Mission Driven at Startup Speed: A New Playbook for Philanthropic Capital

Recorded live at the 2026 ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego, this session featured Vivian Wu, Managing Partner, Ventures at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; Atin Batra, Director, Impact Investing at ECMC Group’s Education Impact Fund; Matt Zieger, Chief Programs and Partnerships Officer at GitLab Foundation; and Esther Benjamin, CEO & ED at World Education Services.Philanthropy had increasingly begun borrowing from venture and open-source models, prioritizing speed, transparency, and proximity to the people it serves. This session brought together foundation leaders rethinking the fundamentals of philanthropic capital, including shorter funding cycles that enable rapid learning, ROI frameworks that guide decisions rather than constrain them, and collaborative models that invite educators and learners to help co-create public goods.Drawing on lessons from open-source communities and organizations, speakers explored how philanthropy can act with agility even without perfect data, break out of silos, and translate good intentions into meaningful progress at scale. The conversation examined how mission-driven organizations can adopt startup-speed principles while maintaining a focus on long-term public value and equitable impact.By redefining how philanthropic capital is deployed, this session highlighted a new playbook for foundations seeking to move faster, learn continuously, and build more responsive systems for social and educational innovation.