Samaritan
We provide your most vulnerable with the financial and social support they need to stay engaged in care — drastically improving health outcomes.
Technology that helps neighbors walk with and not by people that are experiencing homelessness.
Our role: Pilot funder and Series A investor
Type: Mission-driven technology company (public benefit)
Focus: Connecting people experiencing homelessness to the social and financial capital they need to reach housing and health goals
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.
Our relationship with Samaritan is one of our clearest examples of what it looks like to move capital across a full spectrum from a charitable pilot to an equity investment in service of the same mission.
How it Started: A Louisville Pilot
We first learned about Samaritan through our Know Homelessness campaign in 2021 and quickly made them a call to action for our community. Rather than stop at awareness, we funded a pilot to put the model to work in Louisville.
The results spoke for themselves. Over the course of a year, in partnership with six organizations across the city, 111 Louisvillians experiencing homelessness received nearly $60,000 in direct financial support toward their goals of dignified, relational help that treats people as people, not projects.
From Pilot to Platform
That pilot did more than help 111 neighbors. It proved a model and proof is what unlocks larger, more durable capital. The success of the Louisville work helped catalyze funding from the Medicaid collaborative, connecting Samaritan's approach to the health system that serves many of the same individuals.
Having seen the model work on the ground and attract aligned institutional support, we then invested in Samaritan's Series A moving from catalytic charitable dollars to equity in a company we believe can scale this approach far beyond one city.
Why It Matters To Us
Samaritan sits at the heart of what we care about most: empowering the vulnerable and affirming that every person carries inalienable dignity, regardless of their circumstances. It also embodies one-pocket investing in its fullest form, the same conviction expressed first through a grant-funded pilot, then through investment capital, with no wall between the two.
Homelessness is one of the hardest problems our communities face. Samaritan doesn't pretend to solve it alone, but it changes the posture: from walking by, to walking with. That is the kind of company we want to help build.
Learn more at samaritan.city.
Keep Exploring
Community flourishes when capital, people, and institutions move together.
Explore more on this topic — recommended episodes, posts, portfolio companies, and resources below:
More Than Profit podcast episodes
other blog posts
resources for download
Economic agency is shaped by systems.
It is shaped by who can access capital, who can take risk without losing stability, and who can participate in ownership. And because agency is shaped by systems, it is also shaped by place.
At Access Ventures, we believe a flourishing regional economy requires more than isolated investment. It requires intentional alignment through blended finance. Because we do not flourish alone.