ImpactFool Fund in Action: NeighborShare and Five People Ready to Move Forward

A teen mom building a business. A widower getting back on his feet. A single dad of four almost caught up.

The electricity went out at 4 p.m. Loretta had no idea why.

The evacuation alert came at 7:30, and by then it was dark. Her two cats, the ones who had kept her company in that house for years, were hiding somewhere, terrified by the smoke. Loretta would not leave without them. She searched room by room in the dark, calling their names, while the sky outside turned orange.

By the time she got them into the car, she could see flames consuming her neighbors’ houses.

Loretta bought that home in 1985. She drove away from it with the clothes on her back and two terrified cats. That was it. Forty years, gone.

She has an apartment now. Insurance is covering the rent while her claim processes. But Loretta is a retiree on a fixed income, and the apartment is empty. No cookware. No utensils. No sheets. The things that turn four walls into a place where you can actually live.

This is the kind of moment that falls through the cracks. Loretta is not homeless. She is not starving. By most measures, she is fine. But she is starting over from nothing, and she cannot afford a spatula.

The $400 Problem

The Federal Reserve says one in three American families cannot cover a $400 emergency. That number gets cited a lot, but it is easy to gloss over what it actually means.

• 📉 A car repair can cost someone their job.
• 📉 A medical bill can snowball into eviction.
• 📉 A single bad month can undo years of progress.

NeighborShare identifies specific needs of $400 or less through local nonprofits. Since 2021, they have helped more than 15,000 people. NeighborShare is one of the nonprofits supported by the Fool Community Foundation’s ImpactFool Fund. We take a venture philanthropy approach: find early-stage nonprofits that work, and give them the fuel to scale.

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