It’s been a good week for these GoodCompany Ventures alums

GoodCompany Ventures has accelerated a lot of social enterprises, from companies that reduce recidivism and aid re-entry to products that increase government engagement and use social media data to prevent crime. It would be really interesting to see how much and what kind of impact the social enterprise accelerator has helped produce.
It can be easy to forget that not all of that impact has been here in Philadelphia. In fact, a good number of the social enterprises that have come through GoodCompany’s FastFWD accelerator, a partnership with the City of Philadelphia and Wharton Social Impact Initiative, have been scaled to Philadelphia from out of town — if only temporarily.
This past week has served as a good reminder of the influence GoodCompany has had on social enterprise development on a larger scale.
First, The Guardian took a look at social enterprises making the internet accessible in prisons — including Evodo (formerly Jail Education Solutions), a GoodCompany alum that produces tablets with educational content for inmates.
“If you want prisoners to succeed, go straight, and get a job when they get out it doesn’t make sense to cut them off from an increasingly essential part of the world,” said David Fathi, director of the ACLU National Prison Project, in the report.
Online behind bars: if internet access is a human right, should prisoners have it? Alum @edovotweets answers that Q https://t.co/9jk6EnjZnL
— GoodCompany Ventures (@GoodCoGroup) October 4, 2016
GoodCompany also tweeted two neat updates about alum Thread, which cuts plastic waste by turning bottles into fabric. The company has forged a few new corporate partnerships with big brands Timberland and Hewlett-Packard to help provide vital services in Haiti, devastated by Hurricane Matthew, and another with Kenneth Cole in support of civic engagement campaign Rock the Vote.
Congratulations! Alum @ThreadIntl partners w @Timberland, @HP to provide dignified jobs, education in Haiti #socent https://t.co/3Ft7CdkSgA
— GoodCompany Ventures (@GoodCoGroup) October 4, 2016
Another congrats is in order! GCV alum @ThreadIntl partners w @kennethcole to support @RockTheVote #socent https://t.co/VL1Cs6kMoF
— GoodCompany Ventures (@GoodCoGroup) October 5, 2016
The accelerator has touched companies and organizations making a lot of impact in a lot of different issue areas. We’re still anticipating GoodCompany’s forthcoming program Climate Ventures 2.0, which will follow the FastFWD model with a concentration on social entrepreneurs using climate data.
CV2 has been held up by a widening circle of partners, but according to GoodCompany’s most recent newsletter, it seems as if the group is closer to launch.
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