Five years ago, Brett Hagler was the “last guy anyone thought would start a nonprofit”. After having the desire to add more meaning and purpose to his life, Brett rediscovered his Christian faith. This led to his 2013 mission trip to Haiti with Mission of Hope. There he saw firsthand the impact made by the 2010 7.0 magnitude earthquake. This experience left an everlasting impression on him — he knew that more needed to be done to help.
After researching organizations and not finding any that resonated with him, he took matters into his own hands. He joined forces with co-founders, Alexandria Lafci and Matthew Marshall, and in 2014 New Story Charity was born.
Changing lives and communities one story at a time
New Story’s main objective is to build sustainable communities in impoverished areas. Similar to the design of platforms like GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo, New Story features families in need as a part of a campaign to raise funds towards the building cost of a home. Each home costs $6500 and once it’s fully funded, workers begin construction over the course of 45 days. Throughout the process, donors receive updates of the progress that’s being made as well as a video of the family on move-in day.
Since their launch, New Story has built over 2000 homes in 16 communities around the world, including Haiti, El Salvador, Mexico, and Bolivia. They’ve raised over $20 million in funding and continue to transform the way they address global homelessness. In 2017, they began working with Icon, a construction tech company, to build the world’s first 3D home printer, called The Vulcan, which was unveiled at SXSW this year. For $4000, it can build a 600 to 800 square foot home in just 12 to 24 hours. As their methods change, the mission remains the same: To help as many families as possible.
Scaling and growing with Acuity
For the past 6 months, Acuity has had the pleasure of working with New Story to provide them with bookkeeping, accounting, and most recently, CFO services. After meeting Brett while serving on the advisory board for another company, our CEO, Kenji Kuramoto, was impressed by New Story’s innovative approach to solving global homelessness and knew he had to get involved in some capacity. We applaud companies that are making a real impact in the world and if we can provide them with free accounting services, they have more resources to make an even bigger impact.
“Acuity has gone above and beyond already high expectations. Not only is their work done with a pursuit of excellence, but the people on their team are a joy to work with. As we’re scaling fast, Acuity has been a key strategic partner for us in 2018.”
-Brett Hagler, New Story CEO & Co-Founder
“Whenever I have a question or need advice I know our Acuity contacts are going to be friendly, responsive and knowledgeable. To say that we’re happy with Acuity would be an understatement.”
-Matthew Marshall, New Story Co-Founder
In October Kenji had the opportunity to attend New Story Night, a charity gala for New Story, where they surpassed their fundraising goal of $1,000,000 and ended the night with a total of $1.5m in funds pledged. This donation will allow them to build an entire community in Mexico. The nonprofit has made amazing strides and we’re happy to help them along the way as they transform lives, communities, and charitable giving.
Kenji Kuramoto and his wife, Rachelle, at New Story’s 2018 Gala
New Story is a Y Combinator alum, was named one of Fast Company’s 2017 Most Innovative Companies in the World and developed the world’s first-ever 3D home printer. To learn more about their efforts and how you can help, please visit here.
