As we studied previous attempts to connect out-of-school education, we saw that strictly for-profit or non-profit organizations failed to capture the synergies between the social and financial aspects of this market opportunity: Non-profits couldn’t raise the vast amounts of funding needed to build the technology, and for-profits couldn’t solicit donations to mitigate the financials barrier preventing over 40% of families from participating.

An innovation in it’s own right, VILLAGE is a Hybrid Social Venture, comprised of a for-profit and a non-profit working in partnership. The technology-building arm of VILLAGE, our for-profit is proudly financed by a majority of women and POC investors, beginning with a $65,000 Angel round from two Black Women investors in Spring of 2021. Since then, its capitalization has continued to be primarily Women-led (most recently raising a $475,000 Pre-seed Round led by a female Venture Capitalist). Serving as the forward-facing, marketing arm of VILLAGE, our 501(c)(3) non-profit is funded at the local level by our customer communities, beginning with a $25,000 grant from Mayo Clinic Health System in Spring of 2021. Because of our hybrid structure, VILLAGE can keep every philanthropic dollar received in the community it was given (vs. funding technology that scales nationally).