Past Projects
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.
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.
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.