Our vision

We see a world where everyone has economic and social well-being.

We envision a new safety net that promotes economic equity and racial inclusion and holds itself accountable for ensuring dignity, respect, and fairness.

About One Degree

One Degree brings life-changing social services within reach for the millions of low-income people seeking help everyday. Through easy-to-use technology and deep community partnership, we remove the formidable barriers that prevent people from getting everything from housing to healthcare and beyond. Unlike most tech companies targeting the safety net, we are a non-profit startup led by people who have both used and worked in social services. Building on our decades-long track record of change, we are committed to not only making services simpler to find, but reshaping the industry to be more equitable and dignified for the people who need it most. Because we believe that poverty is hard, but getting the right kind of help shouldn’t be.

A broken social safety net

Nationwide, people trying to build a path out of poverty are met with a fragmented social services landscape that is time consuming and difficult to navigate. At the same time, frontline nonprofit, healthcare, and government workers struggle to connect their clients with the right support. This complex problem—long untouched by innovation—contributes to devastating, intergenerational familial and community impacts.

Theory of change

We believe that if low-income and at-risk families can access and utilize high quality social service resources, they will be able to address their needs and improve their lives.

Diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging

One Degree is committed to centering racial, gender, and economic equity at the heart of our work.
We believe that achieving equity is critical to reaching our mission and vision.
We believe that all people—regardless of racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or socio-economic background—should have equal opportunity to achieve economic and social well-being.
We are committed to fully integrating equity into every aspect of our work toward dismantling structural racism. And we acknowledge that inequity must be identified and addressed at the root causes, not just the manifestations.
Internally, One Degree is committed to actively addressing and eliminating implicit and explicit bias as it surfaces in our communications, policies, procedures, and interactions with each other, partners,
and communities.
Externally, we commit to working with and challenging our communities and partners to deliver solutions and programs that address root causes and symptoms of inequity.

Meet our team

Executive team

Rey Faustino
Chief Executive Officer

Read Rey’s Bio

Rea Pañares
Chief Operating Officer

Read Rea’s Bio

Rea Pañares

Chief Operating Officer

Rea has dedicated her career to nonprofit and public service and has over two decades of experience working in diverse fields and ecosystems – ranging from social tech, philanthropy, policy advocacy, the federal government, and public health. While the settings have changed, her north star has remained constant: working to ensure all people have the opportunity to be healthy and thrive. As COO, she leads the organization’s Operations Department, which includes strategy management, impact, culture & internal communications, human resources, and finance & administration. Prior to the COO role, she was the Deputy Chief of Strategy & Impact, where she built the organization’s strategy and performance management processes, led internal culture and communications, and managed strategic partnerships, including a collaborative of partner technology nonprofits.

Prior to this, Rea was the senior advisor at Prevention Institute, a national center dedicated to building momentum for community prevention, where she led projects to advance community prevention in health reform implementation and health care settings. She served as Director of Minority Health Initiatives at Families USA in Washington, D.C., a national policy advocacy organization and a leading voice for passage of the Affordable Care Act from the consumer perspective; and has held positions at Grantmakers In Health, National Business Group on Health, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Rea holds a master’s degree in health policy and management from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley in molecular and cellular biology.