SeaChange Capital Partners is a nonprofit merchant bank. Their mission is to enable transactions that increase the impact of nonprofits while offering leveraged opportunities for funders.
In their role as a merchant bank, they facilitate transactions by making grants, loans, and investments from their funds, by providing advisory services, and by “making markets” within their network. They focus only on special situations where there is a benefit to their playing an intermediary role. They seek to create leveraged opportunities for funders and donors. Their principal asset is a network of foundations, individuals, nonprofits and public entities that trust them to make strategic grants and investments, provide advice and analysis, synthesize and flow information, and manage potential conflicts of interest.
They strive to be respectful, entrepreneurial, and do no harm.
History
SeaChange was founded by Charles Harris and Robert Steel with the encouragement and inspiration of John Whitehead. The founders – all former partners of Goldman Sachs – shared the belief that a dedicated team providing select merchant banking services to the nonprofit sector could help donors and organizations achieve greater social impact.
SeaChange launched in early 2008 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Omidyar Network, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, Goldman Sachs, and a group of individual philanthropists. After an initial focus in education and youth development through the Catalyst Fund (2008-2016), SeaChange expanded into mergers and collaboration with the SeaChange-Lodestar Fund for Nonprofit Collaboration (2009-present) and the New York Merger Acquisition and Collaboration Fund (2012-present); into credit with the Contact Fund (2013-present); and into impact investing with the New York Pooled PRI Fund (2014-present). In 2011, they began providing Advisory Services in response to requests from nonprofits and funders. In 2015, they began their relationship with Greater NY and also began working in risk management together with Oliver Wyman. Their work will continue to evolve in response to changes in the environment, feedback from the market, and reflection on their accomplishments and challenges.
Guiding Principles
They are respectful of nonprofit leaders and staff, the importance of the problems they are addressing and clients they are serving; of funders and their autonomy and right to make their own decisions; of each other and the ‘ecosystem’ that supports the sector; and of the best practices of the nonprofit, for-profit, and public sectors and their obligation to draw from each.
They are entrepreneurial in seeking new opportunities to add-value, in critically assessing their current activities, and in leveraging the knowledge and experience of their network.
They strive to do no harm when interacting with nonprofits and donors by encouraging responsive and clear communication between all parties; by taking a neutral and independent stance in their relationships; by maintaining confidences, and by ensuring that no party is ever worse off for having approached them.
