About

Our Firm

Kislinger Impact Collective was founded on the belief that philanthropy is most powerful when it's personal, strategic, and supported by someone who's been in the trenches. We partner with family offices and private foundations to design and manage philanthropic strategies that reflect who you are and create lasting impact.

We understand that family philanthropy is different. It often spans generations. It carries the weight of legacy. And for many families, there's a desire to give meaningfully without public attention—to let the work speak for itself. That's the kind of giving we support.

We work with a small number of clients at any given time, maintaining strict confidentiality and serving as a true extension of your team. What we offer is simple: experience, relationships, and a genuine commitment to helping your giving matter.

Nick Kislinger, Principal

Nick Kislinger learned early that the best ideas mean nothing without the right people to carry them forward.

That lesson first took shape in Sacramento. As Chief of Staff to California's Secretary of Education under Governor Schwarzenegger, he watched policy after policy get drafted, debated, and shelved—not because the ideas were wrong, but because they never connected with the people who could bring them to life. He helped create California's first Guidelines for Digital Education and establish the state's Office to Reform Education, but left government with a conviction that would shape everything that followed: lasting change requires funders, policymakers, and social entrepreneurs working together, not in silos.

So he built a place where that could happen. Standing on the 4th Street Bridge in Downtown LA, he imagined a community where people committed to social change could find each other. Impact Hub Los Angeles started with $500,000 and a vision. It grew into a 1,000-member community with direct ties to the Mayor's Office—proof that when you create the right conditions, collaboration follows.

The work kept expanding. Howard Buffett Jr. asked him to launch the Global Impact Institute, which led to an Olympic summit bringing together 150 leaders from 34 countries. The Entertainment Industry Foundation recruited him to become their first Director of Education, where he discovered his gift for connecting resources to results: $5 million in grants distributed, $34 million raised for the University of California's Promise Campaign, and a nationwide partnership with Viola Davis and Feeding America that put childhood hunger on the national agenda.

Each chapter taught him something about what makes philanthropy work—and what makes it fall short. He saw grants succeed when funders stayed close to the work, and fail when they wrote checks and walked away. He learned to spot the organizations that deliver and the ones that just talk a good game. He built relationships across sectors that most people never bridge: Hollywood and Washington, grassroots activists and family foundations, tech entrepreneurs and nonprofit veterans.

He founded Kislinger Impact Collective to bring all of it—the pattern recognition, the relationships, the hard-won lessons—to families who want their giving to matter. Not philanthropy as transaction, but philanthropy as partnership. Strategy that's grounded in real experience, delivered by someone who's still in the work, not watching from the sidelines.