EACH Foundation

The EACH Foundation is a unique philanthropic model created by Lionel Shaw to empower community leaders to direct capital to high-impact nonprofits. Supported by the Gerbode Family Foundation and guided by a cohort of volunteer philanthropic advisors, the foundation distributes annual allocations that advisors can deploy independently or combine for larger, catalytic grants. Since 2019, the foundation has issued more than four million dollars in grants to over six hundred nonprofits across fields such as education, environment, children and families, the arts, animal welfare, community building, and homelessness.

For several years, I served as one of these philanthropic advisors, evaluating nonprofits, writing grants, and collaborating with fellow advisors to support organizations doing meaningful work. This role offered an inside view of how family foundations operate, how to assess nonprofit capacity and impact, and how to structure grants so that relatively modest dollars could unlock significant change.

Working with EACH deepened my understanding of how the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors function and how to improve their effectiveness. It reinforced my belief that when capital is placed directly in the hands of organizations best positioned to serve their communities, small grants can generate outsized impact. My time with the foundation remains an important part of my commitment to advancing mission-driven work and strengthening the ecosystems that uplift people and communities.