Jumpstart is a Benefit Corporation with the mission to build financial resilience.  Our specific social impact goal is to multiply the amount of economic stimulus flowing into a region – 10x more money – after a big disaster.

This post, describing Jumpstart’s social impact, is an addendum to Jumpstart’s Company Overview.

Building resilience is like a puzzle where each individual piece is still being formed. There are many pieces to the resilience puzzle – safe buildings, good governance, social connectedness. But perhaps the biggest missing piece is post-disaster finances.

Money – sometimes even small amounts – can make a huge difference in post-disaster resilience for individuals.  It can tip the balance between being able to stay in the area to tough it out and help neighbors rebuild, or move away and re-start life from scratch.

And when individuals can begin to recover, it jump-starts recovery – and builds financial resilience – for entire communities.

In the words of Kate Stillwell, CEO: “As a structural engineer, I worked to make the world a safer place in earthquakes.  But at the time of Hurricane Katrina, I experienced a professional crisis – there are much bigger problems.  In the next big earthquake, my hometown of Oakland could be the next New Orleans.  If people move away, the fabric of the city will change forever.”

Jumpstart has huge potential to be a force of change to create community resilience.  We conducted an internal study on the opportunity for social impact, just for earthquakes. If only 1 out of 10 people buys Jumpstart, it will multiply economic stimulus 50x after a moderate quake like the 2014 M6.0 in Napa, and by 3x – $7 billion dollars – in a plausible Big One (Magnitude 6.8 on the Hayward Fault.)

If you want to work for – or work with – a company with a social mission, please contact us on the form below and tell us about yourself!