Our Team

Our advisors are a group of leading social changemakers who work across a variety of issue areas. With these experts, we carried out a rigorous selection process to identify a diverse cohort of fellows whose work would benefit from a unique combination of early risk-tolerant financial support, training, and peer learning. Many early stage nonprofits aren’t able to secure the finances they need to expand their work and their impact. We set out to change that by providing early support to the most inspiring leaders we could find.

With these advisors, we recruited almost 100 talent scouts from nearly all 50 states to nominate candidates for FNL fellowships. These talent scouts, established leaders in their regions, nominated candidates working on the ground in their communities largely unknown by traditional philanthropy.

We received written applications from 133 candidates, hailing from 39 different states. The evaluation process involved teams of reviewers interviewing more than 50 leaders, evaluating their work using a 6-part criteria scorecard and narrowing them down to a small group of finalists.

The advisors, staff and founders chose 13 start-up organizations (including one team of 2) to join FNL’s inaugural cohort of fellows, based on their performance throughout the application and interview process.