We came to this dual approach across the past decade as we learned from our experiences, and made choices about how to build New Profit, fulfill our mission, and realize our vision.



We believe that the portfolio organizations we support are demonstrations, or “proof,” of what is possible—that despite seemingly intractable social problems, solutions exist and results can happen without waiting for surrounding conditions and systems to change. The organizations in our portfolio are directly tackling social problems in education, workforce development, public health, and other areas. Many of them are also actively seeking to change the systems in which they operate and thus create widespread impact that will fundamentally transform policy, markets, funding streams, etc.

What’s true for the organizations in our portfolio is also true for New Profit. The impact that any single organization can have on education, public health, or poverty—while real and meaningful—is nevertheless limited. It will never be enough to fix our broken systems, solve our problems, and fundamentally transform our society.

For this reason, just like many of our portfolio organizations, we balance our direct efforts to help scale innovative nonprofit organizations with efforts to engage the policy and market forces that have the potential to dramatically increase the impact of all social entrepreneurs—both within and beyond our portfolio.

The Action Tank, a group within New Profit, works beyond the bounds of individual organizations to help realign all of our institutions—including government, philanthropy, and nonprofits—around driving impact and more effectively allocating resources for problem solving. The Action Tank seeks to improve the environment in which all social innovators operate, helping them to realize significantly greater impact on the tough, systemic problems they aspire to solve.