The DRK + NLV Navigation Technology Initiative
Funding tech-driven and AI-native organizations helping low-income Americans navigate economic challenges and opportunities.
Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK), in partnership with Next Ladder Ventures (NLV), launched a new initiative to back early-stage, impact-first organizations using technology and AI to help low-income Americans navigate economic opportunities and challenges.
Tens of millions of low-income Americans qualify for benefits they never receive, sit on housing waitlists that never move, and navigate health systems that were not built for them. Fragmented systems, paper workflows, and overworked navigators combine to leave the people who most need support locked out of programs designed to serve them.
AI and modern software create new opportunities to make complex systems and markets easier to navigate for frontline workers – including case managers, legal aid attorneys, career counselors, or community health workers – and the people they serve.
To help expand the reach of these solutions, DRK is providing catalytic capital and hands-on support to early-stage companies and nonprofits creating new pathways for economic mobility.
Our Focus Areas
We are looking for early-stage organizations using software, AI, and data to help low-income Americans navigate the systems that shape economic mobility. We are especially interested in:
- Housing access. Tools that help low-income renters secure and keep stable housing, expand the capacity of frontline housing counselors and case managers, or improve access to housing options for people who are homeless or otherwise locked out.
- Benefits access. Tools that help eligible people enroll in, retain, and use public benefits, or that reduce the government, payer, or provider-side bottlenecks that keep benefits from reaching them.
- Health access. Tools that connect low-income and rural Americans to care and coverage, or that help underserved providers, payers, and community-based workers serve more people effectively.
- Workforce mobility. Tools that help low-income workers access training, credentials, better jobs, or career supports, or that help workforce providers improve placement, retention, and earnings outcomes.
- Financial stability. Tools that help people navigate financial shocks, access income supports and tax credits, manage benefits cliffs, reduce high-cost debt, or make better decisions in moments of economic stress.
Examples might include eviction prevention tools, AI-assisted benefits enrollment, Medicaid renewal support, workforce navigation platforms, medical financial navigation, or software for community health workers and other frontline navigators.
Who Should Apply
DRK invests in both for-profits and 501(c)(3)s with a scalable intervention and a financially sustainable model.
Stage. Most awardees will be post-revenue with a working product, with between $600K and $3M in annualized revenue or committed funding, with evidence of demand from at least one paying or contracted customer. Solutions should have a credible path to sustained revenue or earned income, and ambition to reach hundreds of thousands or millions of people over the next decade.
Geography. US-based organizations serving US populations. We will weight applications by where the access gap is largest, not just where infrastructure is easiest.
Founder fit. We prioritize founder fit to the population being served. Lived experience, prior frontline work, or sustained relationships with users or beneficiaries all count.
Awards
- $300,000 in capital, structured as an equity investment in for-profit companies or a grant to nonprofit organizations
- Up to $500,000 in in-kind support, including a dedicated senior DRK staff member in a board service role and hands-on DRK staff support across board development, follow-on fundraising, financial modeling, and product strategy
- Access to a global community of social impact entrepreneurs in the DRK portfolio, including annual in-person convenings
- Access to NLV’s network of operators, co-investors, and policy partners working on economic mobility and the social safety net
After three years, NLV considers follow-on at Series A and DRK supports portfolio organizations through subsequent rounds where appropriate.
Process and Criteria
This call for applications is part of our existing funding strategy, which means that applicants will be subject to our standard DRK review process. The submission period is open-ended. We expect to select a small number of organizations on a rolling basis.
Diligence runs 1-4 months. We work alongside you on the open questions in your business: organizational maturity, go-to-market, unit economics, and scaling plan. Not every eligible applicant who moves past the initial submission stage will complete the diligence process. In those situations, we aim to provide direct feedback on our rationale, regardless of where we land.
Applications will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
- Alignment. Alignment with the stated RFP priorities and with DRK’s mission.
- Problem. Clear understanding of the problem being solved, demonstrated through one or more of the following: lived experience, learning from the attempts of others, and a focus on shifting or influencing the behavior of key stakeholders to drive broader change in the market.
- Solution. Direct support of low-income Americans, with a tech-based product or service that is innovative and differentiated within the broader landscape.
- Impact. Potential for high impact, including evidence of improved outcomes for beneficiary populations from the applicant’s existing work.
- Financial. Financial sustainability, including current financial health and demonstrated potential for sustained growth in earned income (for nonprofits) or revenue (for for-profits) over time.
- Scalability. A credible path to reaching hundreds of thousands or millions of people in five to ten years with a limited increase in resourcing.
- Leadership. Founder proximate to the problem being solved, plus team and board readiness to execute. We prioritize lived experience, prior frontline work, or sustained relationships with the population highly.
The online application should take about 30-60 minutes to complete and include a written executive summary, pitch deck, or business plan document addressing the following topics. Please feel free to reuse or repurpose existing materials if you feel that they would provide relevant information.
For questions about DRK’s navigational technology call for applications, please contact sourcing@drkfoundation.org.
For all media-related inquiries, please contact Kathryn Shehade via comms@drkfoundation.org.
