How to create Tailored Funding strategies for Female Founders and Business Owners with Jenny Kassan

Terri talks to Jenny Kassan about alternative funding mechanisms for female founders and small business owners and how she works with them to provide tailored fundraising strategies. 

Who is Jenny Kassan?  

Jenny Kassan has over two decades of experience as an attorney and advisor for mission-driven enterprises and is a certified coach.  She has helped her clients raise millions of dollars from values-aligned investors.  She is the author of Raise Capital on Your Own Terms: How to Fund Your Business without Selling Your Soul (Berrett-Koehler, October 2017). 

She served on the SEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies and submitted the petition to the SEC that led to the passage of the 2012 JOBS Act. 

Before becoming a securities lawyer, Jenny worked for eleven years at a nonprofit community development corporation in Oakland, where she served as staff attorney and managed community economic development projects including the formation and management of several social ventures designed to employ and create business ownership opportunities for low-income community residents. 

Jenny is a fellow at Democracy Collaborative and the co-founder of the Force for Good Fund, is the President of Community Ventures, and co-founded the Sustainable Economies Law Center.  She was a director of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and is a member of the Content Advisory Panel of Conscious Company Magazine and serves on the advisory boards of Lioness Magazine and Investibule.  

Jenny earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley.   

Show Highlights 

• Jenny talks about her journey into working with startups and businesses on tailored fundraising strategies and the importance of Title III of the JOBS Act.   

• Jenny talks about how her frustration with fundraising options and meeting Michelle Thimesch led to the recent launch of CrowdFund Main Street to take advantage of Title III of the JOBS Act.   
• Terri and Jenny talk about how crowdfunding can fit into a startup’s fundraising strategy and how the definition of success for a startup is not based on funding rounds. 
• Jenny is now focusing on the investor side and educating a lot of Americans on investing opportunities through her new organization called Angels of Main Street.   
• Terri talks about how important it is for some us to see the direct impact of their investments and/or time.     
• Jenny talks about how she works with her clients to structure their financing strategies in alignment with their goals, values, and short/long term strategies.  She also talks about the various options available to founders.  

• Jenny felt most like the pilot in her own life when she went out on her own with her own firm.  She now has the business of dreams.   

 

Terri’s Key Takeaway 

Taking the first step is important to opening up new opportunity paths.   

 References in the Podcast 

• CrowdFund Main Street: https://crowdfundmainstreet.com/ 
• JOBS Act, Title III:  https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/jobs-act.shtml 
• Gabrielle Katsnelson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielle-katsnelson-6a73958/ 
• SMBX: https://www.thesmbx.com/ 

• National Venture Capital Association:   
• Changing Tides:  https://thinkresultsmarketing.com/books/changing-tides/ 

Contact 

Jenny can be reached through her website http://www.jennykassan.com/ 

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.  

Feel free to email Terri at [email protected]. 

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.