Atlanta: Points Of Light, Starbucks & Village Capital Announce Social Startup Accelerator

Social accelerator, Atlanta accelerator, Points of Light, Starbucks foundation, startup,startupsPoints of light, the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service along with Village Capital have teamed up to launch a social entrepreneurship focused startup accelerator in Atlanta.

10 social startup teams have been selected and are coming together this week in Atlanta for an intense 12 week accelerator bootcamp. The 12 startups will receive access to mentoring, education, peer support and networking. Along with that each team has received a $10,000 seed investment. At the end of the session, the 10 startups will choose two startups from their peer group to receive additional $50,000 investments to help bring their startups to life.

The 10 startups kicking off the accelerator’s first class are:

  • AltruHelp (Boston) is building a software solution and online community to increase volunteerism and millennial civic engagement.
  • Bould (Denver) connects students with the real-world experience necessary for green careers.
  • CareerVillage (Boston) helps working professionals provide career information and advice directly to students.
  • Generation Citizen (New York) empowers young people to become engaged and effective citizens.
  • GivKwik (San Francisco) is a social, mobile and web platform that inspires impulse philanthropy.
  • HopeMob (New York) unites strangers to rally behind people with pressing needs.
  • Moneythink (Chicago) makes financial literacy relevant and fun for urban 11th and 12th graders.
  • MyMaryland (Silver Spring, Md.) is democracy’s first 24/7 online town hall.
  • Smallknot (New York) is a community crowd-funding platform for small business.
  • UBELONG (Washington, D.C.) provides high-impact, affordable international volunteering opportunities.
PwC Charitable Foundation and the Starbucks Foundation are also supporting the socially driven accelerator.

“Supporting productive and disruptive innovators in the research and design of sustainable, scalable programs that drive charitable endeavors is an important part of our giving philosophy,” said Chris Simmons, president, PwC Charitable Foundation, Inc. “We congratulate the 10 start-ups selected for the accelerator and look forward to seeing their individual plans to catalyze social change through innovation in the areas of education and humanitarianism.”

“At Starbucks, we believe strongly in the power of the entrepreneur and the opportunity for businesses to be the catalyst for change in their communities,” said Adam Brotman, chief digital officer, Starbucks. “We are honored to support this program and look forward the success of these ventures.”

“Entrepreneurs are bringing new thinking and innovative business models to the critical work of helping others,” said Ayesha Khanna, president of Points of Light’s Civic Incubator. “We are pleased to help these 10 promising teams successfully launch civic ventures to drive social good in communities across the country.”

“Over the next three months, these enterprises will get the best support and the toughest criticism they’ve ever received from their peers,” said Ross Baird, executive director of Village Capital. “We’ll focus on everything from customer validation to board-building to fundraising to financials, and we expect that the collaboration of these amazingly talented people will be a force multiplier for their success.”

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Several Atlanta startups will be here, will you?

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