Plugged In is a series of monthly conversations with Black innovators building an inclusive and sustainable economy with host Sherrell Dorsey.
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What does it mean to build an inclusive economy? Melissa Pegus, who leads the Future Economy Fund, went to young people to seek some answers.
“Young people are our biggest emerging group of consumers. These are going to be the holders of capital. And so it behooves us to really get ahead of that demand and build with, instead of building for,” Pegus tells ImpactAlpha‘s Sherrell Dorsey on PluggedIn Live.
The $75 million Future Economy Fund, an initiative from SecondMuse Capital, is “a youth centered investment strategy where our primary focus is on catalyzing capital access across key areas that are critical to building a future that our young people want to be a part of,” says former entrepreneur turned investor Pegus. The fund will support companies that create transformative solutions across health, commerce, technology and climate sectors.
The fund is partnering with Grantmakers for Girls of Color to showcase how deep community engagement and innovative fund structures are vital to unlocking sustainable capital and fostering a future that young people actively champion. Instead of traditional market analysis — analyzing verticals, comps and return profiles — Pegus engaged youth through interactive labs, probing their visions, concerns, and hopes for the next 10-15 years, to develop a thesis.
Often missing from conventional approaches, she said, “is the input from the individuals who are the beneficiaries of the future we’re building.”
What Pegus heard was a profound need for “structural investment” in ecosystems, skill development, and feedback pipelines. The feedback led to a fundamental structural pivot. Instead of a typical 10-year venture fund, as initially conceived, the fund is structured as an evergreen donor-advised fund, or DAF.
“If we are building this fund in community, we have to be really honest around what we’re investing in and what we’re testing,” Pegus emphasized. The DAF structure provides philanthropic first-loss capital focused squarely on impact, offering the flexibility to layer in return-seeking capital over time. And its evergreen nature liberates investments from restrictive, short-term horizons, prioritizing long-term ecosystem development before the demand for immediate, traditional profitability metrics.
The DAF’s dual capacity for market-rate investments and programmatic grants ensures vital infrastructural work—even without immediate ROI—receives essential support.
Pegus took inspiration from other DAF and blended models, such as Omidyar Network, which as a LLC with a private philanthropic foundation can make both grants and investments. Andresseen Horowitz is better known for its venture capital investments, but it also operates the Talent x Opportunity Fund, a DAF seeded by A16Z partners that makes grants to underrepresented founders.
Intentional investment for impact and generational wealth
When deploying capital, the Future Economy Fund’s non-negotiables extend beyond standard startup criteria to elevate values alignment with founders. Young people actively participate in the investment evaluation pipeline, ensuring continuous alignment with their initial impact objectives. This community-built approach openly embraces risk, recognizing that pioneering new vehicles necessitates transparency about what is being tested and learned.
Pegus expressed excitement about technological advancements that enhance accessibility to tools and information, believing this fosters “more dynamic innovation that represents the needs of even larger groups.”
The importance of bringing community along for the ride underscored Pegus’ highlight of the fund’s approach to yield both near-term growth and the promise of lasting generational wealth.
“When that business owner that we invested in in 2025 and now here we are in 2035 and they’re making decisions about their children going to college, or giving an investment for their children to buy their first home, or they want to invest in their grandchild. And now there’s this wealth that family has, that they have access to that’s going to transform the trajectory of the wealth of their family for generations to come, which is something that we care deeply about, and that’s a part of the mission and being a partner.”
