Connecting People, Ideas, and Action Around a Common Purpose
Finding Common Purpose brings people and organizations together around the challenges that matter most to communities. We believe meaningful progress happens when diverse perspectives come together, shared priorities become clear, and resources are aligned around measurable outcomes. Our work is grounded in collaboration, transparency, and a shared commitment to the American Promise.
News, Events & Insights
Governing
Instead of repeating the mistakes they made with tobacco money, states should set clear goals — and measure outcomes through dashboards accessible to all — for programs addressing social media’s harms to teenagers.
Steamboat Pilot & Today
Steamboat For All aims to make housing and childcare more financially feasible for the local workforce
Washington Examiner
In this op-ed, Andrew Wolk argues that America needs an Outcomes Movement that measures success not by good intentions, spending, or headline economic indicators, but by whether working families can thrive and not merely survive.
Our Story
Finding Common Purpose was founded by Andrew Wolk following a career as a social sector entrepreneur. After decades of work, he became increasingly frustrated with the misalignment between how much money–governmental and philanthropic– and positive effort was being invested in the social sector and how little tangible progress was felt in the daily lives of working Americans. When one looks at the data it wasn’t just a lack of tangible progress, the conditions as measured across factors like housing affordability, healthcare, childcare, and wages were stagnating or getting worse. He began looking at communities where real, measurable progress towards thriving lives and opportunities was occurring and asking what similarities existed across communities that were making tangible progress.
This led to a large scale research effort looking at effective place-based work across the country to identify what works. After looking at over 500 place-based organizations one commonality emerged: an outcomes-focused approach to change. Communities that collectively identified the outcomes they wanted to achieve, measured progress over time and aligned strategies in service of these outcomes, had a higher chance of achieving and sustaining progress towards thriving.
Finding Common Purpose was founded to expand what works. We fund communities, through a lead non-profit organization to help support more communities as they develop and solidify an outcomes focused approach to creating change. Long term the aim is that expanding this way of working will improve lives for working Americans by really focusing on and giving communities enough runway to move towards what matters to them.
Meet the Team
Andrew Wolk, Founder
Andrew Wolk, FCP’s founder and lead donor, is a pioneering social entrepreneur who, for more than twenty years, has been exploring how to ensure resources result in outcomes.
Andrew Wolk began his career as a serial social entrepreneur more than 20 years ago, driven by a commitment to ensuring resources are used effectively to help individuals and families achieve lifelong success. He went on to found three independent nonprofits – Root Cause, Social Innovation Forum, and Interise – each designed to strengthen communities and expand opportunity.
Over the years, Andrew has led consulting projects with foundations, nonprofits, school districts, corporations, and government agencies across the country, with a focus on supporting sustainable initiatives and advising institutions on how to align resources for measurable impact. He also contributed to the creation of the Office of Social Innovation during the Obama Administration, embedding social impact into federal policies at the highest level.
Recognized as a pioneer in social entrepreneurship education, Andrew designed and taught one of the first courses on the subject at Boston University and has lectured at MIT, the Harvard Kennedy School, Boston College, and Brandeis University. His work has been featured in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, and WBUR.
Andrew holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Nonprofit Management from Boston University and a BA from Lehigh University. Based in Steamboat, Colorado, he continues to champion community‑driven change while serving as FCP’s founder and lead donor. He enjoys music, skiing, outdoor adventure, travel, and spending time with his family and friends.
Shannon Murtagh, Executive Director
Shannon Murtagh, FCP’s Executive Director, is a leader in education equity and community‑driven change, with a decade of policy experience and a passion for place‑based initiatives.
Shannon Murtagh began her work in public education teaching in Washington state, where she also got her start in advocacy as a political organizer. For nearly a decade, she led research and policy initiatives at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, focusing on the intersection of parent empowerment, school choice, school autonomy, and educational equity. Then, as an independent consultant, Shannon played a key role in enhancing the strategic vision and direction of various organizations, with a continued emphasis on working with K-12 school districts.
She began her journey with FCP in 2023, initially conducting research on place-based initiatives and community dashboards. In 2025, she took on the role of executive director, leading the charge to advance FCP’s vision of making philanthropic investments in outcomes focused communities that are achieving tangible results.
Shannon holds an MPA from the University of Washington and a BS from Yale University. Based in Lexington, Massachusetts she’s the parent of three public school students, volunteers constantly (from sitting on boards to coaching sports), is an avid baker, and bikes everywhere.
Hephzibah Okorie, Program Officer and Project Manager
Hephzibah Okorie is a program officer and project manager at FCP, passionate about advancing social impact through research, strategy, and community collaboration.
Hephzibah Okorie is a program officer and project manager at FCP, where she leads the strategic vision around FCP’s granting strategy and partners with grantees on executing their goals.
Prior to joining FCP, she worked as an associate at Root Cause where she developed strategy, supported community engagement and designed evaluation and assessment processes for clients in the non-profit sector. She also worked as a business analyst at McKinsey and Company, where she focused on public and social sector strategy in higher education and health care organizations as well as supporting broad social impact research.
She graduated from Earlham College in Indiana in, with a major in psychology and a minor in business management. Beyond her major, she supported public health research efforts and led the Black Student Union as well as the Center for Social Justice.
Hephzibah lives in Brookline, Massachusetts where she enjoys hanging out with her cat, Squiggy, taking art classes and occasionally trying her hand at fiction writing.
Marvin Vilma, Chief Development Officer
Marvin Vilma is an educator and social impact leader advancing innovation in education. He serves as FCP’s Chief Development Officer and CEO of Bevy Studio.
Marvin Vilma (he/him) is an educator and social impact professional whose personal mission is to advance innovation and impact in the nonprofit space. He currently serves as FCP’s chief development officer and CEO of Bevy Studio.
Prior to this, Marvin worked in teaching, fundraising and executive roles at Let’s Get Ready, MIT Sloan School of Management, Babson College, and Noble and Greenough School. He was also on the founding team of the philanthropic fund Next Level Social Impact. Marvin was born and raised in Queens, N.Y., and attended Colgate University, where he studied sociology and French. He completed a Certificate in Community Leadership and Social Change with the Institute for Nonprofit Practice and completed his M.S.Ed. in Entrepreneurship Education at the Penn Graduate School of Education.
He is currently completing his MBA at the Boston University Questrom School of Business. Marvin enjoys traveling, Netflix binging, improving his culinary skills, and spending time with friends.
Frequently Asked Questions
Finding Common Purpose was founded by, and received an initial donation from, Andrew Wolk. He spent his career building: running Root Cause, teaching at MIT, working with foundations and nonprofits. From the outside, it looked like success. But over time, he realized that as much as he and his organizations were doing, it wasn’t really changing the bigger picture.
The same problems were still there. People were working hard, but life wasn’t getting easier for them. That disconnect made him rethink how he wanted to use the rest of his career and his own resources.
That’s how Finding Common Purpose started. It’s the first time Andrew Wolk has built something that he’s also funding himself. This work has the potential to scale if others recognize its value and invest. The goal is simple: help communities focus on outcomes that actually improve everyday life: things like how much of a paycheck goes to housing or whether kids are reading at grade level.
Outcomes are measurable metrics that track progress towards community held goals. FCP believes that tracking outcomes publicly empowers communities to shift collaboration, allocate resources and drive policy that make systemic change possible.
A community dashboard is a digital platform that publicly shares outcomes and tracks progress toward community visions for economic and social wellbeing.
We believe that the power for sustainable change lies in placed-based work—local, coordinated efforts led by passionate and invested community residents—and that accessible data-sharing practices are imperative for setting clear visions and moving power to community members.
We partner closely with grantees, offering both funding and thought partnership that strengthens infrastructure, capacity and approach. Beyond the infrastructure developed, we see the long-term benefits of an outcome-based approach in the improved strategy, increased access to funding and more robust community engagement that grantees see. Our commitment to continuous learning and improvement also support grantees in examining and strengthening their approaches.
We fund work across three key pathways: efforts to develop and strengthen community infrastructure for tracking and sharing outcomes, efforts to expand understanding of an outcomes-based approach in the social sector and efforts to protect and reimagine public data infrastructure. Our funding also supports place-based partnerships in implementing the six effective practices in their outcomes efforts. Please visit our granting page to learn more.
We do not currently grant through open calls. Instead, we connect with and fund organizations whose goals and efforts align with our mission. Connect with us if you see potential alignment in our efforts.
Yes, FCP is a pooled philanthropic fund powered by a collective commitment to see communities, and the nation as a whole, thrive.
We are not currently hiring, please subscribe to our mailing list and follow us on LinkedIN to learn about future opportunities.
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