Citrine Angels launches nonprofit to educate women on startup investing

By Nate Doughty – Staff Reporter, Washington Business Journal
Published October 20, 2025

View the original article here.

Story Highlights

• Citrine Angels launches nonprofit Citrine Impact to educate women on startup investing.

• Citrine Impact aims to address funding disparities for women-owned startups.

• The nonprofit seeks $250,000 in donations.

As trillions of dollars shift into the hands of the next generation over the next decade, one D.C.-based angel group is betting that education—not just capital—will determine who gets to participate in startup investment.

Citrine Angels, a membership network of nearly 90 women investors, is launching a new charitable nonprofit called Citrine Impact. Its aim is to broaden access to startup investing for women through workshops, mentorship, and community programs, and it will serve as both a public-facing initiative and a recruiting tool for the group’s core membership.

“We want more women entrepreneurs in the ecosystem, getting funding, growing their businesses; it’s just a flywheel,” said Kristalee Overdahl, board member and chief architect of Citrine Impact. “You get more women writing checks to more female founders who are successful and create jobs, and so there’s economic development there that gets more visibility, and gets more VCs and other folks funding women.”

Unlike Citrine Angels, which charges $995 in annual dues and is limited to accredited investors, Citrine Impact will host free or low-cost educational events, mentorship programs, and partnerships with universities and community groups to raise awareness about startup investment opportunities.

The nonprofit will not direct participants where to invest or promise returns, but rather look to demystify the process and lower barriers to entry.

By dedicating the nonprofit’s efforts to the public, Citrine Impact aims to capture an audience looking to address funding disparities facing women-owned startups, which receive on average only 2% of all venture capital funding deals nationwide, according to investment tracking platform PitchBook.

“We want to make sure that we can play a small part in educating women,” Overdahl said. “We want to make sure they understand how to make investments and also to support those female founders in the ecosystem.”

Overdahl noted that one of the benefits of the nonprofit is that it will also serve as a recruiting tool for Citrine Angels, which has hovered around 90 members over the past year.

She added that while Citrine Angels could double its membership if there were sufficient demand, the group is content with its current size, preferring to maintain a personal and community-driven atmosphere.

“You lose a little bit of that membership feeling,” she said. “Networking is a big piece of it, education is a big piece of it. It’s harder to do that with 200 people.”

To launch Citrine Impact, the nonprofit is looking to raise $250,000 in charitable donations, which will allow it to be financially stable on an annual budget projected at $100,000 to $150,000. Citrine Impact is also looking to hire an executive director—it currently has two part-time employees managing operations—and plans to make that hire in early 2026.

Citrine Angels, one of the largest women-focused angel investment groups in the mid-Atlantic, has invested nearly $2 million in 20 women-owned businesses since its founding, up from $1.4 million when the Business Journal featured it as one of its Fire Award winners in 2024.