Jeremy Gregg has dedicated his life to making the world a better place. Over the course of his career, he has helped various nonprofit organizations develop strategies to more effectively meet their goals. Through Gregg Partners, an organization he co-founded with Jami Ritter, he helps arm these organizations with the tools they need.
“Our mission is to improve the lives of those who are most vulnerable by partnering with nonprofits that support them,” Jeremy said. “We are here to fill that gap between their big visions and their limited capacity to fulfill them.”
One of the biggest challenges all social service organizations face is financial stability. Jeremy and Jami connect nonprofits with philanthropic foundations that share a similar vision for helping those in need. The primary tool they use is grant writing, where they lay out a nonprofit’s detailed plans in hopes of receiving funding.
“Grant writing will reveal an organization’s strengths and will expose its weaknesses,” Jeremy said. “Through grant writing we can identify the opportunities for improvements within an organization’s structure so that they are better positioned for fundraising overall.”
He is quick to point out that Gregg Partners does more than just write grants. Its goal is to form long-term partnerships with organizations that share his philosophy of promoting change for the better.
One organization Jeremy has been particularly involved with is My Possibilities (MP), the Plano-based nonprofit that provides continuing education and job opportunities to adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD.) He is impressed with how MP strives to do more than just meet its bottom line; it is leading a movement to change the way the community perceives intellectual disabilities.
“What I truly love about My Possibilities is the boldness in their vision and the fact that, unlike many nonprofits, they are not encumbered by the tyranny of low expectations,” Jeremy said. “They truly do believe in what they are doing.”
According to Jeremy the hallmark of a great client is an organization that has a big vision and wants to make an impact on the world. He praises Wikimedia, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia, which reaches one out of every four people on the internet. He also cites Bonton Farms, which has done admirable work to address the food desert that exists in many of Dallas’ economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. While these originations seem very different from each other, they all share grand aspirations and the boldness to aim high.
“I love the fact that we are working with people who have pioneering models not seen anywhere else in the world,” he said.
Jeremy has also been active on the TED Talks speaker circuit, where he addresses some of the problems associated with incarceration. He was inspired to do this after working with the Prison Entrepreneurship Program. Over several years, he witnessed firsthand how the system damages families.
“It will be very difficult to ever solve poverty permanently, but we can in fact solve many of the problems related to incarceration and the reentry crisis that we are facing,” he said. “It’s a systemic problem, one that can be addressed through policies and infrastructure changes.”
Somehow Jeremy has also found time to work as a journalism and poetry teacher. While he no longer teaches full time, he remains passionate about the subjects because he believes that the way people construct words is the way they construct thoughts, and the way people construct thoughts is the way they will construct their lives.
Going forward, Jeremy hopes to find more ways to support causes that are dear to him. He has multiple passions and is grateful for opportunities to pursue them.
“I choose to live by the motto that we’re only given one death, so why only live one life?”
My Possibilities > Gregg Partners >The above content is sponsored. We have partnered with My Possibilities to spotlight #changemakers in the disabilities community.
