Investing in Democracy

Header photo: Christy Chin ( on right in plaid) with the Santa Cruz Local board and staff team.

After the 2016 election, Christy Chin was devastated to see the country so divided and headed in a direction that deeply troubled her. It was a pivotal moment, and she knew she wanted to take all the experience she’d gained over the course of her career and work with a laser focus on the two issues that matter to her most: democracy and climate change.

Christy started out as a venture capitalist. Fresh from Harvard Business School, she arrived in Silicon Valley in 1998 at the height of the dot-com bubble. As a VC, she worked to fund emerging early-stage companies that didn’t have much operating history but a significant potential for growth. But a few years later, as the tech industry experienced seismic shifts, so did Christy.

“I loved the energy of a start-up, but I didn’t find the work particularly fulfilling. Not to mention how few women there were in the venture capital,” she says.

Christy started thinking about how she could connect her passion for entrepreneurship to her hope for social change. “The prospect was fascinating; taking everything I learned from the business sector to contribute to the social entrepreneurship and venture philanthropy. Now that was a wave I wanted to ride!”

A Shift Towards Philanthropy

For over 20 years, Christy worked in the philanthropic sector with the Skoll Foundation, the William and Flora Hewett Foundation, and the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK) where she helped raise more than $100 million for projects that have impacted nearly half a billion lives globally. She says, “Just like the for-profit sector, nonprofits need early-stage money to test, iterate, and build new organizations. But they also need expertise in building an effective nonprofit.” Alongside providing funding, Christy worked with grantees to build organizational capacity, develop their boards, and mentor executive leadership.

“Social entrepreneurs see opportunity where others see problems. They are creative in solving complex problems. Their dedication to impact and real change is inspiring.” Christy was honored to work with John Wood of Room to Read which has impacted 45 million children worldwide, Rick Nahmias of Food Forward which has recovered and distributed over 315M pounds of fresh produce, as well as Jacob Martinez of DigitalNEST which has provided more than 4,000 young adults with access to well-paying careers.

In 2018, Nik Strong-Cvetich recruited Christy to the board of Save The Waves, when it was drafting a strategic plan to advance its mission to protect surf ecosystems across the globe. Christy reflects, “Save The Waves provided me with a unique opportunity to apply my skills to my family’s passion for surfing.”

Strengthening Democracy at the National and State Levels

When she worked with donors, Christy would ask what their goals for giving were so she could help them achieve their aim.

As she transitioned to the next stage of her life, Christy knew it was time to take herself on her own donor journey. “I had to ask myself, ‘what do I care about? How do I want to lend my time, talent, and treasure to an issue?’”

With the clear goal that she wanted to help strengthen and protect democracy, she turned to work on the national level with Vote.org, a nonprofit that uses technology to simplify political engagement, increase voter turnout, and address barriers to voting for underserved communities.

She’d initially started working with the organization through DRK, but now she dove in full force, served as board treasurer.

“I’m so proud,” she says, “that in the 2022 election cycle, Vote.org registered over 725,000 voters and served one in five voters nationwide register and vote.””

Christy then turned her attention to strengthening voter turnout in California. She says, “In this state, everyone gets their ballot and it’s very easy to vote. But we have very low voter turnout.” The reason, she believes, is that the ballot is confusing. “There are organizations working to create accessible, non-partisan ballot guides and resources to help people understand how their government functions.”

One of those organizations is CalMatters, a nonprofit news organization, where Christy currently serves on the board. CalMatters seek to improve California’s democracy by making its government more transparent and accountable and giving Californians the information they need to understand and engage with that government.

Now, the Local Level

Christy, her husband Eric, and their two teenagers now call Santa Cruz home. Soon after its founding, Christy took note of the start-up nonprofit newsroom Santa Cruz Local.

“I could see they were part of this movement, like CalMatters, of innovative news organizations working on solutions-oriented journalism to strengthen civic engagement,” she says.

Started in 2019 by two veteran local journalists Kara Meyberg Guzman and Stephen Baxter, Santa Cruz Local focuses on delivering bilingual news, election guides, and high-quality journalism based on residents’ most pressing concerns and questions.

Christy sees Santa Cruz Local as an important resource for everyone. “The housing crisis, traffic, mental health services, climate change, and the list goes on. These are complex issues Santa Cruz County is facing. Local journalism needs to keep people informed and build trust in the institutions that are making the decisions that impact their lives—inviting people into the conversation before decisions are made, rather than reacting after a decision has been made.”

But before Christy got too involved with Santa Cruz Local, she turned to the Community Foundation for advice.

Community Connectors

Christy says, “Community foundations have a unique and really important role to play in philanthropy. They are connectors, helping donors connect to local organizations that are aligned with their values and the causes they care about.”

Christy met with CEO Susan True and Donor Services Director Hilary Bryant. “When I learned that the Community Foundation was supporting Santa Cruz Local, I felt much more confident about getting involved. It validated my instincts around Kara’s leadership ability and the unique need Santa Cruz Local was filling.”

Last year, Christy joined the board at Santa Cruz Local and has become one of its biggest champions. She and her husband Eric also opened a donor-advised fund at the Foundation.

"With her background in grantmaking, Christy has been an absolute gamechanger on our board," said Kara Meyberg Guzman, Santa Cruz Local's CEO and co-founder. "Christy has helped us build key relationships with national funders of journalism. Thanks to Christy's help, we've reached a tipping point. We're so close to making big leaps with our revenue. We're growing our national profile and maturing as an organization."

This fall, Santa Cruz Local was among the first news organizations to receive a prestigious $100,000 Press Forward award—a national honor from a coalition of nearly 30 institutional funders, including the Knight Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. Nearly 1,000 news organizations applied.

Building a Resilient Community

“Santa Cruz County is an incredibly special place. We have epic beauty, a world class research university, an innovative tech ecosystem, and beautifully diverse arts and culture. I want us all to be part of what’s next. I want us all to be part of building a resilient community,” says Christy.

She’s optimistic about the impact we can have locally, protecting the causes, people, and places we care about most. “We all need to learn, participate, and vote! There’s a lot at stake each election because it’s representing us—that’s what democracy is.”