WHO WE ARE 

RARE Academy is a peer-designed and peer-led nonprofit advancing economic mobility for system-impacted individuals in Austin and Travis County. Grounded in lived experience, we combine whole-person support, workforce development, career pathways, and systems-change initiatives to help individuals overcome barriers, build stability, and move toward lasting economic mobility.

Our work goes beyond helping people navigate systems. We also bring lived experience into the spaces where those systems are designed, evaluated, and changed.

OUR MISSION 

RARE Academy advances economic mobility for system-impacted individuals through whole-person support, workforce development, career pathways, and lived-experience-driven systems change. 

OUR VISION 

A future where system involvement does not determine a person’s economic potential, and lived experience helps shape the systems intended to serve our communities. 

WHO WE SERVE

RARE Academy serves individuals whose opportunities and economic mobility have been affected by involvement with, or barriers created across, complex systems. Our approach recognizes that system impact can take many forms and that individuals may be navigating more than one system at the same time.

Our work is designed to reach individuals and communities impacted by:

• Criminal legal and reentry systems

• Homelessness and housing instability

• LGBTQ+ individuals navigating systemic barriers and exclusion

• Domestic violence, trafficking, and trauma

• Child welfare and foster care systems

• Language and cultural access barriers

• Documentation and eligibility barriers

• Economic and workforce exclusion

• Veterans navigating transition and reintegration

• Other systemic barriers that limit access to stability, opportunity, and economic mobility

RARE's services are designed to be accessible to individuals from diverse backgrounds and lived experiences, including people whose first language is not English and individuals navigating unfamiliar systems, documentation requirements, or barriers to workforce participation.

People are more than the systems they have encountered. 

RARE meets individuals where they are, recognizes the intersection of their experiences, and works alongside them to build pathways toward stability, opportunity, and economic mobility.