The elea Way - Preview

elea’s FOUNDATION AND OPER ATING MODEL

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to partner up with an existing one. elea opted in favor of building a new organization, to create a platform where expertise could directly be com- bined with capital, where knowledge and experience could be developed and protected in an institutionalized way, and where potential additional philanthropic investors who are interested in contributing to the cause could be attracted in order to achieve sustainability for elea itself. Another issue was whether to focus on philanthropic impact invest- ing only or to combine it with a financial-return-focused impact fund structure within the same organization. Looking at examples where this was done, there was a concern about having to confront difficult con- flicts of interests and about the risk of a drift in purpose resulting from a hybrid approach to philanthropy. In the end, the decision was taken to focus on philanthropic impact investing, as this field of investing seemed to be in higher need of additional capacity and required undiluted focus. Furthermore, the founders were encouraged by friends with more expe- rience in the field to concentrate on certain geographies. However, they decided in favor of a thematic rather than a geographic focus to underline the global scope and to allow for and learn from different approaches to similar problems across geographies. There was also a discussion whether consulting services should be offered to help other philanthropists in similar fields to establish them- selves, in order to leverage elea’s growing expertise and experience (e.g., in impact measurement, management, and how to organize and govern an entrepreneurial, innovative foundation). In the end, the decision was taken in favor of an approach that strongly aligns elea’s external capi- tal providers with its investment organization. More specifically, this approach allows third-party philanthropic investors to invest alongside elea’s capital while avoiding conflicts of interest and difficult debates around investment purpose, theme, and criteria. Choosing the name was another important decision because of its strong signaling effect. The founders searched for an attractive name under the condition that it should not be linked to their family name. While, of course, the founders derive tremendous personal satisfaction from the creation and ongoing positive development of elea, they prefer to remain unrecognized. elea is the name of an ancient city in Southern Italy (called Velia today), which is 140 kilometers south of Naples and was founded by the Greeks around 540 b.c. Besides operating a port, it was