Less than a year after assuming the role, CEO of All Raise Mandela SH Dixon resigned her position with the non-profit organization. The entrepreneur, who previously ran Founder Gym, an online training center for underrepresented founders, said in a blog post that the decision was made after realizing that “working directly with entrepreneurs in the field every day” is her passion. Dixon said she will explore new opportunities following that.
Her resignation will be effective February 1, 2023. She will remain an advisor to the Bay Area nonprofit.
This is the second CEO to leave All Raise since its inception in 2017. In 2021 Pam Kostka resigned as the helm of the nonprofit to rejoin the startup world as well; According to her LinkedIn, Kostka is now operator in residence and limited partner at Operator Collective. With Dixon gone, Paige Hendrix Buckner, who joined the outfit nine months ago as chief of staff, is acting as interim CEO. In the the same blog postwrote Buckner that “Mandela leaves All Raise in a strong position, and I am grateful for the opportunity to continue the hard work of diversifying the VC-supported ecosystem.”
Dixon did not immediately respond to comment on the record. It is unclear whether All Raise will start immediately with a permanent search for a CEO.
The nonprofit has historically defined its goals in two ways: first, it wants to increase the amount of seed money going to female founders from 11% to 23% by 2030, and second, it wants to double the percentage of female decision makers. makers at US companies by 2028.
In past interviews, Dixon said the company will work to create explicit goals around what impact it wants to have on historically overlooked individuals. The data underlines the challenge ahead. Black and Latinx women receive disproportionately less venture capital than white women; non-binary founders may also face greater hurdles when seeking funding, as All Raise board member Aileen Lee pointed out in the blog post. The nonprofit has created specific programs for Black and Latinx founders, but has not yet disclosed a specific goal for the cohort. These disconnects can be lost if not followed. All Raise’s last The impact report will be published in 2020and they’re working to bring that analytics back, Lee says gotechbusiness.com in an interview.
“All Raise is in good hands with Paige as interim leader and we have a lot of exciting things that we are shaping and scaling up,” said Lee. “We should all keep closing our arms to try and make improvements for our industry… We’ve made good progress that we can’t afford to pass up.”
Since launching, the nonprofit has raised $11 million in funding and opened regional chapters in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC and soon Miami.
