Dear Camelback Community,
It’s time to build the future we want together. Afterall, most things worth building are not built alone!
We see it in history, in the ways our ancestors organized and pooled their resources, networks, and collective will during the Civil Rights Movement. We see it when a founder gets that first yes — from an investor, a first customer, or the person willing to make the introduction. We see it when nonprofits and funders decide that a new vision for the future takes more hands than any one of us has.
That is why I remain grateful for you and for every member of our community. You are with us, building what’s next, paving the path so that more people get the chance to change the future through a more equitable entrepreneurial system. You don’t have to be here. You choose to be, again and again.
What I love is that underneath that presence are beliefs and mindsets most people only associate with founders. They are there in our Fellows, but also in funders, in partners, in people who would never put “founder” on a business card.
Because a founder’s mindset isn’t a job title. It’s a set of instincts.
Founders refuse to let current conditions set the limits of what they imagine. They build things that do not yet exist, often with far less than they need. They see a gap where other people see the way things have always been, and then they move toward it. The founders we invest in do all of this in service of community, using their own experiences to understand what’s needed.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how Camelback can help more people claim that mindset for themselves. Not only the founders of the ventures we fund, but everyone in this ecosystem. Because the same instincts that build a company can build new political futures, new societies, and new economic structures. The gap between “this is how it works” and “this is how it could work” is where founders live. More of us should be living there.
This mindset is what is driving the thesis of our new strategic plan launched this summer. Our work with The Bridgespan Group helped us develop a strategy that transitions Camelback beyond being an accelerator into a venture philanthropy firm that supports early stage founders — bridging the gap that many founders experience after completing accelerator programs. It’s a mindset and a strategy that is shaping our plans for the future and the roles we are assuming today. Across our ecosystem you will see us engaging in three ways, specifically:
Convener. We create the spaces where people meet one another and where their voices actually get heard. That can mean curating a new space, but sometimes it’s opening the door to a room someone wasn’t invited to. Sometimes it means opening the door to a room they didn’t know existed or creating a door that didn’t exist before.
Collaborator. We work alongside people to add to what they are already doing, to help them consider where they might stretch further, and to share hard-earned experience. When that experience isn’t ours to share, we bring in the voices who can speak to it authentically.
Catalyzer. We invest capital and connections that push a venture, an idea, or a person to the next level. We’ve watched people grow in directions they hadn’t known were available to them.
We played all three roles across the ecosystem this summer. At Guardian Summit and in Martha’s Vineyard, we gathered with philanthropic, political, and business leaders to shape the next era of economic mobility for all. At Essence Festival, Cannes Lions, Aspen Ideas Festival, PolicyLink, and SlossTech, we showed up in rooms where our community was already gathered and where the conversations were already underway. And at Welcome Week for Cohort 17, we welcomed our newest founders, ready to scale ventures rooted in the places they know best.
Different rooms, different regions, same goal: equitable access to capital and support for community-based founders. Each time, we were playing some combination of convener, collaborator, and catalyst. We were helping people own their ideas and their futures, helping them find the champions that will help them build, and coordinating across the many people who are each contributing to a new landscape.
It’s that last part that matters most. A lot of good work is happening in isolation right now. People are building durable ventures and durable institutions without knowing who else is building alongside them. Part of our job is to make those connections visible, so that the work compounds impact instead of competes.
It’s work you can join in on and doesn’t require you to start a company. It asks something both simpler and harder. It invites you to look at the piece of the world in front of you, notice the gap, and decide that the current arrangement isn’t the final one. Then find the people who will build it with you.
You do that by being here. By building with us. Over ten years, we’ve invested in more than 230 founders across 34 states who have trusted us with their earliest and boldest ideas. What they’ve taught us is that possibility isn’t discovered. It gets broken open, usually by someone who was told it wasn’t there.
Thank you for the roles you have played so far. There is far more room in this work than most people think, and we would be glad to have you take up more of it.
In Community,
Shawna
Shawna Young
Cameback Ventures CEO
This blog is apart of a new series from our CEO, sharing reflections and insights into our ecosystem and how we’re navigating today’s shifting landscape. Learn more about how Camelback has invested over $10 million into more than 235+ underrepresented entrepreneurs over the past decade and connect with Shawna on LinkedIn for more of her reflections.
