree with you on that, but I want to ask you, because Forward Global is leading with innovation, the way you guys are organized and what you're doing, what are you guys optimizing for? Because if there's an alpha to be had in philanthropy, that's just financial construct. Okay, great. What is alpha? What do you guys optimizing for? You're optimizing for an alpha in collective good? How do you think about that? How do you look at the organization and the system that's developing? What are you optimizing for?

Elliott Donnelley

>> Well, I think we're optimizing for the highest and best good for humanity. And when we do that, our leverage points for doing that is starting with human networks. Understanding people, because at the end of the day, if you really care about the love of mankind, the love of humankind, you're optimizing... There's no self-benefit in it. It's really just the benefit that you get by contributing to the collective and whole. And so each of us are nodes, each of us has our relational capital. And sometimes I would think again, the problem with the word philanthropy and philanthropists, we as homo sapiens, we hear words and then we start to pigeon hold them, and we start to have attachments to their meaning and we create a whole stories about what that word means. And so a lot of the way that the rest of the world hears that word should be recontextualized. It should be how are we devoting our resources for the most good and the highest good and the most effective and leveraged way. And so how we're trying to do that today I think is building networks of incredibly capable human being with different types of capital and that they can use move quickly, they can leverage fast. That they're not sitting behind through multiple layers of bureaucracies. We're creating kind of the-

>> So speed is important.

Elliott Donnelley

>> Speed is important. I mean, look at the problems we face today. We can't afford to be slow. We have to be smart, but we can't be slow. And so much of the embedded, like the grant making endowed foundation. Think about that. You're taking, let's say, you have a billion dollar exit and you take a hundred million or 500 million or even a billion dollars and put it into grant making down foundation, you're taking 95% of those assets in sort of the standard construct. And you're basically locking them up in something that doesn't deliver impact return. You're only using 5% payout per year. This is an endowed foundation model. You have the CIO over here that's tried to hit their 8% return threshold, financial return threshold, and the MacArthur or the Gates Foundation, they're only looking at that 5%. If I was a hedge fund manager and I said, listen, I want to pitch you on a new hedge fund idea. I'm going to take your collective capital, your $10 million of collective capital on my hedge fund, I'm going to put it under your mattress. I'm only exposed 5% to the market. You would walk away.

>> Yeah, it's not a good deal.

Elliott Donnelley

>> I mean, most of the time hedge funds leverage it. They try to get two to 3X leverage to divert the financial returns you want. The grant making a down foundation model is a broken model if you're optimizing for change and radical change and quick change and leverage change. And so I think we have to recontextualize these things. We have to work on those networks as we're creating these nodes. We have to look at capital more broadly against all these forms of capital. Sometimes, I don't know if you realize that the biggest change you can affect will be one call that you make to the right person at the right time. It opens the door, it can change the world. So I think a lot of times we think, oh, it's about that a hundred billion. I'm a philanthropist. I'm going to give away money. That is slow, that is broken. It doesn't move quickly. We don't create the change we need.

>> Before cloud computing, waterfall software development was the methodology. It's slow. And then Agile came and now we've got the systems. This is incredible what you guys are doing. Again, I'm super impressed with the ideas and the execution. Talk about Forward Global now, what you guys are doing, some of the things that you're implementing, you mentioned Fiscal which we're participating in. We're happy to be part of this. What is some of the innovations? Talk about Forward Global's current situation. Obviously shaping the stories is a big thing. I love the talk yesterday. Stories drive movements. Forward Global is a movement that's happening. What's unique? What are the key things that are happening here that you can point to?

Elliott Donnelley

>> I think it's trust. I think it's speed. I think it's flexibility. I think it's looking across silos. It's bringing everybody in who actually has some level of capital. Again, we have entrepreneurs here who are not philanthropists, they're startups, that we're bringing in. We're trialing this new group within our community. In the past, it was you had to be a philanthropist to come in, but you take away the philanthropy, sometimes Suze McCormick, she's going to affect more change in three phone calls than maybe a traditional philanthropist over the next 20 years. So we have to think how we redefine impact, how we redefine resources and how we deploy them. So one thing is, and also we're open source. We're trying to create networks of networks. If somebody else is creating another philanthropic network that as long you have the right values and we can move at the speed of trust, let's bolt you on because then you're another node of our network.

>> Speed of trust is a great tagline. Elliot, congratulations on amazing work. Forward Global is certainly an innovator. I love the attitude, love the execution, love the results. And again, great community, the confidence, the community, the systems are changing.

Elliott Donnelley

>> And I want to thank you. I also just want to say that I think theCUBE is doing really innovative work. We were actually, my partner, Martha Adams, who my love of my life for 10 years was at a session yesterday and you are listening to kind of the world's philanthropists trying to figure out how we build networks of trust in the media, how we create new models. And she was just like, John, just speak up. theCUBE is what's at the center of the innovation. So I think whether you know it or not, you are new node in this network. And you are because you are now at Forward Global, you have a dot org, we have theCUBE that's set up. I would also say that when we look at those innovations, it's like once we bring in these nodes of the networks and people have this higher sense of what we're trying to do, which is like we're trying to solve the pressing problems because we can't afford to do it otherwise. And I think the final thing why I'm so excited that CUBE is here today is that your brand has been a very strong, very recognized brand in the field of tech. You do incredible things. You yourself are taking that jump where you're now looking at your capital in new ways, your networks in new ways, and you are another node in our network. You are now a member of our network. We have other people that we're bringing in. And I think when now we bring in technology and we start to take what's happening in the real world, we accelerate it through the technology built with the right purpose, which is we again want to solve the most pressing problems today in the quickest way. I think it's magic.

>> Well, I'm looking forward to contributing to the journalism democracy problem. I can contribute there, bring our capital and our minds. Elliot, it's been great. And again, you know I love networks. Trust networks are the future. I think it's going to be an open network. Open source concepts are coming to people. I think what you're doing is revolutionary and it'll have a very positive outcome. And I'm happy to be along. And I love the tech finance impact pillars of networks. It's kind of like .com, net and org. We got theCUBE, NYSE, Forward Global, top level directories of trust happening.

Elliott Donnelley

>> And so trust that... One last point, I know we have to go, but I wanted just make this point because I think it's very important. I think there's a whole side of change that we can create in the world and value that we can create when we unlock what I would call intuition, something beyond the thinking mind. And some of the top entrepreneurs that I've met and some of the top scientists I've met when I asked them how much does their rational mind, their construct thinking theory of change, their Yale or Harvard or MIT education play in making the most important decisions, the most important leaps in their work. And almost none of them that I've talked to, and this is an anecdotal study, have said is my thinking mind. It's those moments of intuition. So I think there's this entire resource which I'm also excited to explore, which is kind of what I would call the intuitive mind or beyond the thinking logical construct mind. And I think it's always been there. I don't think it's been talked enough about in terms of where we're headed. And I think that's a resource which I think we're mining with all of our members. I'm mining it individually. I sense you are already mining because you are somebody who is a big thinker and an intuitive thinker. You can make those leaps. So I want to also give a plug for what I would call as intuitive capital.

>> And the content you guys are doing is inspiring people. That's also igniting change. Of course we're getting all the data here, sharing it with you, and we hope this inspires you. Elliot Donnelley, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE, great to see you. Leader in making change. And again, the collective whole is the alpha. Making positive results happen through networks, through people, through content, through data sharing news, information access. Getting the right thing at the right time has always been a great innovation. And you're doing it here. Thanks for allowing us to be part of your community.

Elliott Donnelley

>> Well, thank you. You're doing it a much lighter scale too. So I would say as you thank me, my father always used to say, you point one finger at someone, you're also pointing three at yourself. So I would say-

>> You're good. No, you're good. Elliot Donnelley here in theCUBE, the chairman of the Board of Forward Global, as well as distinguished entrepreneur and also a philanthropist change agent. And again, the world is changing. The generation is going to have to carry the burden for disruptive enablement. Of course, we're going to bring all the content we can on theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, your host of theCUBE. Thanks for watching.