Basic Income Academy's Journey from Ideation to Action
Tackling poverty by consolidating resources, fostering connections, and empowering change-makers globally.
TL;DR
Tom Krumins is a social impact entrepreneur. Poverty around the world has been one of his main subjects of interest. He used Softr and Airtable to crowdsource and curate the vast amount of information on the topics and plans to gradually introduce new functionality to come up with a versatile platform, where people can establish connections, present their projects, and educate others.
From pitching ideas to building functional products
Tom Krumins is a social impact entrepreneur who works on projects that address such subjects as child abuse, poverty, people transitioning out of prison, and others. Tom is regularly pitching ideas to potential investors, and it’s not always easy to do that if you can’t visualize those ideas through some digital medium or, even better, have an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). So, when Tom stumbled across Softr, he realized that it’s exactly what he needed. And he could not only build MVPs to use for pitching his ideas but also go further and build the actual product. We got in touch with him to discuss his latest Softr-built project, which is an ambitious initiative that targets poverty around the world.
Tom Krumins
Founder, Basic Income AcademyThe challenge
Tom had been long involved in projects around poverty and basic income, and, when COVID-19 hit, those topics became even more urgent. There were a lot of initiatives and researches around poverty, and the challenge was to consolidate all of that information in one place. Tom decided to tackle this challenge and, since he already had some experience with Airtable, he was looking for a solution that could be applied on top of Airtable to provide an accessible public-facing directory of resources. This is where Softr came into the scene.
Solution and next steps
Tom was able to build the database using Airtable and Softr and has just launched it publicly. The directory is just the foundational layer though, and Tom plans to expand it and turn it into a multifunctional platform, using the possibilities that Softr provides. First of all, he plans to add memberships, so that the authors of programs and initiatives can log in and make updates. Secondly, he plans to introduce an educational aspect, allowing users to offer courses on concepts around poverty and basic income. In addition, the platform will soon introduce job boards and marketplaces, where users can connect with one another as well as with government programs.
Prominent academics, leading practitioners, dedicated foundations, elected officials, and other advocates working to address poverty are discussing ways to use this tool. By crowdsourcing resources and eliminating information silos, the Basic Income Academy empowers those making a difference in communities around the world.

Since the Basic Income Academy has only recently launched, standard metrics won’t be available until summer 2023. However, as Tom introduces new features and engages new audiences, he will focus on scaling the number of registered members, resources shared, and connections made (e.g. connecting job seekers to employers, connecting nonprofits to foundations).
