Aligning Power with Purpose—and Liberation
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Chad Dyer
This story is part of the Architects of Impact series, highlighting stories of innovation that demonstrate how our Community is mobilizing to ensure a world that works for all people and the planet.
What does it take to turn wealth into something liberatory, not just charitable? For Chad Dyer, the answer begins with listening and a willingness to imagine a new identity of wealth that aligns power with purpose, rather than profit. His story offers a roadmap for anyone ready to use their wealth to show up differently.
When his unexpected financial success collided with a “deepened understanding of the intentional, systemic and historical design of disparity,” Chad quit his job at Sequoia Capital to rebalance his “privilege-to-impact ratio.” “It wasn’t guilt,” he clarifies. “It started with feeling a sense of accountability to figure out my work to do.” Chad and his partner Tenah reached a realization that by articulating enoughness, they could shift from budgeting what to give to budgeting what to keep. This changed the feeling of having material abundance in a broken world from ambivalence to a feeling of activation and flow.
In parallel, over the course of a five-year self-directed impact “grad school” journey, Chad has shaped his relationships with money and community in ways that bring joy. Along the way, Chad found his way into the orbit of movement leaders, ecosystem stewards, and organizers who offered ways of being that stood in stark contrast to the default options he found in conventional wealth spaces and service providers. In short, these leaders taught him the power of moving from a mindset of charity to one of solidarity—from altruism to ubuntu.
Becoming a Capital Activist
Rather than a philanthropist, Chad describes himself as a Capital Activist and Organizer, inviting other Capital Stewards to see themselves as co-creators of a shared future in which everyone has a say and a stake. He believes that collective action and cross-class solidarity are essential to building our way out of the mess we’re in.
“We can’t fund our way out of problems with the same mindset that created them,” he says.
Now, Chad’s purpose is to help other funders get unstuck. Dissatisfied by traditional family office service providers’ laser focus on individual wealth preservation, Chad is co-creating kinflow, the Just Transition family office (alongside Taj James, Bruce Campbell, Maya Philipson, and Rachel Robasciotti), for people who believe “our families thrive when all families thrive.” kinflow connects clients with an ecosystem of service providers who see themselves as gateways to this vision instead of gatekeepers, and with Community Stewards building the alternative worlds of wellbeing that we need. Chad wants to offer an accessible onramp to a new identity of wealth through reflection and implementation of purpose, enoughness, and bold action.
For people inspired by the alternative approaches to funding they learn about at Forward Global or other social impact spaces, kinflow answers the question “how do I actually do this?”
From Conversation to Collective Action
For Chad, Forward Global is one of the rare places where people with privilege are encouraged to reflect deeply and then move boldly. Since joining our Community in 2020, Chad has become a deeply engaged member of the Community—a connector, listener, and catalyst. He’s active in our global gatherings, contributes to strategic conversations, and regularly supports other members in navigating their own journeys. “What I love about Forward Global is that it’s not just about education,” he says. “It’s about organizing. It’s a space where people are invited to go beyond learning and actually take action together.”
Chad values the culture of openness, the willingness to be challenged, and the shared commitment to creating something more honest and more aligned. “I feel like we’re helping each other do what we already want to do, and sort of be the people we want to be… I’m grateful for the willingness to reflect and change and evolve and not be stagnant, and to really not rest on our laurels and to push ourselves to live into our values in a way that is actually truly aligned.”
This work, he says, has changed his life. “Rebalancing my privilege-to-impact ratio didn’t shrink my world—it expanded it. It gave me a sense of agency in a time when it’s easy to feel helpless. And that, I think, is a powerful place to begin.”we must align our science, our money, and our relationships with the future we claim to want. And then, carefully and thoughtfully, we must act.
