Philadelphia needs more cash. Admidst crippling poverty and a proliferation of struggling nonprofits, the city ranks 43rd of the United States’ 50 biggest cities in charitable giving, with residents donating an average of only 2.5 percent of their income. Could the savior of our charitable woes be … capitalism? We’ve written extensively on the region’s impact investing scene, which employs venture capital to support […]
B Corp ROAR for Good officially launched its flagship wearable safety accessory, Athena, this summer after three years of development. Now, it’s celebrating that milestone by completing another part of its mission: donating the device to likeminded organizations — in this case, 250 Athenas to domestic violence service provider Women Against Abuse. It’s a good fit for ROAR, considering cofounder Anthony Gold has […]
A lot has changed in the past year. For the sake of saving ourselves a political headache, we’ll stick with a few items of local social enterprise news: The Knight Cities Challenge-winning Institute for Hip Hop Entrepreneurship graduated its inaugural class of music entrepreneurs. Borderwise came into the public spotlight for its work in simplifying the immigration process. NeedsList has earned accolades before it’s even officially […]
It’d be an understatement to say that it’s been a busy couple of months for NeedsList, the currently-in-beta online startup that connects refugee aid workers around the world with people who want to donate much-needed supplies and finances. Let’s recap: The Philly-founded startup from cofounders Natasha Freidus and Amanda Levinson had its beta launch during a citywide celebration commencing World Refugee Day in […]
Margaret Bradley is audibly jazzed when describing the significance of impact investing in the Philadelphia region. “My whole professional life is about this,” said the director of investment partnerships and lead for social impact investments at Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, the state-backed seed and early stage capital provider for local tech startups […]
Right off the heels of its appropriately timed beta launch during the celebration of World Refugee Day in Philly, NeedsList has been announced to be one of the two startups awarded $25,000 investments from its participation in Ben Franklin Technology Partners’ and the Village Capital’s Fintech accelerator. The 12-week program just finished up last Thursday, […]
Throughout February, Generocity highlighted a series of CSR-focused stories in the region, including a new addition to our portfolio, Sustrana. The women-owned, B Corp-certified company has a mission of helping companies build and manage strategic sustainability programs through its online software tool and platform. It also has a very ambitious, concrete goal. Its goal […]
Social service providers are getting better at identifying and tracking people experiencing homelessness. This is due, in part, to having better, more efficient technology like Grassroots Unwired at the ready.