We are delighted to introduce and welcome One Degree to the SV2 community! As winner of the Tech Nonprofits Lightning Grant Round, One Degree will receive a one-year general operating support grant of $30,000. The Tech Nonprofits Lightning Grant Round focused on organizations who use technology as the delivery structure to solve a variety of social challenges. The social challenges represented a broad spectrum, including language barriers preventing low-income parents from engaging in their children’s education, lack of access to social services, and underreporting of sexual assault. Partners were deeply impressed by the passion and savvy of these organizations’ leaders, and their creative use of technology to address entrenched social issues.
One Degree is a technology-driven nonprofit organization that helps low-income families access the resources they need to achieve social and economic mobility and, ultimately, improve their lives. Their platform has become the go-to tool for people seeing help – and the people who support them, such as case managers and social workers – throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County.
The organization currently operates two major products: One Degree and One Home. Thousands of people in the Bay Area rely on One Degree’s core platform to access health care, food banks, employment services, and much more. Through One Home, the organization works to ensure every family has a safe and stable home by making it easy to find and apply for affordable housing.
Rey Faustino, One Degree’s founder and CEO, was inspired to start the organization through his experience growing up in a working class Filipino immigrant family in Los Angeles. While his parents worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, like many new immigrants, his family still faced the challenges of meeting their basic needs, such as health care, educational programs, and immigration services. Knowing where to go for help was simply too hard. Rey founded One Degree to ensure everyone has access to the critical, life-saving resources he and his family needed.
We are inspired by the ways in which One Degree is helping thousands of people access the services they need to create opportunity in their lives. We are excited to work with and learn from our newest Grantee!
To learn more, please visit One Degree’s website and stay tuned for future updates about One Degree’s work.