A 25th Anniversary Interview: JustFund

In this month’s episode of our 25th anniversary series highlighting the great work of our clients, we spoke with Iara Peng, founder and CEO of JustFund, with whom we worked on a series of strategic partnership discussions. JustFund seeks to address the chronic underfunding of communities of color by revolutionizing the way resources traditionally flow in philanthropy and ensuring that the people closest to the issues—those with direct lived experiences to inform solutions—have access to more funding.

In our conversation, Iara discusses the possibilities and limits of technology, the importance of learning how to embrace failure as a pathway to learning, and how, through the development of a simple common application, JustFund has moved $200 million and saved organizations 28 years of time since 2017 which they can use on mission-driven work instead of applying for funding.