Stand Together Foundation works with exceptional leaders who are dedicated to transforming themselves, their organizations, and the social sector as a whole. Together, we can create a movement of social entrepreneurs who change the way the country thinks about and approaches the greatest challenges facing our communities — something we believe is essential to breaking barriers that prevent individuals from realizing their potential and living their best life.
The Catalyst Impact Grant Program supports Catalyst organizations that have demonstrated their strong commitment to community-driven solutions and advancing innovative approaches to issues that often act as barriers to empowerment. It equips leaders with new ways of approaching nonprofit measurement, management, and service and provides in-depth coaching to apply those learnings as organization leaders. The full list of Impact Partners is below.
Adaptive Training Foundation (Carrollton, TX)
Adaptive Training Foundation (ATF) provides athletic training and holistic recovery services to help citizens of various abilities and veterans overcome physical, mental, and external barriers to their self-sufficiency. ATF emphasizes whole-person recovery to build up physical abilities while providing space for emotional healing and elevating the potential of all individuals.
Advocates for Community Transformation (Dallas, TX)
Advocates for Community Transformation (Act) empowers men and women in underserved communities to fight crime on their street using the civil justice system — existing laws — to make neighborhood safety a normal reality for all. Act equips those closest to the problem — residents — with tools and support to protect their neighborhoods, pairs them with attorneys, and helps them complement the work of police and the city to create tangible, long-lasting change. Through Act’s work, community social cohesion grows, hope is restored, and residents establish collective efficacy, a willingness to intervene, and informal social control for safer, flourishing communities.
Amplify GR (Grand Rapids, MI)
Using a multigenerational lens, Amplify GR works in defined neighborhoods with residents, community partners, and businesses to preserve and widen pathways that create greater opportunities for neighbors to participate in and benefit from community growth. Amplify GR focuses on advancing economic opportunity and community well-being while ensuring accessibility to mixed-income housing and quality education in the southeast side of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Baltimore Crisis Response, Inc. (Baltimore, MD)
Baltimore Crisis Response, Inc. (BCRI) is a nonprofit comprehensive crisis care center helping individuals overcome mental health and substance use disorders in Baltimore, Maryland. BCRI is committed to individualized treatment that serves the needs of Baltimoreans while fostering community and inspiring hope and compassion for all. By pairing licensed social workers with police officers in a co-responder's model, BCRI is improving safety outcomes for both officers and civilians.
Behind Every Door (Dallas, TX)
Behind Every Door’s community centers transform lives in underserved neighborhoods by utilizing community centers to be present and available, run after-school programming, build relationships, and provide resources with the goal of changing the narratives and experiences of poverty.
Birch Community Services (Portland, OR)
Birch Community Services is a membership-based program that provides individualized financial education, weekly groceries, and nurturing accountability. They help families break the cycles of debt by addressing food insecurity and equipping them with financial education for long-term stability, all while building a community of support and encouragement.
Break a Difference (Baltimore, MD)
Break a Difference is rebuilding a culture of civic engagement by connecting youth with high-impact volunteer opportunities. While volunteerism is declining nationwide, Break a Difference shows young people how helping others shapes communities and offers a clear path to meaning and fulfillment.
Brigid’s Path (Kettering, OH)
Brigid’s Path provides around-the-clock medical care for newborns born drug-exposed and provides love, connection, and nonjudgmental support for parents overcoming substance use disorder. Brigid’s Path welcomes mothers and fathers into its homelike facility so they can bond with their child and become part of the infant’s safekeeping. The organization creates trusting relationships with families and enables them to learn about near- and long-term support, ultimately helping families stay together.
Brilliant Cities (Detroit, MI)
Brilliant Cities establishes neighborhood-based family centers in high-need areas to provide comprehensive, community-driven programming that supports children ages 0-8. Focused on ensuring children are school-ready, healthy, and stable, the organization offers resources and services tailored to the unique needs of each neighborhood. By working closely with families, Brilliant Cities helps create environments that foster long-term success, addressing childhood poverty through coordinated care and support.
Brink Literacy Project (Denver, CO)
Brink Literacy Project uses the power of storytelling to help individuals from underserved communities reclaim their personal narratives, remove barriers to their personal development, and change public perceptions in the process. In a writing industry that runs on selectivity, Brink Literacy Project is expanding access for young writers and new voices, regardless of their background and experiences.
CarePortal (National)
CarePortal connects churches, caseworkers, and community institutions to provide real-time support to families in need. Its innovative software empowers case workers to submit requests on behalf of their clients and activates local volunteers to support and build relationships with families. CarePortal leverages this community involvement as a preventative solution for the nearly 270,000 children in the U.S. entering the foster care system. It offers a holistic, community-driven approach to providing direct support to vulnerable children and families.
Cincinnati Works (Cincinnati, OH)
Cincinnati Works is committed to building a stronger workforce and helping area workers succeed. Cincinnati Works partners with a variety of regional employers to solve a range of workforce needs, filling open positions with quality candidates, retaining employees, supporting second-chance hires, and developing potential leaders. Cincinnati Works assists individuals in strengthening soft skills and building financial acumen to gain valuable career experience.
The COMMIT Foundation (Bozeman, MT)
The COMMIT Foundation seeks to provide high-touch transition support that becomes the standard nationwide so veterans in all communities can access services helping them identify their passions, build strong networks, and leverage their skills in civilian careers. In addition to providing support to veterans, The COMMIT Foundation provides programming for military spouses, recognizing the importance of family to a veteran’s successful transition from military life.
Downtown Boxing Gym (Detroit, MI)
Downtown Boxing Gym is a free academic and athletic program that empowers Detroit students with the tools to uncover their personal strengths and tap into their potential. Downtown Boxing Gym is a fierce advocate for its students, providing tutoring, mentorship, enrichment programs, college and career readiness, meals, transportation, support during college, and so much more, to set students on a path to success.
Elevate USA (National)
Elevate USA harnesses the power of healthy, long-term relationships to help youth develop a sense of stability and self-confidence. While some adults may come in and out of a child’s life, Elevate’s teacher-mentors build trusting relationships with students, helping build character, life skills, and leadership. By providing ongoing support in and out of school, teacher-mentors help students develop their strengths, assets, and relationships and build a strong foundation for future success.
Entrepreneurs Forever (Pittsburgh, PA)
Entrepreneurs Forever organizes small-business owners nationwide into facilitated, peer-to-peer groups operating in communities with unmet needs. Entrepreneurs Forever is filling an important need for entrepreneurs who are isolated, disconnected, and priced out of mainstream peer-to-peer organizations. Through these groups, entrepreneurs build peer relationships, share solutions, and set the stage for long-term success.
Every Mother’s Advocate (Pompano Beach, FL)
Every Mother’s Advocate equips communities to end family separation by advocating for mothers in crisis. Recognizing that most children enter foster care due to preventable causes in their home, Every Mother’s Advocate ensures that at-risk mothers receive the comprehensive support they deserve. By empowering mothers to raise their children in a stable environment, Every Mother’s Advocate effectively reduces the strain on an already overburdened foster care system.
Face it TOGETHER (Sioux Falls, SD)
Face It TOGETHER is bringing a new approach to the addiction crisis by providing personalized, nonjudgmental peer coaching for those impacted by addiction, including loved ones. The group harnesses the power of relationships, technology, and data science to keep people well from addiction and lead productive lives. Coaching sessions are offered in-person or virtually, providing a tailored experience for individual needs.
Families Empowered (Houston, TX)
Families Empowered provides families with the tools to select the right school for their kids and the resources to navigate the school application process. It strives to give families access to the information and knowledge that will help them make educated decisions about which school is right for their individual needs.
Family Promise (Summit, NJ)
Family Promise uses a community-based response to help families that are at risk of or experiencing homelessness achieve sustainable independence. Family Promise mobilizes a national network of volunteers within communities across the country to provide social capital, relational support, and resources to end family homelessness for good.
Festa (Columbus, OH)
Festa removes language barriers that keep new Americans from escaping poverty. By offering three-generation family English as a Second Language program, Festa gives foreign-born families the opportunity to improve their economic mobility while becoming more connected with their neighbors and their community.
First Step Staffing (Atlanta, GA)
First Step Staffing is a nonprofit staffing agency for those experiencing homelessness that provides skills coaching to reduce job turnover and increase retention. Individuals develop confidence, self-reliance, and pride, while local businesses employ dedicated and talented employees.
Found Village (Cincinnati, OH)
Found Village leverages a community of adult volunteers and mentors to help youth in foster care regain the ability to trust others. While traditional mentorship models emphasize one-on-one relationships that can end prematurely and undermine the youth’s ability to trust, Found Village begins with a single mentoring relationship and then extends that trust to a wider network, providing family-like support that acts as a “village” around each youth. Found Village engagement extends into early adulthood, ensuring all youth are connected to a community.
The Frederick Douglass Project for Justice (Washington, D.C.)
The Frederick Douglass Project for Justice runs a multistate prison visitation program that provides opportunities for members of the public to meet and speak to those directly impacted by the U.S. criminal legal system. The program’s conversations are structured to build empathy and grow understanding for all involved in order to drive meaningful personal and systemic changes.
Friends of the Children (Portland, OR)
Friends of the Children knows that a single, meaningful adult relationship can make a tremendous difference in the life of a vulnerable child. It pairs a paid mentor or “Friend” with each child in its program, and that Friend becomes an ingrained and permanent fixture in the child’s life for 12.5 years, providing support and teaching valuable life skills. These pairings start in early childhood, forming a positive, healthy relationship to alter the trajectory of a young life and provide stability and the chance to rise to their full potential.
Give an Hour (National)
Give an Hour connects a network of volunteer mental health professionals with the critical needs of individuals and communities impacted by trauma. By providing pro-bono mental health services, Give an Hour fills the gap for individuals who might otherwise avoid seeking or lack access to care. Its providers are equipped to respond to immediate and long-term mental health challenges, offering essential support to communities facing evolving crises.
Hello Neighbor (Pittsburgh, PA)
Hello Neighbor supports recently resettled refugee and immigrant families by connecting them with local community members who provide housing, food, employment services, and educational support. Focused on long-term solutions, Hello Neighbor helps families build stable lives and integrate into their new communities. In addition to their work in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Hello Neighbor leads a national network of nonprofits, sharing resources and best practices to serve refugees and immigrants across the country.
Hope House Colorado (Arvada, CO)
Hope House Colorado offers wraparound services, including residential, high school GED, and college and career programs, designed to empower teenage moms and help them achieve personal and economic self-sufficiency. Additional supportive services include parenting and healthy relationships classes, an Early Learning Program, health and wellness, financial literacy, personal growth classes, and certified counseling — all designed to prepare moms for long-term independence.
Hustle PHX (Phoenix, AZ)
Hustle PHX helps people in disadvantaged urban communities discover their innate gifts, find purpose, and achieve self-sufficiency through entrepreneurship. Participants receive skills training and business education, gain access to capital, and make connections with knowledgeable mentors who can support them as they launch and grow their businesses. With a focus on social, spiritual, and economic development, faith-based Hustle PHX helps budding business owners create ventures that will fulfill their dreams while also giving back to the community.
Juma (San Francisco, CA)
Juma gives low-income youth the opportunities and connections to get ahead in life through the benefits of paid work, training, and social capital. It provides a range of support, from career tours to job placement, paving a professional path that may not have come a participant's way ordinarily. Youth are exposed to potential job options while developing the accountability, self-sufficiency, and confidence to rise above past circumstances, achieve their dreams, and gain meaningful and fulfilling employment.
JUST Community (Austin, TX)
JUST Community builds resilient communities by making loans to low-income female entrepreneurs based on trust. Its innovative lending process applies best practices in microfinance, leveraging peer groups and coaching to improve repayment and debt management outcomes, rather than traditional measures like credit scores or bank account information. JUST Community envisions a world where women and minority business owners benefit from inclusive community and access to capital, rather than relying on predatory lending products.
Lawndale Christian Legal Center (Chicago, IL)
Lawndale Christian Legal Center offers the only community-based holistic legal practice in the city of Chicago dedicated to the felony criminal defense of juveniles and emerging adults. Its Restorative Justice Community Court resolves felony cases for those ages 18-26 through conferences within the legal community and peace circles with those affected by the crime. Through these connections and a holistic approach, Lawndale reduces the damaging effects of youth criminalization, mass incarceration, violence, and poverty.
Leap to Success (Carlsbad, CA)
Leap to Success empowers women to break the cycles of domestic violence, homelessness, and other challenges by fostering personal growth, resilience, and leadership. Through transformative training, participants gain confidence and practical skills that lead to economic independence and lasting change for themselves, their families, and their communities. Leap to Success also offers specialized programs to support helping professionals in managing burnout and compassion fatigue, enabling them to continue making a positive impact.
Level (National)
Level creates and distributes job training and educational content to people in prison across the country, improving their chances of success after release. Level tailors resources specifically for the needs of people in prison to convert the otherwise wasted years of incarceration into an opportunity for a brighter future.
LifeWorks (Austin, TX)
LifeWorks seeks to eradicate youth homelessness by offering an individualized plan for every young person who walks through its doors. Realizing that those experiencing homelessness have varying needs, its assistance ranges from housing to workforce training to mental health counseling. While the support differs, every person is welcomed into a nurturing community that helps them heal from trauma, provides work and educational opportunities, and guides them onto the path to live a life they love.
Lone Star Justice Alliance (Austin, TX)
Lone Star Justice Alliance (LSJA) is a nonprofit legal organization that improves the lives of youth and emerging adults in the justice system. LSJA uses developmentally appropriate responses to behavior and treats youth and emerging adults with equity and dignity. It promotes resilience, conserves costs, and increases public safety within the criminal justice system and beyond.
National Angels (Austin, TX)
National Angels builds a community of support around children, youth, and families in the foster care community to alleviate burnout and create stability. By providing consistent mentorship, intentional giving, and relationship-building, National Angels addresses the gaps in the foster care system and offers children the stability needed to improve long-term outcomes. Through its nationwide network, National Angels is ensuring better futures for youth and families experiencing foster care.
Our House (Little Rock, AR)
Our House empowers homeless and near-homeless families and individuals to succeed in the workforce, in school, and in life through hard work, wise decision-making, and active participation in the community. For more than 30 years, Our House has provided a pathway out of homelessness for families and individuals by working to help whole families build the skills, resources, and confidence to break the cycle of poverty and achieve their highest goals in life.
Path United (Lawrenceville, GA)
Path United provides a trusted, steady support system for low-income families — primarily first- and second-generation Latino immigrants — living in mobile home developments. Path United staff and volunteers have a consistent presence in the parks’ on-property community centers, teaching, mentoring, and building strong ties with those who often feel excluded from society. In turn, the residents have a go-to resource for any needed assistance, students do better in school, high school graduation rates increase, and a path out of poverty is paved.
PEARLS for Teen Girls (Milwaukee, WI)
PEARLS for Teen Girls supports girls in grades 5-12 in developing key values such as personal responsibility, empathy, and leadership through peer groups and social-emotional learning. Co-facilitated by adult coordinators and junior staff, the program offers a nurturing space for discussions on self-esteem, personal growth, goal setting, and leadership. These sessions empower girls to build confidence, form meaningful relationships, and become leaders capable of overcoming life’s challenges.
Per Scholas (Bronx, NY)
Per Scholas helps those from underserved communities secure stable, well-paying tech industry jobs by working with employers to understand their specific IT needs and offering tuition-free training for adults. As a result of Per Scholas' efforts, partner companies are diversifying their workforce while an often-overlooked community pursues rewarding career pathways and earns a thriving wage.
Positive Tomorrows (Oklahoma City, OK)
Positive Tomorrows is an elementary school specifically for children experiencing homelessness, providing stability and quality education while supporting their families in building a better life. With all students facing similar challenges, the school fosters an environment of understanding and shared experience that traditional public schools cannot. By addressing both educational and social-emotional needs, Positive Tomorrows helps students thrive and break the cycle of poverty.
Prison Yoga Project (Bolinas, CA)
Prison Yoga Project brings trauma-informed yoga practices to thousands of incarcerated people around the country, promoting stress and anger management and mindfulness to reduce the likelihood of reincarceration. Prison Yoga Project’s unique offering addresses unresolved traumas that can contribute to criminal behavior and emphasizes improved mental health and personal rehabilitation for every participant.
Reach University (Oakland, CA)
Reach University is a nonprofit university that creates affordable pathways for high-potential individuals to obtain degrees, credentials, and jobs as working professionals in their own communities. By focusing on low-income and rural regions, offering online tutorials and classes, and rendering academic credit for on-the-job experience, Reach University is building local talent pipelines without the costs that follow a traditional four-year degree.
Rocky Mountain MicroFinance Institute (Denver, CO)
Rocky Mountain MicroFinance Institute empowers creative-minded, motivated individuals with business and entrepreneurship training and education to realize their unique potential. Rocky Mountain MicroFinance Institute focuses on the “whole entrepreneur,” offering free or low-cost support for all phases of entrepreneurship — from ideation to launch to growth. Participants, who come from underserved and underestimated backgrounds, build generational wealth and healthy, resilient communities.
Saprea (Lehi, UT)
Saprea provides healing services to individuals who have experienced childhood sexual abuse through retreats, support groups, and online resources. Saprea also educates and empowers both parents and caregivers to protect children from sexual abuse through community and education, liberating participating individuals from the lasting impacts of child sexual abuse.
SeekHealing (Asheville, NC)
SeekHealing exists to improve social health and address the loneliness epidemic in America. Unlike prevailing mental health and addiction treatment models, which focus on biological and psychological factors, SeekHealing looks at relationships and social divisions to more effectively address the root causes of addiction and suicide.
Serve & Connect (Columbia, SC)
Serve & Connect facilitates sustainable police-community partnerships to improve community safety, resilience, and well-being. Serve & Connect convenes intentional engagements to identify problems and develop collaborative action plans. By involving community and law enforcement in the process, Serve & Connect offers an alternative to divisive discourse and one-size-fits-all solutions that negatively impact citizens and police officers.
Skills for Chicagoland’s Future (Chicago, IL)
Skills for Chicagoland’s Future flips the traditional workforce model on its head, bridging the gap between employers and job-seekers by starting with the job first. The Skills team works deeply within communities to help companies successfully hire people who are unemployed, underemployed, or have nontraditional backgrounds, and remove barriers to meaningful work opportunities for qualified candidates. While Skills sources, vets, and prepares talent to match companies’ specific hiring needs, candidates get coaching and resources that help them to achieve long-term professional success.
Teaching the Autism Community Trades (Englewood, CO)
Teaching the Autism Community Trades (TACT) exists to break the historical patterns of unemployment among individuals with autism spectrum disorder, a group with one of the highest levels of unemployment in the country. Through highly individualized training and employer partnerships, TACT provides opportunities for adults with autism to leverage their unique gifts and work in skilled trades where they can thrive. In the process, TACT is writing a new narrative: that all people are capable of extraordinary things.
The Telos Group (Washington, D.C.)
The Telos Group fosters communities of American peacemakers, equipping them to reconcile conflicts both at home and abroad. Through immersive trips to areas that have historically or are currently experiencing conflict, Telos trains peacemakers to replace violence and division with empathy and understanding. By encouraging participants to see others' struggles as their own, Telos cultivates the skills necessary to repair relationships and spark meaningful action.
Think Tank, Inc. (National)
Challenging top-down approaches to poverty, Think Tank, Inc. works to amplify human stories and empower local change agents. Through poverty simulations and content guided by leaders with lived experience, Think Tank equips groups to rethink poverty and partner with those most affected to create lasting change.
Thread (Baltimore, MD)
Thread harnesses the power of relationships to create a social fabric of diverse individuals deeply engaged with young people facing the most significant opportunity gaps. Thread enrolls high school freshmen from the bottom quartile of their class and matches each young person with up to four volunteers, committing to each young person for 10 years. The Thread community is committed to ending social isolation and building a more equitable culture in which everyone thrives.
Together Chicago (Chicago, IL)
Together Chicago seeks to be a catalyst for lasting transformation in the city of Chicago by convening faith, nonprofit, business, community, and civic leaders to address the root issues of one of the city’s most persistent problems: gun violence. By encouraging local churches to engage in educational volunteerism, workforce development, and community-based justice centers, Together Chicago hopes to reduce violence and foster the renewal of the Windy City.
Treetops Collective (Grand Rapids, MI)
Treetops Collective is building a vibrant cross-cultural community to better welcome refugee women and help them navigate life in a new country. By investing in each woman’s unique strengths and abilities, Treetops Collective is partnering with them to define and achieve their own goals while transforming communities into places of belonging for all.
Urban Youth Alliance (Bronx, NY)
Urban Youth Alliance provides an alternative-to-incarceration program that embraces a community approach, recruiting staffers from the neighborhoods it serves — including formerly incarcerated individuals who exemplify what it's like to overcome obstacles and transform. Many mentors share a common background with youths, create a bond, and provide guidance to participants as they take the steps toward achieving their full potential.
Utah Youth Village (Salt Lake City, UT)
Utah Youth Village helps families resolve their own problems and navigate challenging life circumstances. Traditional child welfare services prioritize downstream services for families that are already separated. Utah Youth Village is prioritizing therapeutic support, mentoring, guidance, and parenting resources to keep families from being separated in the first place and break cycles of trauma before they begin.
Women’s Bean Project (Denver, CO)
Women’s Bean Project empowers chronically unemployed women by providing transitional employment in its social enterprise, where participants gain skills in areas such as manufacturing, customer service, and data entry. Through this work, women not only earn a living but also build self-confidence and discover their purpose. By producing high-quality products, Women's Bean Project participants transform their lives and create lasting change for themselves and their families.