Long before Brad Feld and Amy Batchelor became one of Boulder County’s wealthier — and reluctantly famous — couples, they gave away their money.
“Even when we had no money, we gave away 10 percent of our annual income,” said Feld, who co-founded venture-capital firm The Foundry Group and was an early investor in . “Neither of us are religious, but we started with that model.”
, the couple is strategizing on how to give away the wealth accumulated via Feld’s lucrative venture-capital investments, Batchelor’s — which includes — and everything in between.
“We decided we’re going to give away all our money while we are alive,” said Feld, who tends to keep his philanthropy on the down-low. “Our philanthropy focuses are entrepreneurs and education and the intersection of these things.”
On Thursday, the couple will announce that they are turning their latest gift into a sort of game. They’ll match every to the Techstars Foundation with a $1 of their own, up to $100,000.
“Our goal is to raise $300,000,” Feld said.
Techstars Foundation focuses on improving diversity among entrepreneurs. It was , soon after the Techstars tech accelerator, which Feld co-founded, acknowledged that of the entrepreneurs who went through the program were female. About were white.
Understanding that it risked missing out on potential tech workers and entrepreneurs with different perspectives, Techstars turned this new awareness into an action item and of women and minority entrepreneurs in its program. The Foundation, in turn, gives Techstars alumni — at least to date — a chance to support diversity. were given to nonprofits, including , which supports women in leadership; , which works with veterans; and , which works with people with criminal histories.
“We have seen support from our Techstars alumni and broader network but hope to drive more engagement from the community that Techstars has touched through the generosity of Brad and Amy’s matching donation,” the foundation’s interim director, Ali Berman, said.
Feld hasn’t been quiet about giving every gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation a fair shake. He’s of the National Center for Women in Information Technology; serves on the board of , which works with those who take time off from careers to become caregivers; and is a founding adviser for the .
“Yeah, I get plenty of negative feedback,” Feld said. “I hear regularly from people who say this is a made-up issue, it should be a meritocracy, none of these issues are real.”
“The cliché in the venture business that you hear over and over is, ‘We’re gender-blind. We’re race-blind. We just invest in the best founders,’ ” he said. “In some ways, that’s abdicating responsibility. You see little clusters happening, but you still hear the conversation of, ‘Oh, it’s a meritocracy, the best will rise to surface.’ Actually, no. There are structural disadvantages, as well as cultural disadvantages.”
Feld said he himself came around to the idea of unconscious bias — a bias that people don’t realize they have — after , which uses data to show how a more diverse team is better for business. Feld has supported and said he feels there has been “a huge change, especially in the last four to five years.”
“There was a long period of time when there was not only no discussion about it but no awareness and no understanding of the why of it,” Feld said. “The idea that a low-single digit or even teens of founding CEOs are women is ridiculous when 50 percent of the population is women. Or even low-single digits are African-American. Or Latino.”
Of course, Batchelor has been a big influence on him, too. She was on Wellesley College’s board of trustees when it made the decision last year to at the traditionally all-female school.
“(Diversity) is something that Amy and I talk about regularly, that as a species, human beings, equality and equal rights are important. It’s a foundation of America,” Feld said. “Her background and her history has helped inform me in a significant way. Sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, education levels — regardless of where you are or where you started — those sorts of things in our country are what we should be working as hard as we can on.”
