YC started accepting nonprofits a few years back. Every Demo Day, these teams are consistently among the most impressive startups presenting. In Aug 2015 I interviewed New Story to learn more about what they got from the YC experience. Earlier today, their CEO Brett Hagler shot me an update which I wanted to share.

Accomplished since Y Combinator S15

We finished Y Combinator in September 2015 at a total of 116 homes, and today we have a total of 610 homes funded. Each home is still about $6,000. What’s next is a focus on building sustainable communities, not just homes. You can think of it like a community platform – New Story supplies the land and homes – then we curate partnerships (school, income opportunities, better health, etc.) for other components of a community. Right now, we are crowdfunding a community in the area of Haiti hit worst by Hurricane Matthew. All of our 211 homes built in Haiti withstood Hurricane Matthew.

Different Now

Last year we raised our “seed” round of funding for operations – a total of $750,000 to last us through 2016 and a little of 2017. We are now raising our “A Round” of operational funding with a goal of $2M ($1.7M committed to date) to last us through 2018. The funding will be primarily used to grow our team with top talent (developers, marketers, ops, growth, video, head of content). This funding comes from a private group of donors (mostly venture capitalists and tech executives from the valley) known as The Builders.

Help Haiti After Hurricane Matthew

Hurricane Matthew destroyed 4,000+ homes in Haiti, and we are on a mission to rebuild the area hit worst by the hurricane. We have a goal of $1M to build 180 – 200 homes. You can start a personal crowdfunding campaign, or your company can start a team crowdfunding campaign here: https://impact.newstorycharity.org/collections/relief-for-haiti

151 Homes built in Haiti