Coming Soon: New Profit’s Second Economic Mobility Catalyze Cohort
This past year, New Profit invested in eight high-impact organizations led by visionary social entrepreneurs pursuing economic mobility results across the country. For this upcoming selection cycle, we will invest in up to 16 innovative organizations, with an emphasis on supporting Black, Indigenous, and Latinx leaders.
New Profit, a national venture philanthropy organization, supports both organizations and ecosystem-building efforts aimed at advancing economic opportunity in America. New Profit has a deep track record of investing in innovations in this space, especially those advancing equity in the education-to-employment pipeline. We believe organizations that practice proximity are best positioned to catalyze responsive, sustainable change. Meaning, those organizations that center, learn from, and adapt to the needs of their core constituencies as a continuous practice. Further, we are committed to investing in true economic mobility – prioritizing solutions that hold a more expansive view of what it means to deliver results that repair deeply entrenched harms of the past and present, while also working to ensure future economic vitality for all Americans. Our vision is to support a variety of organizational models including direct, widespread, and systemic solutions through our core portfolio investments and ecosystem-building approaches.
At this time, we are particularly interested in making investments toward transformative strategies occurring along a spectrum of economic mobility interventions:
- Social Drivers of Employment Outcomes
Examples include increasing access to high-quality, affordable childcare, transportation, and housing. - Pathways to Income Generation
Examples include innovations to increase equity in the labor market, such as developing solutions that promote skills-based hiring, living wage jobs, and worker power. - Financial Health & Wealth Creation
Examples include driving reparations and guaranteed income solutions, increasing access to capital for entrepreneurship, and exploring ideas of community ownership.
If you have any questions about this investment cycle we encourage you to watch our informational webinar (recorded June 8) and review the related slides or to contact at [email protected] with “Economic Mobility” as the subject line.
We also recommend signing up for New Profit’s Economic Mobility mailing list to be notified about the application launch, as well as future investment opportunities.
Catalyze Support Model
New Profit offers a collaborative support model to support visionary social entrepreneurs and their organizations, creating value across several dimensions. Our support model includes participation in a peer learning community, 1:1 adaptive leadership coaching, connection to consultations with external content experts, New Profit’s tested capacity-building framework and tools, and $100,000 in unrestricted support.
While each cohort of social entrepreneurs requires tailored supports to meet their unique needs, the base of our capacity-building program includes the following:
- Refining impact model to advance systems change outcomes and connecting it to a compelling story of impact
- Assessing organizational strengths, capabilities, and opportunities for growth
- Building an effective, high-performance boards of directors
- Developing equitable and results-driven practices for managing teams and stakeholders
- Identifying effective practices for operational excellence in order to execute against organizational strategy (fundraising, finance, HR, and communications)
- 1-2 additional topics identified by cohort members as areas of support
Please note that our capacity-building program is currently designed to address specific questions and challenges faced by 501(c)(3) organizations. As a result, we are not able to invite for-profit enterprises to join the portfolio at this time.
You can find more information about our investment model and eligibility criteria here.
