Illustrative Case Studies
Empowering a Houseless Client Through Elevate
Name: John
Age: 45
Needs: Shelter, food assistance, medical attention, mental health support, and employment service.
Traditional Approach
With a fragmented system, John’s experience is
frustrating. Each social service organization manages its own data and programs independently.
John needs to visit multiple agencies, retell his story at
each one, and navigate different systems to access
the help he needs.
This siloed approach often results in duplicated efforts, inefficiencies, and delayed support
New Approach
With a centralized data platform, John’s experience is transformed. As soon as he provides his information at the social service organization, the staff can input his details into the ELEVATE platform.
This centralized data warehouse integrates information across various social service organizations, allowing John’s needs to be matched with available services quickly and efficiently
Outcome
Within a few weeks, John has secured temporary housing, receives regular meals from the food bank, is managing his health with support from the community clinic, and is participating in a job training program.
His mental health is also improving with the help of counseling services.
Most importantly, John feels supported and empowered, knowing that a network of services is working together to help him get back on his feet.
Empowering a Social Worker with ELEVATE
Name: Sarah
Role: Counselor at a local social service organization
Challenge: High caseload, limited resources, difficulty accessing programs outside her organization
Traditional Approach
Sarah is committed to helping her clients but faces the challenge of a high caseload. While her organization provides essential services, many clients have needs that require additional support from other agencies.
In the traditional system, Sarah spends considerable time researching and contacting other organizations, a process that is often inefficient and leaves some client needs unmet due to the siloed nature of social services. Success is difficult to measure.
New Approach
With a centralized data platform, Sarah’s ability to support her clients is greatly enhanced because she can see what services a client has already accessed, what appointments may be upcoming and how best to interact with the individual.
ELEVATE consolidates information from multiple social service organizations, allowing Sarah to quickly access a comprehensive list of programs tailored to each client’s needs.
Outcome
With ELEVATE, Sarah can provide her clients with holistic, tailored support plans in a fraction of the time it would have taken otherwise.
The platform’s ability to integrate and share data across organizations means that clients receive the comprehensive care they need, without adding to Sarah’s workload. Sarah can focus on providing the best possible support, ensuring her clients receive the help they deserve.
Recognizing Collective Impact with ELEVATE
Type: Municipal Grant
Program Focus: Supporting social service programs addressing housing, mental health, and poverty
Challenge: Evaluating the collective impact of multiple agencies working toward shared community goals
Traditional Approach
Funders often faced difficulty in assessing the overall impact of the social service programs they supported.
Each agency reported independently, using different metrics and formats, which made it challenging to measure the broader effects of their combined efforts. This fragmentation resulted in a lack of clarity about how the various programs were interacting, whether there was duplication in services and supports and missed opportunities for collaboration.
Funders struggled to make informed decisions on how best to support these programs and align resources to maximize community-wide impact.
New Approach
ELEVATE shifted the focus to enabling social service agencies to work collaboratively in demonstrating their collective impact. The platform facilitated the integration of data across multiple organizations, using standardized metrics that could be shared in real-time.
With this unified view, funders gained deeper insights into how agencies’ efforts aligned with shared goals, allowing them to assess overall program performance more effectively. ELEVATE also provided the infrastructure for agencies to coordinate their actions and avoid duplication of efforts, ensuring that resources were used strategically across the community.
Outcome
By adopting ELEVATE, funders could clearly see the collective impact of the agencies’ work. The platform’s real-time data allowed them to track the effectiveness of various programs in real-time, identify opportunities for cross-agency collaboration, and understand how their investments were contributing to systemic change. Funders were able to make more strategic decisions on funding allocations, ensuring that resources were directed toward the most effective, high-impact initiatives.
The data-driven approach fostered transparency, accountability, and stronger partnerships between funders and agencies. As a result, the program became more efficient, and the community experienced measurable improvements in housing stability, mental health outcomes, and poverty alleviation.