Portfolio
Impact Multiplier
We meet the demands of complex challenges with creativity, a high tolerance for risk, a willingness to be catalytic with capital, and an emphasis on developing the next generation.
Our endowment is 100% mission-aligned, from the program work we perform alongside amazing partners to direct investments, alternatives, and public equities. We work to find and fund solutions that help more people thrive.
projects and companies we are proud to be a part of
VSCO Voices
VSCO Voices was a grant program we created and ran in partnership with VSCO for two years. Each cycle, it funded creators who use art as a vehicle to empower marginalized communities in the United States, giving them the money, mentorship, and platform to tell stories that too often go untold.
Feed Louisville
Feed Louisville is a team of professional chefs on a mission to solve two problems at once. Every day, hunger is a crisis for people in the community. Every day, perfectly good food is thrown into the landfill. Feed Louisville sits at the intersection of the two, rescuing overproduced food from restaurants, bakeries, caterers, and farmers, and using it to cook meals for the city's unhoused and food-insecure neighbors. Feed Louisville came to us through the Reconstruct Challenge, winning our Food Justice challenge with a Phase 1 and a Phase 2 grant.
Granny’s Birth Initiative
Granny's Birth Initiative supports families through pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum months, with a focus on those the healthcare system too often overlooks. Its work centers on carrying on the legacy of the Granny Midwives and ensuring Black and brown birthing people have a safe, supported place to give birth, especially those navigating incarceration, housing instability, a lack of family support, or the child welfare system. Granny's Birth Initiative came to us through the Reconstruct Challenge, winning our 2023 Maternal and Child Health challenge with a Phase 1 and a Phase 2 grant.
Catalyze
Catalyze is the platform for capital entrepreneurs, the fund managers working to move capital toward businesses the mainstream overlooks. It gives those managers the capital and support they need to build enduring firms, and it helps allocators find and back exceptional, differentiated managers. Catalyze was birthed out of Blueprint and today Access Ventures serves as its fiscal sponsor and a strategic partner, providing the charitable home, infrastructure, and partnership that lets the Catalyze team focus on its mission.
GoodMaps
GoodMaps is an indoor navigation app that uses LiDAR scanning and camera-based positioning to deliver high-accuracy, turn-by-turn guidance inside complex buildings with no beacons or hardware installations required. Designed inclusively from the ground up, it gives users spoken directions, on-screen visuals, and haptic vibrations to move confidently through museums, transit hubs, airports, and other public spaces. We are an investor in GoodMaps.
AV Foundation
The AV Foundation is a donor's partner for impact, a public charity that helps people realize their philanthropic aspirations while fostering a sense of community around every challenge. We started it with friends, and we continue to support its vision and its growth. The team at Access Ventures provides management support to the Foundation and its donor-advised fund accounts.
Navigate Maternity
Navigate Maternity is a maternal health technology company that uses data to support both patients and providers through pregnancy and the year after birth. Its platform pairs FDA-cleared, connected devices with a mobile app and human support, giving moms real-time monitoring and clinicians the information they need to intervene early. Navigate came to us through the Reconstruct Challenge, where it won a Phase 1 grant, and we followed with a Phase 2 investment.
Samaritan
Samaritan is a mobile-first community built to support people experiencing homelessness designed with the input of people who've been homeless, social workers, developers, and experts in Medicaid and emergency healthcare. Its premise is simple and human: walk with, not by. Samaritan lets people learn the stories of the neighbors they pass every day, fund critical needs, and help create lifelines of hope linking individuals without a home to the social and financial capital they need to meet real housing and health goals.
Leap Fund
Leap Fund takes on the benefits cliff, also called the cliff effect: the moment a worker earns a dollar or two more an hour and, as a result, loses public benefits worth far more than the raise. People end up earning more and netting less. Leap Fund builds the tools, education, and data to expose these cliffs and help people make informed decisions, while pushing for the policy changes that would end them. Leap Fund came to us through the Reconstruct Challenge, winning our 2022 Employment challenge with a Phase 1 and a Phase 2 grant.
Virtuous
Virtuous is the modern fundraising platform built to help nonprofits create more personal donor experiences and grow giving with less work. Founded in 2014 by Gabe Cooper (a founder we're proud to call a good friend) Virtuous pioneered the idea of responsive fundraising: using data, automation, and now AI to help charities treat every donor as a person, not a transaction.
Nesterly
Nesterly is a home-sharing platform that helps people share a home with someone they can trust for stays of a month or longer. A homeowner with a spare room, often an older adult, is matched with a vetted renter, often a student or young professional, who pays affordable rent and can lend a hand around the house in exchange for an even lower rate. Nesterly handles the vetting, leases, payments, and support. The company came to us through our Reconstruct Challenge, where it won a Phase 1 grant, and we followed with a Phase 2 investment.
Catchafire
Catchafire is a capacity-building platform that helps foundations and corporations go beyond the grant by delivering nonprofits the coaching, technical assistance, and skilled volunteers they need to grow stronger and work smarter. We are investors in Catchafire, and we remain invested today.
Haven Connect
Haven Connect builds software for affordable housing. It gives property managers tools to manage applications and waitlists, and it streamlines the application process for the people trying to find a home. Haven Connect came to us through our Reconstruct Challenge, where it won a Phase 1 grant, and we followed with a Phase 2 investment.
SoLo Funds
SoLo Funds is a community finance platform where members step up for one another by lending and borrowing on their own terms, without the mandatory fees, rollover traps, and compound interest that define so much of small-dollar credit. Founded in 2018 by Travis Holoway and Rodney Williams, SoLo set out to build something more human: a place where a nurse in Ohio can lend $100 to help a gig worker in Texas cover a car repair, and both are better for it.
mRelief
mRelief helps people access the food assistance they are eligible for through a simple, dignified experience. Instead of confusing forms and long lines, mRelief lets families check eligibility and apply for SNAP in minutes, by text or online. mRelief came to us through our Reconstruct Challenge, winning both a Phase 1 and a Phase 2 grant, together totaling $650,000 of support.