Statute and five policies — published in full
We publish our founding documents in full, not as extracts.
Why we are a venture builder, not a grant fund
The model explained: why we do not hand out money or run courses, but assemble teams around a specific problem.
The question we get most often is: are you a fund? Do you give grants? No. And that is not a detail of paperwork — it is the main difference in the model.
What does not work
The classic scheme: an organization receives a grant, announces a competition, distributes money to teams, collects reports. The problem is that most applicant teams have neither subject-matter expertise nor access to a client. A year later there is a report and no product.
The second scheme: courses. Recruit a group, teach them, issue a certificate. Six months later the graduate cannot get hired, because employers want experience, and a certificate is not experience.
What we do instead
A venture builder builds the product itself:
- We take a real problem from a municipality, a hospital or an institution.
- We assemble a team around it: subject-matter expert, developers, analyst, mentor.
- We guide it through development. The mentor reviews code and decisions.
- We test it with whoever posed the problem. Not in a lab.
- We deploy it, or spin it off through licensing.
The difference is who carries the risk. In the grant model the risk sits with the team. In ours it sits with us, which is why we cannot afford to take on a problem we will not finish.
Why licensing rather than equity
When a product matures, it spins off into an independent venture. The organisation takes no stake — it licenses the technology at market terms and receives royalties.
The reason is simple: taking equity puts non-profit status in question and creates a conflict between the role of founder and the role of a non-profit. Licensing gives the same returning flow of funds without those risks.
What a participant gets
A veteran or a student gets not a course but a line in their portfolio with the client's name on it. That is what the labour market reads.
And the client gets a solution that stays with them — not with us.
More on the model on the Programs page. If you want a role on a team, apply here.
News
Read next
We opened a survey of veteransʼ needs
We want to hear from the people we build for, before we build.