The Audacity Factory Incubator for Social Innovation Launches

RALEIGH, N.C., May 7, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Audacity Factory and its partner, the Institute for Nonprofits, officially launch the incubator for social innovation at its headquarters on North Carolina State University's campus.  The announcement was made today by Audacity Factory Founder Joe Schmidt and Institute for Nonprofits' Executive Director, Dr. Richard Clerkin.

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The Audacity Factory incubator and accelerator will be a physical space for intentional "creative collisions" to encourage cross-discipline exposure and research for social innovation.  The program will house organizations with audacious plans to do social good. Over the course of eight months, organizations will receive customized mentoring to aid in growing and scaling their impact. 

Applications open today (audacityfactory.com/application) for the first class, commencing in August 2015 and will include 5 – 7 innovators accepted into the program. These innovators will work at the "factory" alongside a Brain Trust (world-class mentors) to hone their approach to whatever social problem they are trying to resolve.  

The Brain Trust is comprised of mentors in a variety of fields spanning the nonprofit and business worlds, including Amanda Mancuso, Chief of Staff at Scynexis Inc.; Mark Fetner, Director of Strategic Accounts at Workday; Leif Coorlim, Executive Editor of CNN International; Edrice Simmons, Senior Marketing Director at AbbVie; Oie Osterkamp, Executive Director of the Ronald McDonald House in Durham; Natalie Tysdal, President of Everwise Entertainment; Gregory Ng, Chief Marketing Officer at Brooks Bell; Durk Price, CEO of Eaccountable; Ty Simpson; Co-Founder of Monetyze; Lee Davis, VP of Marketing at Johnson & Johnson, to name a few. Each organization will be paired with mentors and will commit to development sessions on a regular basis.   

"It is truly a privilege to launch this innovative program with our partner, Institute for Nonprofits, as well as with the visionary leaders in our brain trust, nonprofits, students and entrepreneurs who all have a goal to do social good," said Schmidt.  "Our efforts will be focused on underserved domestic and global issues with a focus on getting the attention, resources, and expertise needed to create audacious solutions."

"We are thrilled to collaborate with all of the brilliant and inventive minds who will be pioneering social change through the Audacity Factory incubator," explains Dr. Clerkin.  "We look forward to offering students the opportunity to experience operations of nonprofits creating social change."

ABOUT AUDACITY FACTORY:
Audacity Factory is an incubator and accelerator for social impact ventures that develops and drives initiatives to bring attention to underpublicized, underfunded – yet critical – issues. Its mission is to positively impact the lives of 10 million people over the next ten years.

Audacity Factory's first venture is ENDcrowd.com, a nonprofit crowdfunding platform that raises funds and awareness to combat modern day slavery.  To date, it has raised nearly $100,000 for organizations fighting slavery around the world.  More than a dozen projects are underway due to the efforts of the ENDcrowd community.

ABOUT INSTITUTE FOR NONPROFITS:
The Institute for Nonprofits is a multidisciplinary center devoted to strengthening the capacity of nonprofit organizations and nonprofit leadership through research, education and engagement.  We focus on North Carolina and beyond as a laboratory for research. We are a center of expertise, a host of a collaborative community of scholars and practitioners, and a convener and connector for the sharing of campus and community resources to facilitate research-informed policies and practices.

For more information, please visit:
Michelle Orsi
Three.Sixty Marketing & Communications
Email
310.418.6430

SOURCE Audacity Factory

Related Links

http://www.audacityfactory.com