Five innovations were selected for the 2022 Reconstruct Challenge.The national prize competition, hosted by Render in collaboration with Access Ventures and the UofL Health Equity Innovation Hub, is focusing on eliminating barriers to employment in the Louisville region in its second iteration. A total of $750,000 will be awarded through the challenge.

Bryce Butler, managing partner of Access Ventures, is pictured at the Reconstruct Challenge pitch event on Thursday at West Sixth NuLu.
- Honest Jobs: (Denver, Colorado) Honest Jobs is the nation’s leading fair-chance employment platform, helping people with criminal records find better jobs faster.
- Leap Fund: (Brooklyn, New York) Leap Fund has built benefits cliff coaching program, which includes predicting individualized cliffs, and employers tools, to better understand the scope of a problem, and actually help employees avoid benefits cliffs altogether.
- Dollar For: (Vancouver, Washington) Dollar For eliminates medical debt by advocating for patients and enforcing hospital charity care policies.
- finEQUITY: (Brooklyn, New York) finEQUITY advances the financial futures of those impacted by long-term incarceration. It offers no-cost financial tools, such as credit building opportunities, to justice-impacted community members in order to ease access to employment, affordable housing, utilities, phone plans and more.
- FMS: (Louisville) Facilities Management Services employs 600 custodians in Metro Louisville. The biggest challenge applicants face to work at FMS is lack of accessible, affordable transportation. Working Your Way to Wheels is a multi-stakeholder strategy that aims to assist custodial workers with owning and maintaining their own vehicle.
About Render: Render is an innovation studio that envisions a world where opportunities outweigh obstacles. We partner with organizations to unlock new ideas to solve their most challenging problems. As a public benefit corporation, we default to impact while working towards human-centered solutions. We work together, for good. Learn more at workwithrender.com
About Access Ventures: Access Ventures, a Louisville, KY-based private operating foundation, is working to build a more inclusive and creative economy - an economy that functions for all people and that in which all people have the financial freedom and mobility to pursue every opportunity they desire. Recognized as a leading voice in values and mission-aligned investing, Access Ventures offers a one-pocket approach that invites entrepreneurs, creators, investors, and philanthropy to share in an active and vibrant vision for their communities. Learn more at accessventures.org.