A grocery opens in Point Breeze to bring affordable food to supermarket desert

Skagway Brewing Company built an aeroponic farm inside their brewpub to grow fresh lettuce year-round, successfully meeting the restaurant's full weekly demand and capturing brewing CO2 to boost yields.

In California, the state's Healthy Grant Refrigeration Program is enabling corner stores and small markets with means for refrigeration and distribution channels so they can offer fresh food to residents in their communities who otherwise do not have access to it.

The Sewing Machine Project has helped thousands of people who rely on sewing as a livelihood. The organization refurbishes used sewing machines and sends them across the world. For some recipients, access to their own sewing machine can result in economic mobility and an improved quality of life.

A clean tech startup called Forever Ware created reusable, stainless steel containers for restaurants to use instead of single-use takeout containers. So far, four restaurants in Minneapolis are participating in the program, where customers pay a deposit for the container and can return it to any restaurant in the network. Within two months, the containers were used about 1,400 times, which probably cut back on some plastic waste ending up in landfills.

A handful of entrepreneurial individuals in Kansas have found success in starting businesses during the pandemic by leveraging customer needs and pandemic relief funding. Although this business plan isn't "foolproof," in Kansas and nationwide, the number of entrepreneurs who filed applications increased significantly compared to previous periods.

Prime Coalition is financing clean tech startups and climate-focused technologies that often don’t get a lot of funding. These technologies can be expensive to build and don’t generate profits immediately. So far, the public charity has secured $89 million that it has given into 18 energy ventures. “What’s important here is that the climate crisis is such a large-scale problem that we need lots of different types of solutions,” says Sarah Kearney, founder of Prime Coalition, “and so we need to match up right-fit capital to each kind of solution.”

Philanthropies are funding “tough tech” startups that are developing technologies to cut greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change. Since 2014, the nonprofit Prime Coalition has channeled more than $24 million from wealthy donors and foundations to 10 ventures focused on that goal. Not all of their investments, though, have paid off. Yet, some of these initial investments could lead to widespread solutions to the world’s climate crisis.

To make food and cleaning products more accessible to those experiencing economic hardship, the startup Algramo has installed more than 2,500 automated bulk-dispensing systems throughout Chile where people can purchase an item and come back to refill it using the same container. Instead of competing against other consumer good companies, Algramo works with them to help change their packaging practices to reduce their plastic waste. Algramo is scaling the service to New York City and Indonesia to help cash-strapped and eco-friendly shoppers.

Refugee women arriving in Brazil have been able to achieve financial independence through the work of an organization called Women of the Global South, an organization that provides women with the tools and skills to sell textiles. In addition to providing entrepreneurial skills, it also helps refugee women with transportation, classes, sewing machines and even provides cash for emergencies and help getting in touch with family members they have been separated from.

CNote has provided a source of funding for federally certified Community Development Financial Institutions by pooling cash from foundations, bigger banks, philanthropists, and donor-advised funds to counter the lack of available cash flow experienced by CDFIs, which are lenders but not banks. Federal COVID-19 funding set aside $30 billion specifically for CDFIs that overwhelmingly lend to women- and minority-owned businesses, which face persistent racial and gender biases and are unable to successfully tap into lending and grants such as the Paycheck Protection Program through traditional lenders.