Hearthline
A free crisis text line for new parents, now answering 4,000 conversations a month.
Applications open for Summer 2026
A hacker house for people building nonprofits that matter.
Foundational runs a 10-week Summer Founders Program in Berkeley. Twelve founders, one house, a small grant, and the time to build something real.
Applications close March 15. Cohort runs June 8 to August 14.
10
Weeks under one roof
$25k
Unrestricted grant per founder
12
Founders per cohort
100%
Mission-driven, no equity taken
The best founders aren't only chasing markets. Some are chasing people who get left behind.
For two decades, accelerators have been very good at producing startups and very bad at producing institutions. Most of the world's hardest problems don't have a venture-shaped solution. They have a long, careful, human-shaped one.
Foundational exists for the founders working on those. We treat nonprofit building with the same seriousness, rigor, and speed that the best startup programs treat company building.
No equity. No board seats. Just a house, a grant, and a cohort of people who will push you to ship.
What you get
Live together, build together
A shared house in Berkeley where dinner debates turn into prototypes by morning. Bedrooms, a working kitchen, and a basement that doubles as a war room.
Ship in public
Weekly demo nights with operators, funders, and other founders. We care about real users helped, not slide decks.
Money without strings
Each founder gets an unrestricted $25k grant. Spend it on rent, servers, travel, or a printer that finally works.
A network that stays
Alumni keep showing up: office hours, intros, late-night debugging. Foundational is a house you join, not a program you graduate from.
From past cohorts
More about usOpen Atlas
Open-source mapping for community health workers in rural Kenya and Peru.
Counterpoint
Helping public defenders search case files in seconds instead of weeks.
Build something worth building.
Applications for Summer 2026 are open. It takes about 30 minutes and we read every one.