Innovation & Entrepreneurship. For Good.
The Impact Factory is an engine for social innovation, entrepreneurship, and community service at The University of Texas at Austin. As a cross-sector collaboration, we aim to measurably improve the health and economic opportunity of vulnerable populations in the United States.
CORE OPERATIONS
• Prototyping: Leveraging business tools to design, launch, study and scale companies for public good
• Acceleration: Connecting promising ventures with the networks, funding and mentorship they need to scale up
• Teaching: Building a talent pipeline for social impact via experiential learning programs, workshops, and formal courses on design, impact evaluation, community engagement, public-private partnerships, entrepreneurship, and more
• Research: Equipping leaders with cutting-edge data by strategically disseminating discoveries and best practices to academic, policy and other professional and lay audiences
RECENT WINS & ENDEAVORS
Prototyping
Early Bird is the first scholarship fund for low-income families that is fully integrated into a health system. Since its launch, Early Bird has served 260 mothers and children and provided nearly $30,000 in college savings. Stay tuned for the results of our randomized controlled trial of Early Bird’s impact on health and education outcomes.
Main Street Relief, a national nonprofit and 200-person public service corps, helps small businesses in 43 states survive economic crises. It offers one-on-one coaching on financial management, sales, strategic planning, operations, marketing, technology and more. Main Street Relief is merging with a larger nonprofit to focus on serving women- and minority-owned businesses.
Good Apple, a grocery-delivery company fighting hunger, made 60,000+ deliveries, including 33,000+ free of charge to food-insecure neighbors, and employed 65 people over three years. During COVID-19, Good Apple’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” program delivered nearly 1 million pounds of healthy food to 26,000+ older adults with chronic disease, saving lives and health care dollars while employing dozens of drivers who had lost their jobs. Good Apple was acquired by Farmhouse Delivery in May 2022.
FollowUp Health, the newest business in The Impact Factory’s prototyping portfolio, helps health care providers deliver relevant, immersive multimedia content to patients about their diagnosis, treatment and discharge plans. The information, presented in multiple languages, aims to improve patients’ experiences and health outcomes.
Big & Mini, a nonprofit that e-matches seniors with teens to combat loneliness and mental illness, serves 7,000+ people in all 50 U.S. states and 65 countries. Previously featured by NBC’s Today, The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, Big & Mini recently partnered with Sesame Street alumni to pilot a three-generation program that serves seniors, teens and toddlers.
Breaktime is ending young adult homelessness via job training and transitional employment. In 2022, Breaktime partnered with 126 young adults who worked nearly 42,000 hours.
Miracle Messages is ending relational poverty on the streets. The nonprofit’s family-reunification services and phone-buddy system have strengthened social supports for 780+ people experiencing homelessness. The Impact Factory launched a Miracle Messages chapter in Central Texas and oversees dozens of UT Austin students who have served 500+ unhoused people and reunited 13 people with long-lost loved ones.
Dollar For is a national nonprofit that has eliminated over $27 million of medical debt. The Impact Factory scaled Dollar For to Greater Austin, where dozens of UT Austin students have served 540+ people and crushed $360,000+ in medical bills.
Little Red Box Grocery is democratizing access to good food. The business offers healthy food and pantry staples, located conveniently and priced affordably. The Impact Factory helped LRB Grocery scale to an underresourced Houston neighborhood, where it served 15,000+ families in 2022.
“Impact Corps expanded my horizons of what’s possible. From the training in human-centered design and the access to invaluable mentorship to the opportunities to collaborate with crosssector students and community partners, I am more confident in my ability to have measurable social impact than ever before.”
Accelerator
– Shaheer Khan, Alumnus, UT Austin
Teaching
Distinction in Social Entrepreneurship: Third-year students at Dell Medical School devote one year, full time, to starting a new social impact program alongside The Impact Factory. In 2022, two students co-founded a physicianconsultation company that serves LGBTQ+ patients, one helped scale Dollar For to Greater Austin, and one built an advocacy platform yielding free bus passes for all unhoused Austinites.
Entrepreneurship for Social Impact is an annual, semester-long course on human-centered design, community engagement, and entrepreneurship for graduate students of any discipline. The course concludes with student teams pitching new ventures to potential funders in a “Shark Tank for Social Impact.” Recent businesses from the course are improving transportation insecurity, reproductive wellness, energy inefficiency, and more. In 2022, a class-wide fundraiser gifted $15,000+ to help low-income families pay for funerals after they had lost a child.
Impact Corps deploys undergraduate or graduate students — equipped with training in human-centered design and social entrepreneurship — alongside 24 local-partner nonprofits, health clinics, and other service agencies. While addressing a specific real-world challenge, the students gain hands-on experience building, launching and scaling socialimpact projects.
The Impact Factory launched two student-led organizations in 2022:
• Longhorns for Harm Reduction advocates for people struggling with addiction, educates the UT Austin community on substance use disorders, and serves local organizations that aim to reduce overdoses in Central Texas. The club’s 20+ members are supporting statewide advocacy efforts to end overdoses in Texas.
• Swipe Out Hunger is tackling hunger at UT Austin, where 1 in 3 students reports lack of access to affordable, nutritious food. Student-innovators aim to redistribute unused meal plans, bolster relationships between local nonprofits and UT Austin’s food bank, and activate transportation offerings to and from off-campus food pantries.
“Our student team was excellent! We couldn’t have asked for more. We’ve been looking to set up a network of student organizations across the country, and those at The Impact Factory are the best we’ve found. The insights from our experience with UT Austin are sure to inform our strategies and get the ball rolling in Ohio and beyond.”
– Pranav Padmanabhan, Impact Corps clientResearch
The Impact Factory aims to disseminate cutting-edge data and best practices to inform public policy and empower others who hope to replicate our business models. Since 2020, we’ve published 38 peer-reviewed articles and given 63 presentations on social innovation and other topics relevant to the health of vulnerable people.
JOIN US
Are you a trailblazer excited by big, cross-sector ideas that challenge the status quo? The Impact Factory’s portfolio programs offer opportunities for investing, teaching, research, volunteering on the front lines, and other strategic partnerships.
Contact our team: TheImpactFactory@austin.utexas.edu
