2020 Strategies is a consulting and venture development firm, founded by Deborah Stern, dedicated to financing and achieving a sustainable world.
I founded 2020 Strategies out of my long-standing passion for working with great people to architect and build projects and organizations to advance communities and our world....and my love for Mother Earth. I truly believe that, all together, we have everything we need to accomplish what Thomas Berry called the Great Work of our times. My role is often to see the possibilities and bring sometimes atypical pieces together so that 1+1=3+.
I love helping clients see a coherent pathway to achieve their distinct impact --harnessing relationships, capital, best practice fundraising and management, a smart strategy.
And, I am inspired to bring strategic organizing capacities to realize the solutions/strategies envisioned and stewarded by 2020 Strategies.
I am grateful for the outstanding leaders I've been honored to work with throughout my career.
Deborah Stern, Founding Principal
ABOUT 2020 STRATEGIES
Through a trusted client-partner approach, we build strategic organizational, network, and market capacity for the shared mission: building a sustainable world. Our core competencies include strategy, fundraising, and business development. Consulting clients include NGOs, Philanthropies, Impact Investors, Mission-focused businesses, and Public Agencies, with local to global reach.
2020 Strategies also brings inspired leadership to developing new ventures and solutions designed to mobilize capital and collective action for a sustainable world. We bring a natural affinity for systemic design and organizing approaches to meet today's complex challenges with requisite speed and scale.
The 2020 Fund, a 501c3 philanthropic incubator and convening platform, is one firm-led solution and it has incubated the 2020 Challenge Report, The 2020 Global Stakeholder Initiative, Campaign 2020 (C2020) Development, and several others. 2020 Strategies, LLC is the managing director of the 2020 Fund. Triskeles Foundation is available as our fiscal sponsor/partner.
ABOUT DEBORAH STERN
Deborah’s 25+ years professional track record in the social impact sector includes creating financing or business development campaigns from $100K up to $100M; securing commitments of up to $25Million. She advises and works with impact investors, philanthropists, and mission-focused businesses and non-profits, providing fundraising, business development, and collective impact strategies and implementation. Deborah's passion is to build organizational and market capacity to assure we optimize the growing momentum to achieve a sustainable world. Missions include global sustainable development; corporate responsibility and sustainability; the historic South Africa Free Elections Fund; women’s development, entrepreneurship and gender-lens investing; sustainable forestry; CR/Sustainability data management; energy management; international development and microfinance; affordable housing and community development; arts; education and health.
She has initiated innovative research (involving Columbia University graduate student teams), and multi-stakeholder initiatives (w research firm, GlobeScan, and leading foundations, NGOs, and businesses) – e.g. the ReScore Studies on CSR Data Management, the 2020 Global Stakeholder Initiative and a current project on Impact Investing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
She is a respected convenor, program facilitator and panelist, leading a speaker series on Business and Social Impact for the Haas School of Business NYC Alumni Chapter, and the Impact Investing session for the SDG Philanthropy Platform Convergence meeting, organized by Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisors.
Ms. Stern earned an MBA from Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, and a BA from Beloit College.
Each period of history has a great work to do. The nobility of the lives of the people has to do with their identity with the great work of their time…
The Great Work now, as we move into a new millennium, is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner.
I truly believe that, all together, we have everything we need to accomplish what Thomas Berry, one of my formative teachers, called the Great Work of our times.