Launching the Founder Forward Volunteer Advisory Network

We are excited to officially launch the Founder Forward Volunteer Advisory Network. The network will connect founders with on-demand, pro bono advisors to help tackle their urgent business challenges. As an organization, we recognize the significant access gaps in non-dominant markets. We believe everyone can play a part in closing these gaps.

We spoke with Founder Forward Executive Director, Dr. Lisa-Marie, about the key highlights of this initiative.

Our biggest motivation? Founder Survival

Founder Forward is driven by the belief that competitive local economies depend on thriving founders who are able to create jobs and serve as community leaders. To assist founders in non-dominant markets with building strong foundations for a sustainable business, the Volunteer Advisory Network provides founders with access to trusted, needs-based support.

Building on What Works

This launch comes not as the invention of something completely new but builds on the foundation of programming we’ve been executing for nearly ten years. Founder Forward has long partnered with corporations to offer skills-based volunteer advising. While valuable, these partnerships were time-bound, typically ending after six weeks, which left founders without crucial ongoing support. The Volunteer Advisory Network provides founders and founder advisors who come to Founder Forward through corporate partnerships the opportunity to stay involved and opens up the advisory role to independent community leaders committed to using their expertise to transform the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

During a solution session we hosted in 2019 at SXSW, founders expressed a need for non-prescriptive advising. Advising that takes into account their goals, challenges, and landscape of their industry and offers frameworks, tools, insights, and options without imposing a single “correct” solution. It’s advising that fosters relationships and empowers the founders to ultimately make their own decisions with confidence.

The Volunteer Advisory Network creates a community of advisors united in the shared goal of working alongside founders to build a future centered on community impact, fueled by competitive regional economies.

Internally at Founder Forward, this launch is supported by robust systems designed to onboard volunteers effectively, ensuring they understand their role and stay aligned with our mission. We’ve also introduced panels and rapport-building tools to streamline the relationship-building process among founders and founder advisors.

Envisioned Impact

Looking ahead to six to twelve months, we hope to have built mutually beneficial relationships between founder advisors and founders with the goal of high survival rates, low market displacement rates, and increased investment, which are in line with our focus of being agents of entrepreneurial change.

Dr. Lisa-Marie highlights that we hope to hear from founders who feel confident in the direction of their business through having someone they can turn to for guidance, whether through 30-minute one-on-one consultations or participating in workshops relevant to their needs. It is our goal that both founders and founder advisors find the experience rewarding, gain or strengthen their skills, and receive exposure for their businesses.

She aligns this vision of building mutually beneficial relationships to what is echoed in the book Adam Grant’s book “Give and Take,” where he explores the concept of givers, matchers, and takers in professional settings. Our focus is on givers, who are often more engaged, work harder, and are retained longer. While financial compensation is one form of value, we know that skills are another important currency that can always be developed. Many of our founder advisors are motivated by an interest in entrepreneurship or small business development, which is why they chose to work with us. Through skill-based volunteering, they gain valuable experiences that contribute to both their personal and career development.

At the heart of our work is the recognition that entrepreneurship is about change. Dr. Lisa-Marie shared a quote from Octavia Butler's novel, "Parable of the Sower," which says, "All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you".This emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things and the idea that change is a constant, transformative force. It resonates deeply with our work because the journey of entrepreneurship is unpredictable, but what keeps founders grounded is community, values, and a shared mission.

As entrepreneurship evolves, we are committed to evolving with founders and ensuring that we meet their needs. Right now, our values are in action: we are connecting founders to advisors, leveraging technical support, and building out systems that align everyone with our vision for the future.

A New Chapter, Rooted in Mission

Dr. Lisa-Marie emphasizes that the network is not only about giving advice but is also rooted in redistributing economic and social power. In her words, “We are connecting experts to founders who need guidance but may not have the means to access it otherwise”. This launch, therefore, marks the beginning of a new chapter in a story we have been writing for 10 years now, one built on the lessons learned and driven by community insights and shared goals. We are not starting from scratch. We are scaling what works and deepening our impact.

This is a call to action for everyone to invest in founders, empower communities, and lead through change. The founder journey is not meant to be walked alone, and with this new network, it doesn’t have to be.

A Final Reflection from our Executive Director:

“When I joined Founder Forward as Executive Director in June 2023, my goal wasn’t to dismantle the great work done over the past 10 years. It was to listen, learn, and build on what was already working. My focus has been on identifying areas for improvement and creating the structure and infrastructure needed to support our mission at scale.”

About Dr. Lisa Marie:

Dr. Lisa-Marie Pierre is passionate about neighborhood revitalization and economic development. She is the Executive Director of Founder Forward, a nonprofit whose mission is to support full economic participation in overlooked regions by providing unrestricted funding, non-prescriptive advisory services, and story amplification to Black, Indigenous, and other diverse founders. She most recently served as an innovation strategist at Luminary Labs, where she worked on future of work, future of education, and infrastructure projects for the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Prior to joining Luminary Labs, she provided strategic direction on entrepreneurship programming for the Division of Workforce Development & Continuing Education at Bronx Community College/CUNY. Dr. Lisa-Marie is a board member for Grown in Haiti and proud alumna of Sacred Heart Academy, Spelman College, the University of Miami, Michigan State University, Black Venture Institute, and the CORO New York Neighborhood Leadership Program.