Unlike many other pooled funds, the Amplify Fund Steering Committee is committed to doing the work of funder organizing. Now representing twenty one funder members, the Steering Committee re-asserted their central role as funder organizers in 2021, but this responsibility is at the roots of the fund.
In 2017, a rare opportunity to influence significant funding within their institutions presented itself to a group of foundation staff*. They took the opportunity by collaborating and hiring consultants (and later staff) to design a place-based pooled fund focused on equitable development, racial justice, and power building... later to be named the Amplify Fund.
*Original funders included the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and the Surdna Foundation. The Kresge Foundation and the JPB Foundation were recruited quickly afterwards as additional seed funders.