Initial Pulse Pitch

This is one of the original, written, pitches we gave for Pulse For Good.

In 2017 we started Pulse For Good in an effort to improve homeless services. Since then we’ve expanded to help organizations of all types improve. Much of what we do is similar to what is laid out below — however, we’ve refined our process and our thinking since that time. Please take a second to see our latest work here: http://www.pulseforgood.com/

TL;DR:

• Feedback via consumer reviews works in the private sector, why not in social services.
• Feedback provided by the consumer allows for informed funding and business decisions
• Data gathered in reviews can give insights hard to find in other sets of data
• The gathered data is put into easy to consume reports for service providers and other interested parties
• The entire platform helps advertise and inform the homeless community on services available to them

Homelessness in America is getting worse. No one knows exactly why. We’re going to find out in the most radical way possible: Asking the homeless population.

For years the private sector has realized that feedback from their customers is the lifeblood of their business. Surveys, Performance Reviews, Secret Shoppers, Exit Polls, Yelp, Rate My Professor, Glassdoor — all have harnessed the power of reviews to help understand a problem and provide insights into solutions using the data that they’ve collected.

We’re attempting to apply that same principle, the idea that the consumer of a service tends to know best what it needs and how effectively its needs are being met, to large scale social programs beginning with services around homelessness.

The goal is to expand the data being captured by federal, state, and local governments from quantitative, how many beds are being filled, to become qualitative, how well does a service actually do its job — in this case, help end homelessness.

We believe along the way the focus can turn from the macro societal problem of homelessness to the micro personal problem of an individual's homeless experience and thus lead to more individualized and personalized solutions.

Our solution is simple — a listing of service providers separated by categories and geographic locations. Each service provider has a place for reviews to be viewed, basic information displayed and new reviews added by any person from any device connected to the internet. When someone adds a review we ask them a series of optional demographic questions as well as ask them to judge their experience at a service provider in a number of ways using a five-star scale. The combination of these two data points, the demographic information, and scaled rating system, allow us to give insight into questions such as:

• Does a youth experiencing homelessness in Seattle have a better relative experience than one experiencing it in San Diego?
• Does a homeless shelter in San Francisco near a police station feel safer than one that is farther away?
• Is the current state of a service provider’s facility influencing the experience a homeless individual is having in a negative way?
• Are African American males being treated worse at a specific location compared to others in the same area?
• Does the newly remodeled facility at your local homeless shelter actually provide a better experience for someone experiencing homelessness?
• As a service provider, how do I stack up against other providers in my area?
• What services could I be offered as a service provider that would have the greatest effect on an individual’s homeless experience?
• As a foundation, is the service provider I’m funding or thinking of funding providing services in a way that is in alignment with our goals and beliefs?

The data gathered is then put into an easy to consume reporting platform and access is granted to various subsets of data depending on the need. For instance, every service provider has access, for free, to all data gathered about itself. Larger data aggregations for foundations, cities, counties, and other research groups are available. For more information please contact teampulse@pulseforgood.com.