Would you believe that at the age of 12 I was homeless.
My mum, sister and I were homeless for twelve months whilst we waited to be assigned government housing. During this time we relied heavily upon the support of generous volunteers and donors at women’s refuges. Their contributions impacted me greatly and have stayed with me forever — It has been the driving force behind my contributions to volunteering, teaching and mentoring other females.
Being homeless has a certain stigma attached to it and it’s a difficult situation for many people to fathom. In 54 hours, nine people from seven different countries came together to understand more about homelessness and volunteering in San Francisco. Our team was strong, committed and compassionate the whole way through — I am still so PROUD of what we achieved in such a short amount of time❤
As part of my journey on the Startup Catalyst Mission to San Francisco we participated in the Lean Innovation Bootcamp in partnership with TechStars, Startup Weekend.
The event started on Friday evening and we had 54 hours to use our knowledge of Lean methodology, get out of the building and launch an MVP.
We all pitched ideas, voted, formed teams and got to execution.
My team was a combination of two separate pitches that joined because they were both related to social impact. In particular, volunteering and helping the homeless. There were nine of us, representing seven different countries (Brazil, Sweden, Malaysia, France, Ukraine, India and Australia) and we all had one common goal in mind — to understand the problems that surround homelessness and getting more people to volunteer. Team Carita was born.
Our Mission
“We exist to disrupt the stigma of volunteering by personalising the connection between people and opportunities”
The two initial hypothesis that we had to validate
- That homeless people want or need jobs
- Volunteers are motivated by public recognition
So how did we validate these assumptions? We sent out an online survey, created some questions and hit the streets to find out more. We interviewed thirteen people face to face and had fifty five responses to our online survey.
What we discovered
- Homeless people first need a safe place to live before they can consider getting a job.
- Volunteers do not want to be publicly recognised for the volunteering efforts.
What happens now?
With our two initial hypothesis somewhat invalidated we had to look deeper into the data that we gathered and we needed to pivot!
This was a challenging time for us and we needed to get together and regroup. As we were sitting around discussing potential focus areas we had the amazing @janel_wellborn pop by and provide some guidance. Janel’s outside perspective helped us to ask the right questions, ultimately discovering some great insights.
A new hypothesis is created
People have difficulty finding volunteer opportunities that match their preferences.
Again, we generated a new set of questions, a new online survey, and a paper prototype to test our assumptions — and, of course we got back out onto the streets. We interviewed over 60 potential volunteers and had 91 responses to our online survey. We split test the paper prototype with only half of our face to face respondents being shown.
What we discovered — Round two
“I don’t have time” or “I don’t know how to find volunteering opportunities”
but the most interesting insight we heard recurrently was:
“I don’t have the time for volunteer work, but I did it because my company organized it. It was also relevant to the work that I do professionally”
An opportunity presented itself
- People told us what matters most to them when they consider volunteering — causes, location, skills, time and flexibility with families. This formed our MVP feature set.
- People were happy to volunteer when it was through their company and was relevant to their professional skills.
Fortune 500 companies spend more than $15bn on corporate responsibility
Time was coming to a close so we decided to move fast on the enterprise segment and create our business model and pitch deck. We wrote up what needed to be done and split the tasks, tailoring each segment to the team’s strengths. We came together for final editing and then did a few practice pitches before the final reveal of our combined efforts at the pitch event.
It’s time to PITCH!
I decided to share a personal story with my own experience with homelessness. Afterwards I was approached by multiple people in the crowd who had also been homeless, homelessness is not an isolated situation. It affects all of us.
At the end of the day, we’re all one circumstance away from needing these services. One circumstance. Lucky people, two or three. But most people are literally just one circumstance away from needing some kind of supportive service that is offered.- Felicia Horowitz
What did I learn from this weekend?
- LISTEN — to the people, to your team and to your customers.
- QUESTION — everything.
- FACILITATE — conversations and don’t block open dialogue. Let people’s ideas flow and be constructive with how you move forward.
- DRAW INSIGHT — draw insight from positive and negative. Be analytical in your approach to synthesising the data available.
- SUPPORT — support peoples strengths but guide them through the challenges. If you’re not learning you’re not growing.
- BELIEVE — believe in the problem/s you’re solving. It helps pull you through the tough times and instills purpose into what you’re investing your time and energy into.
- COMPASSION — Treat people with compassion and openness. Everyone has a story to tell and their experiences have helped shape who they are as people.
- KEEP MOVING — Shitty things happen in life. Keep pushing forward. Share your story. It could make all the difference to one person who is /or has been in a similar situation.
THANK YOU
To the men and women who shared their story on the streets, the volunteers from Glide, the respondents to our surveys, my amazing team, the judges, the TechStars team and our mentors. Teamwork makes the dream work 🙏🏽
