West Virginia Social Care Summit: Highlights from the Mountain State

Let’s bring Erine Gray into the conversation. Erine, good morning. Thanks for joining us. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So I gave the cliff notes version of what Findhelp is all about, but elaborate a little bit more why you felt this organization was needed. Well, I grew up, in a small town about eight hours directly north by car, about few hours north of Pittsburgh, called Olean, just on the western New York side. And, at a young age, my mom was a janitor at the community college, and she caught a rare disease from a mosquito called encephalitis, back in nineteen ninety two, and, there we were trying to navigate the safety net, and fortunately we were living in a small town where everybody knew each other. My mom had insurance and, we ended up getting through it, but through that life experience, I saw firsthand, several years later when I became her legal guardian, and was her guardian for twenty four years, really just understood, how challenging it was. Know, when you when you, have brain damage as a result of this disease, it leads to a lot of other issues, including mental health issues, for an adult and living that experience, came to the conclusion that we’re a very generous country. We, a lot of nonprofits that are there in these really, really hard situations. But yet if you’re somebody who needs it, you don’t even know where to begin, and, that’s where, over the years decided I want to spend the rest of my life working within the safety net, and, sixteen years ago had the idea, to start Findhelp so that people in need could just, at least know their options, and, you know, once they do understand their options, whether it be a local church, a food pantry, or affordable housing program, or even a government program. Maybe they could use, you know, technology to apply online and get what we call the dignity of a yes or a no. And so that that’s that’s our story, and, that’s what, that we’ve been doing. And how will West Virginia play a role? How do you roll out here? So, in the very early days, so, we’re we’re based in Austin, Texas where I live. We have a team that that researches and enters in every single nonprofit across the United States. We also look at all of the federal and state government programs, whether it’s Social Security or SNAP benefits. We learn all of those eligibility rules, and we did that for the whole country. And so we’ve been live in West Virginia well over twelve years. Oh wow, okay. And so just in the last year, nearly four hundred thousand West Virginians have used our site, whether they’re searching from a cell phone or whether they’re a social worker at one of our customers, West Virginia University Health, are helping people, leaving the hospital, or just somebody that, you know, just wanting to know, hey, what if I lose my job? Am I going to be okay? What services are available for me? Talking to Erine Grey, he is the CEO of Findhelp. What will be happening with the summit that is coming up here? So we’re getting all of our customers together to talk and to basically understand what they’re seeing that’s out there, and that’s actually happening today. We have speakers from the West Virginia Primary Care Association, the Medicaid director here in West Virginia is there, as well as, some folks from WVU Medicine. We’re seeing some really interesting statistics across the state, and I think y’all y’all may appreciate this, with those four hundred thousand users over the last year. Interestingly, I looked at the data, the number one zip code across the entire state where searches were done, was actually in Parkersburg. Really? Which surprised me too. And, when I looked into it a little bit further, it’s, you know, it’s not the biggest town, And it turns out there are a lot of clinics in Parkersburg where people come and they attend the clinics. And then when they leave, they, you know, maybe have gotten better, and they don’t have a place to go. So what you end up seeing is folks just kind of getting out, maybe they’re now sober, and they’re basically trying to figure out what to do next. And, it goes to show the data that we’re seeing goes to show, hey, are there public policy elements of this? Meaning, is there a transition plan after they might finish? Because you have people coming from, all, I think I heard something like when I looked into eighteen different states coming in to attend these clinics. And so, we’re sharing all of that data at our summit, as well as with all of our users so that they can understand, is there something that we’re doing policy wise that can be used? So another quick example is a church, usually is a food pantry, does the food pantries, and they’re not typically open on Sundays because they’re doing things on Sunday. They’re having services. And so what if you looked at the whole, every service that’s offered, and then you’re a foundation, you’re trying to fund it? Sometimes funding of nonprofits happens based on who has the the best proposal or who’s the most well connected. But what if funding was done based on who’s, having the biggest impact? Where is the need? Are they willing to somebody willing to open a food pantry on a Sunday? People are hungry on Sundays too. And so we are making that data available to policymakers all across the country so that they can really think how do you stretch more with the dollars that we do have. I think there’s a big camp of folks that believe that a more efficient safety net is possible and you know, private citizens are a huge part of that, especially the faith based communities. So, really trying to help with the coordination so that people understand, hey, who can I send in this situation? Who can I send in that situation? Because everybody stretched it and it’s across the whole country. There’s a lot of stuff going on right now. We’ve seen search activities higher than we’ve ever seen it even post COVID, even post the government shutdown, last fall. So, I’m a big believer and an optimist that you can do better, with, not spending more federal funding. And so I think more coordination based on data, is gonna be the key, and and I’m optimistic that over time, we can catch people when they’re falling so they don’t end up in even more difficult situations. Anything data driven is better than anything that is not data driven. I mean, that that’s a given, I think. One of the things that’s interesting about your model, you talk not only about federal resources, but you brought up the example of churches and nonprofits and different things. Sometimes those are more timely than what a government solution can be. And if someone is hungry or has a need, there’s a sense of urgency around it where the government may not be able to step in. So you’re bringing everything to the table. And I’m just curious, how much of of what the solution that folks find, through your platform, how much of that is government? How much of that is nonprofit, church, civic, etcetera? What’s the breakout? Well, over ninety percent is civic churches in the whole country. Okay. The government safety net, although it’s large programs Sure. It’s tiny in comparison. And you’re right. It is far more efficient. We work with we use the term seekers, which is anybody seeking services. So we see activity from seekers all the time, and they don’t want to be enrolled in an intrusive government program. Sometimes they just need help getting through a particularly hard time, And when they can spend some time face to face with a human being that sits down, gives them a hug, helps them understand what their options are, they prefer that. And I think most people want to find a job and want to be independent. But what’s amazing is we’re lucky we get to work with social workers every day, all day, and to see their impact, and usually it’s face to face and say, you know, I’ve been there. And a lot of times people who have rose up from very challenging circumstances end up becoming social workers and the cycle is very positive. So I would say most people prefer that close relationship with a local nonprofit. And there’s a lot of redundancy. So we’re seeing some nonprofits merge together. Yeah. And so they could be more efficient. And so you’re right. They’re making decisions based on data with AI and everything else. Tools are now ubiquitous, and I think what the safety net looks like ten years from now is gonna be far better than, you know, what it was ten years ago. One of the things I’m guessing here so if I know there’s a problem, but I don’t know where to go to tackle it, I wanna give to it. I wanna be able to make a meaningful dent foundation or something other. I would be inclined to come to you and say, hey. In this community, given the resources, you probably know where the dollars need to go. Do you ever get any of that? Everybody anybody pick up the phone and say, hey. I I know there’s an issue here. I wanna help make it better, but where do I go? I I get those questions all the time. And, although we don’t have a formal program for that, we can see not only what everybody’s searching for. It’s all anonymous. Sure. But we can also see how responsive every nonprofit is. Okay. So you can imagine someday where a funder says, you know what? I want to make sure that the people that y’all are helping are at least getting a phone call within twenty four hours or they’re responding to those referrals. And we have that data. And so that’s the type of I think of, like, customer service in that in that realm, and it is totally possible, and it could lead to more donations. Erine Gray, Findhelp. We appreciate you coming in today. Thank you. Thank you, sir.