To the Builders,

Your support helped us make bold pivots at the beginning of the pandemic that proved impactful in Q3. If our team’s story in Q2 was making quick adjustments to stay healthy and helpful, then the story of Q3 was carrying that momentum forward and celebrating the impact those changes allowed. 

Thanks to your generosity, there is plenty of good news to share from this past quarter. Here are some of our favorite moments of impact:

Our new monthly giving program provided rent relief for 361 families facing eviction due to COVID-19.

The pandemic paused every international construction project for a few months. We responded by launching the Neighborhood, our monthly giving program, to provide domestic rent relief for local families facing eviction. (Here’s an impact report to see the difference you made possible!)

We’re back to building in Mexico, El Salvador, and Haiti. 

In Q3, we were able to safely resume building all nine communities that were in progress before the pandemic. With the appropriate safety precautions in place, we’re making great strides in these nine communities consisting of 1,129 homes across three countries. That’s nearly 5,000 lives impacted because of you.  

We leveraged tech and data to help us care for our communities during the pandemic.

Beyond building homes, we knew there were other ways we could care for the world in this season. For instance, we leveraged Felix, our data-collection app, to survey every one of our El Salvador communities. This data allowed us to accurately address each family’s needs and work with our local partners to mobilize support quickly. (You can learn how these surveys helped our partners deliver over 123,000 meals to our El Salvador communities here.)

More than 100 students have participated in Founders Lab, our new course for the impact-driven individual.

The pandemic has also proven to us that a young, ambitious generation wants to make a difference now more than ever. This is why we launched Founders Lab, a course and community teaching young students and professionals how to think like a founder. Largely thanks to you, our network is our superpower. Founders Lab allows us to connect our gracious advisors and mentors with impact-driven students across the world. 

Our first cohort of 70 students completed the course in Q3, with many of them saying it was more valuable than any college course they’ve taken. We just kicked off our second cohort, and are thrilled to see Founders Lab grow into a community that equips leaders to build solutions for problems they’re most passionate about solving. 

Our team is growing — in the best ways possible.  

Even internally, our team had much to celebrate in Q3. We lifted our hiring freeze, two team members got married, and Annie, our Director of Brand, became the first New Story mom, welcoming her baby boy, Jack, into the world.

Welcome to the world’s most innovative community.

The quarter closed with a final celebration when Fast Company named us the winner of the “city” category in their 2020 Innovation by Design Awards! The accomplishment recognizes our work of 3D printing homes in Nacajuca, Mexico, but there are many more innovations in this community we’re excited to share with you soon. 

We’re calling this 500-home community Innovation Village, a place built on the pillars of partnership, technology, and human-centered methodology. You can get a sneak peek of Innovation Village here, but we’ll be reaching out shortly with more ways you can be a part of this historical project. (You can get a glimpse of the community by checking out the documentary on Apple TV+.) 

Thank you for helping us build!

This year is full of unknowns. But if there’s one cornerstone our team can build from, it’s your steady support. Thank you for making it possible for our team to stay healthy, grow stronger, and build more impact than we could ever on our own. You’re building homes and hope in a time when the world desperately needs them both. 

HOMEBUILDING BREAKDOWN*

1,029 homes currently under construction

Haiti  

29%

Mexico

 48%

El Salvador  

22%

OPERATING EXPENSES

Payroll

49%

Hardware R&D

2%

Software R&D

24%

Field Ops + Travel

4%

Marketing + Events

1%

G&A

20%

(*Percentage of homebuilding breakdown calculated by the number of homes under construction)