1.8 million Americans with disabilities own small businesses. They receive effectively zero percent of venture capital funding.

When philanthropy is the only tool corporations reach for, it reinforces a charity model that treats the people closest to the problem as passive recipients rather than active drivers of change. The question this session is built to answer is: what does it look like when philanthropy, corporate investment, and growth capital actually work together — and what role can your organization play in making that happen?

Drawing on candid lessons from 2Gether-International and PayPal, panelists will unpack what blended capital looks like in practice across different contexts and cause areas.

The framework you'll leave with works wherever you sit in the ecosystem — whether you're a corporate funder, a nonprofit ecosystem builder, or an impact investor trying to coordinate across all three.

Attendees will leave with:

• A practical blended capital framework applicable across cause areas, with disability innovation as the proof point
• Concrete steps for moving your organization beyond one-off grants toward multi-year ecosystem partnership
• Language and data to make the internal case for treating social inclusion as market expansion, not CSR alone
• Real examples of what it took to unlock new funding tools from inside a major corporation
• A honest look at where blended capital models break down and what to do about it