Joshua Mailman

Founder & Managing Director, Serious Change LP at serious-change

Reviewed Updated Apr 30, 2026

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Location New York, New York
Check Size Early-stage angel and seed checks
Last Verified Investment Schoolzilla (Seed) — ~2012
Social LinkedIn
Stage Focus
seed early-stage
Sector Focus
impact social-entrepreneurship sustainable-food fair-trade sustainable-finance financial-inclusion clean-energy developing-markets

Background

Joshua Mailman is a pioneering U.S. impact investor and philanthropist, widely credited as one of the originators of the modern impact investing field. He is the founder and Managing Director of Serious Change LP, a sole-LP impact venture investment vehicle launched in 2006 that has been described in published sources as a roughly $70M–$100M pool of capital deployed across early-stage mission-driven companies 1 2. He also serves as president of the Joshua Mailman Foundation, a New York-based private independent foundation founded in 2007 3.

Mailman is the son of the late Joseph L. Mailman, an industrialist who, with his brother Abraham, built one of the first North American conglomerates beginning with the Utica Knife and Razor Company in 1920, and who established the Mailman Foundation with Abraham in 1943 4. After Joseph Mailman’s death in 1990, Phyllis Mailman and her two children — Jody Wolfe and Joshua — made a $33 million gift in 1998 to Columbia University to endow what became the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health, the largest single gift to a school of public health at the time 4 5.

Mailman’s path into philanthropy and impact investing began in the activism of the 1960s and 1970s and through his early association with the Haymarket People’s Fund 6. In 1981, he convened a gathering of about twenty wealthy young heirs in Estes Park, Colorado, which the group informally called “the Doughnuts” — a circle that became the Threshold Foundation, a donor network that has since funded progressive grassroots organizations worldwide 7 8. In 1987, with Wayne Silby of the Calvert Group and Thomas H. Stoner Jr., Mailman co-founded the Social Venture Network, a membership organization for socially driven business leaders whose early members included Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s, Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm, Jeffrey Hollender of Seventh Generation, Anita Roddick of The Body Shop, and Eileen Fisher 9. He went on to co-found Business for Social Responsibility in 1992 and Investors’ Circle in 1993 8.

In addition to Serious Change and the Joshua Mailman Foundation, Mailman has served on the boards or governing bodies of Echoing Green, the Fund for Global Human Rights, the Calvert Foundation, Human Rights Watch, the Sigrid Rausing Trust (founding trustee), the New Africa Center, and Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health Board of Overseers 1 2.

Stated Thesis

Mailman defines impact investing in his own words as “private investment in for-profit companies that have deep social and environmental missions connected to them,” explicitly distinguishing it from negative-screening portfolio strategies and traditional community development investing 2 10.

Serious Change’s published focus areas are early-stage ventures in: developing-world ventures, green manufacturing and fair trade, mission-driven online platforms, sustainable finance, sustainable food and distribution, and alternatives to payday lending for low-income workers 2 10.

Mailman describes himself as a “donor activist” who, in his words, helps “advance ideas that begin on the edge and move to the mainstream, particularly those that involve disempowered people” 2 10.

Inferred Thesis

This analysis is based on a small set of publicly named investments (roughly 20 companies across angel, Serious Change LP, and Jalia Ventures activity) drawn from secondary published sources rather than a comprehensive deal-by-deal portfolio. Public sources do not enumerate Serious Change LP’s full deal history; aggregator profiles on Crunchbase, PitchBook, and Bloomberg list the firm but do not surface a complete dated portfolio without paywalled access 11. The patterns below are therefore qualitative.

Sector concentration: Across publicly named investments, the dominant categories are sustainable consumer brands and food (Stonyfield Farm, Seventh Generation, Alter Eco, Lotus Foods, S.P.U.D., Sustain Condoms), fair-trade and sustainable manufacturing (Indigenous Designs, IceStone, Forestrade), developing-world infrastructure (Grameenphone in Bangladesh, BRACnet, Voxiva), clean energy (General Compression, Stirling Energy Systems, FTL Solar), financial inclusion / alternatives to payday lending (Emerge Financial, RSF Mezzanine Fund, Equilibrium Capital), and mission-driven digital platforms (Everyone Counts, Attentive.ly, Giving Assistant) 1 2 10 12. Sustainable food and consumer-brand investments appear most frequently in the public record.

Stage: Mailman is overwhelmingly an early-stage backer. He has been called a “veteran angel investor,” and is repeatedly named as a founding or seed-stage investor (Stonyfield Farm, Seventh Generation, Grameenphone) rather than a later-stage growth investor 4 10 12. Serious Change LP itself is described as concentrating on early-stage capital 2 10.

Geographic pattern: While the foundation and many investments are U.S.-based, Mailman has unusually broad international exposure for a U.S. impact investor — including Bangladesh (Grameenphone, BRACnet), Latin America via fair-trade supply chains (Alter Eco), and Africa (Target Resources plc, Forestrade) 10 12.

Co-funder and network pattern: A high share of Serious Change portfolio companies are run by other Social Venture Network members — Sustain Condoms (Jeff Hollender, formerly of Seventh Generation), Ecological Solutions (Anselm Doering), Lotus Foods, Indigenous Designs, S.P.U.D. — suggesting that the SVN network functions as Mailman’s primary deal-flow channel 10. This is unusual for impact investors and is a structural feature of his thesis: the network preceded the fund.

Notable gaps vs. stated thesis: Mailman’s stated focus on alternatives to payday lending and on sustainable finance maps onto a relatively small share of named investments (Emerge Financial, RSF Mezzanine Fund, Equilibrium Capital). The named portfolio skews more heavily toward sustainable consumer goods and developing-world infrastructure than the stated thesis would suggest 2 10.

Successor pipeline: Mailman’s mentorship of Kesha Cash and the 2010 co-founding of Jalia Ventures effectively seeded the next generation of impact-focused fund managers. Cash went on to found Impact America Fund in 2014, several of whose early portfolio companies (Red Rabbit, Schoolzilla, ConnXus) were also Jalia investments — making Mailman one of the through-lines from 1980s social-venture investing to today’s institutional impact funds 13 14.

Portfolio

The table below lists publicly named investments associated with Mailman either personally, through Serious Change LP, or through Jalia Ventures. Many of these date from the 1980s–2000s and lack public round-level disclosure; founding-year proxies are marked “~” and are noted as approximate. This table represents only the publicly named subset of investments and is not a complete portfolio.

Company Year Stage Source
Stonyfield Farm ~1983 (founding-year proxy) Seed / early angel 4 6
Seventh Generation ~1988 (founding-year proxy) Seed / early angel 2 10
Grameenphone ~1997 (founding) Founding investor 2 10
General Compression ~2007 Early-stage 2
~unknown Indigenous Designs undated Early-stage / SVN portfolio
~unknown Alter Eco undated Early-stage / SVN portfolio
~unknown Lotus Foods undated Early-stage / SVN portfolio
~unknown Emerge Financial undated Early-stage
~unknown Social Imprints undated Early-stage
~unknown IceStone undated Early-stage
~unknown S.P.U.D. undated Early-stage
Red Rabbit ~2010 (Jalia Ventures) Seed 13 14
Schoolzilla ~2012 (Jalia Ventures) Seed 13 14
ConnXus ~2010 (Jalia Ventures) Seed 13 14
~unknown Equilibrium Capital undated Early-stage / fund commitment
~unknown RSF Mezzanine Fund undated Fund commitment
~unknown Icon Wheelchair undated Early-stage
~unknown Everyone Counts undated Early-stage
~unknown Attentive.ly undated Early-stage
~unknown Giving Assistant undated Early-stage
~unknown Napo Pharmaceuticals undated Early-stage
~unknown Ecological Solutions undated Early-stage
~unknown Sustain Condoms undated Early-stage
~unknown Voxiva undated Early-stage
~unknown Stirling Energy Systems undated Early-stage
~unknown Forestrade undated Early-stage
~unknown Target Resources plc undated Early-stage
~unknown BRACnet undated Early-stage / Bangladesh
~unknown FTL Solar undated Early-stage
~unknown Old Growth Again undated Early-stage
~unknown Baltix Design undated Early-stage
~unknown Alsis Finance undated Early-stage
~unknown Mission Research undated Early-stage
~unknown Omnix undated Early-stage
Organic Ave ~2010s Early-stage (Serious Change LP) 6

Many entries lack round-level disclosure because they predate routine VC press coverage or were privately disclosed only via SVN membership listings. Aggregator profiles on Crunchbase, PitchBook, and Bloomberg list Serious Change but do not provide a complete dated deal history without paywalled access 11.

In Their Own Words

“I help to advance ideas that begin on the edge and move to the mainstream, particularly those that involve disempowered people.” — Joshua Mailman, Synergos profile, 2012 2

“Private investment in for-profit companies that have deep social and environmental missions connected to them.” — Joshua Mailman, defining impact investing, Synergos profile, 2012 2

“What was formerly addressed with charitable contributions is now addressed with for-profit ventures.” — Joshua Mailman, Synergos profile, 2012 2

“It wasn’t what my father did in business that influenced me; it was how he lived as a human being.” — Joshua Mailman, on Joseph L. Mailman, Synergos profile, 2012 2

“I follow my instincts and move toward people and ideas that excite me, whether I am making a grant, investing in a business or buying tribal art.” — Joshua Mailman, Bolder Giving profile 6

“I back agitators, instigators, and organizers. Those are the people that get stuff done.” — Joshua Mailman, Bridgespan profile 15

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials describing Mailman’s individual working relationship were located in this research pass. Several portfolio founders — Gary Hirshberg (Stonyfield Farm), Jeffrey Hollender (Seventh Generation), and Kesha Cash (Jalia Ventures co-founder, later Impact America Fund) — appear alongside Mailman in SVN materials and in published profiles, but quotes that specifically describe his behavior as an investor were not surfaced in publicly accessible sources.

Connections

  • Co-founder, Social Venture Network (1987) — alongside Wayne Silby (Calvert Group) and Thomas H. Stoner Jr.; early member network included Ben Cohen, Gary Hirshberg, Jeffrey Hollender, Anita Roddick, Eileen Fisher, Paul Hawken, and Amy Domini 9
  • Founder, Threshold Foundation (1981) — convened the original “Doughnuts” gathering in Estes Park, Colorado 7 8
  • Co-founder, Business for Social Responsibility (1992) 1 8
  • Co-founder, Investors’ Circle (1993) 8
  • Co-founder, Jalia Ventures (2010) — with Kesha Cash, who later founded Impact America Fund (2014); Jalia portfolio companies Red Rabbit, Schoolzilla, and ConnXus carried through to Impact America Fund’s network 13 14
  • Founding trustee, Sigrid Rausing Trust (UK) 1 16
  • Board member, Echoing Green 1 16
  • Board member, Fund for Global Human Rights 1 16
  • Board member, Calvert Foundation 1
  • Board member, Human Rights Watch 1
  • Board member, New Africa Center at 110th Street 1
  • Board of Overseers, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health — the school is named after his father Joseph L. Mailman following the family’s $33M gift in 1998 1 4 5
  • President, Joshua Mailman Foundation — New York-based private foundation, founded 2007 3
  • Family — son of Joseph L. Mailman (1901/1902–1990) and Phyllis Mailman; sister Jody Wolfe is President of the Mailman Foundation; wife Monica Winsor 3 4 5 6

Sources

  1. Human Rights Watch, “Joshua Mailman” people page, accessed April 2026. https://www.hrw.org/about/people/joshua-mailman↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  2. Synergos, “Joshua Mailman: A Profile in Impact Investing,” 2012. https://www.synergos.org/news-and-insights/2012/joshua-mailman-profile-impact-investing↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  3. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, “Joshua Mailman Foundation,” EIN 20-5520413, accessed April 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205520413↩↩↩

  4. Wikipedia, “Joseph Mailman,” accessed April 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mailman↩↩↩↩↩↩

  5. Philanthropy New York, “Newly Established Phyllis Mailman Professorship Endowed by the Tow Foundation, Mailman Foundation, and Joshua Mailman Foundation,” accessed April 2026. https://philanthropynewyork.org/news/newly-established-phyllis-mailman-professorship-endowed-tow-foundation-mailman-foundation-and↩↩↩

  6. Bolder Giving, “Bold Giver Story: Joshua Mailman,” accessed April 2026. https://boldergiving.org/stories.php?story=Joshua-Mailman_39↩↩↩↩↩

  7. Fast Company, “Doughnuts to Dollars: How a Business Scion’s Son Went From Burning Man to Angel Investing,” accessed April 2026. https://www.fastcompany.com/1707100/doughnuts-dollars-how-business-scions-son-went-burning-man-angel-investing↩↩

  8. Bridgespan, “Idea Man Josh Mailman Sets Out to Change the World,” accessed April 2026. https://www.bridgespan.org/insights/josh-mailman↩↩↩↩↩

  9. Wikipedia, “Social Venture Network,” accessed April 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Venture_Network↩↩

  10. Renewal Partners / Play Big, “Josh Mailman” speaker bio, 2013, accessed April 2026. http://www.renewalpartners.com/collaborations/conferences/play-big/play-big-2013/josh-mailman/josh-mailman↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  11. PitchBook, “Joshua Mailman investment portfolio,” accessed April 2026. https://pitchbook.com/profiles/investor/229224-7↩↩

  12. Sigrid Rausing Trust, “Joshua Mailman” people page, accessed April 2026. https://www.sigrid-rausing-trust.org/people/joshua-mailman/↩↩↩

  13. Crunchbase News, “Trailblazer Kesha Cash Raises $55 Million For Impact America Fund,” October 27, 2020. https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/trailblazer-kesha-cash-raises-55-million-for-impact-america-fund/↩↩↩↩↩

  14. TechCrunch, “Impact America Fund closes $55M to invest in startups targeting the world’s overlooked,” October 27, 2020. https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/27/impact-america-fund-closes-55m-to-invest-in-startups-targeting-the-worlds-overlooked/↩↩↩↩↩

  15. Bridgespan, “Josh Mailman grew from a young activist to supporting activism through his philanthropy,” accessed April 2026. https://www.bridgespan.org/insights/Josh-Mailman/Josh-Mailman-grew-from-a-young-activist-to-support↩

  16. Bridgespan, “Restoring the Threshold Foundation: Josh Mailman takes over a foundation and makes it his own,” November 27, 2013. https://www.bridgespan.org/insights/josh-mailman/restoring-the-threshold-foundation-josh-mailman-ta↩↩↩