Addressing: Access to Healthcare, Maternal Health.

She Matters is a dual-ended digital platform that improves health outcomes for Black women through building understanding and trust amongst healthcare providers and Black mothers. The platform provides access to community and culturally relevant healthcare providers, education, and resources. She Matters is designed to support Black women during their postpartum period, addressing the disparities in Black maternal morbidity rates in the United States that are driven by gaps in care and a distrust of the medical system. The platform works with healthcare professionals to train and certify them to provide more culturally competent care and works with Black mothers to provide access to community and resources

Addressing: Access to Healthcare

Strong Children Wellness is a digital network that integrates primary care hubs into established community-based mental health and social service organizations in New York City. Recognizing that the traditional way of delivering medical care is often insufficient to meet the dynamic needs of children and families, their innovative model, coined “reverse integrated care,” brings primary care into Community-Based Organization. These organizations are experts at supporting families with histories of trauma and social risks that lie at the root of health disparities.

Addressing: Food Security; Economic Resiliency

Brooklyn Packers is a Black-led worker-owned cooperative whose mission is to build food sovereignty in their New York City borough. They source, pack and distribute for small food delivery companies and organizations that champion fresh and healthy food, and leverage their expertise in delivery logistics to work with closely with community-based organizations to support last-mile delivery of produce and hot meals for under-resourced community members.

Addressing: Food Security; Economic Resiliency

The Nourish Spot is a Black-owned, quick service establishment that offers fruit and produce through smoothies, salads, and soups. This family-run business opened in 2016 in response to health challenges faced by their neighbors. Their goal was to provide their community with opportunities to nourish their minds, bodies and souls. The Nourish Spot hires local youth to run the business and provide them with financial and development opportunities to grow their careers. Countless loyal customers recount stories about the impact of these healthy food options – including individuals who are lowering their blood pressure and blood sugar through regular consumption of these fresh and healthy meals.

Addressing: Mental Health & Healthcare Access

MindRight Health is a tech start-up that is advancing health equity by making mental health care accessible to and inclusive of communities of color and low-income families. MindRight meets people where they are through culturally responsive mental health coaching over text messages to empower historically marginalized communities to heal from trauma.

Outcomes: 

• Provided 352 underserved youth and young adults with access to mental health care. 

• There were 71% of these underserved youth and young adults who reported experiencing reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression. 

• MindRight was approved as a provider through a Medicaid plan, which was initially a moonshot goal. This will drive rapid deployment across thousands of youth Medicaid recipients. 

• Raised a $2 million seed investment round, which was oversubscribed. 

Addressing: Access to Housing

New Destiny Housing Corporation is a non-profit housing organization with a mission to end the cycle of violence and homelessness for low-income families and victims of domestic violence by quickly connecting families to safe and permanent affordable housing and financial management support services. 

Outcomes: 

• Placed 46 domestic violence survivors and their children into permanent housing—impacting  the lives of approximately 150  people. 

• Of the 150 people impacted, the housing stability rate was 100% after the first year and remained 100% in the second year.

Addressing: Economic Resiliency

The Knowledge House is committed to taking low-income youth and young adults from unemployment and underemployment to financial independence and stability by providing them with free technical training and professional development services that put them on a direct path to employment in the tech sector.

Outcomes: 

• Trained 95 low-income, un/under-employed Bronx residents to launch technology careers. 

• There were 40 graduates (over  18 years old) who were placed in jobs earning an average base salary of $75,000. 

• Funding supported the launch of their satellite teams in Atlanta and Newark as well as additional grants from Snapchat and an investment from the Netflix founder.

Addressing: Reducing the Achievement Gap

Cognitive ToyBox is a woman-led business that proposes a new paradigm for early childhood assessment: a hybrid observation and direct (game-based) assessment platform to assess the skills and knowledge that are important for children’s later success. This combination minimizes the implicit bias from teacher assessment and provides real-time data to match instruction to level of development through a more efficient process.

Goals: 

• Reach 1,600 underserved students with tailored instruction that has the potential to improve long-term educational outcomes. 

• Expand to 4 additional publicly funded early childhood education programs. 

• Generate $1 million in recurring revenue, driving towards profitability.

Addressing: Mental Health, Social Cohesion

Power of Two is a Latina-led nonprofit that was founded in Brownsville, Brooklyn to address the reality that often, children born into poverty are also born into families that have themselves experienced trauma. Power of Two partners with caregivers and children in New York City using responsive parenting as a springboard to address trauma and strengthen social cohesion for families.

Goals: 

• Empower thousands of New York  City families involved with the child welfare system to address toxic stress and build social cohesion that gives children a foundation for success. 

• Expand Power of Two’s evidence-based model to two additional low-income neighborhoods. 

• Reduce depressive symptoms for 75% of caregivers enrolled in the program.

Addressing: Economic Resiliency

Stepful is an immigrant-led technology start-up that is reimagining healthcare vocational training to upskill unemployed and minimum wage workers. Stepful is disrupting the existing healthcare vocational training model by combining a scalable technology with digital content that enables participants to train on their own time, with the goal of creating economic opportunity for individuals with only a high school degree.

Projected Outcomes: 

• Train and place hundreds of un/underemployed New Yorkers into living wage jobs with the potential to lift-up families and stop the cycles of generational poverty. 

• Generate $4.8 million in aggregate income for underserved families in New York City. 

• Launch two additional allied healthcare career modules, catalyzing the path to scale and sustainability, while creating upskilling opportunities for participants.

Addressing: Access to Healthcare

Strong Children Wellness integrates primary care hubs into established community-based mental health and social service organizations in New York City. SCW’s innovative model, coined “reverse integrated care bringing primary care into CBOs that are experts at supporting families with histories of trauma and social risks that lie at the root of health disparities.

Projected Outcomes: 

• Increase engagement in collaborative care for thousands of marginalized children in New York City. 

• Have 85% of patients complete referrals to social services addressing social determinants of health challenges. 

• Build out a care team to open an additional hub site in the South Bronx and diversify its revenue streams for long-term sustainability.