The Florida Community Resource Map (FRM)

We are addressing the problem of inaccessible and fragmented information about community resources -- like shelter beds -- for unemployed/ underemployed individuals, particularly mid-to-late career workers. In Florida, over 30,000 people experience homelessness any given night, a problem that is more acute now that anti-camping legislation in the state has criminalized sleeping outside. Social workers helping these people face challenges use outdated or disconnected data systems, reducing their ability to support clients. From our pilot, we have seen social workers send people to shelters at capacity.

The lack of real-time data contributes to inequitable access to resources, disproportionately impacting individuals in underserved and rural areas who often lack internet access or digital literacy. For example, smaller shelters like the Crestview Area Shelter, when interviewed by our students, shared that they rely on static websites and manual processes to track bed availability, leading to service delays. By building out the Florida Community Resource Map and working with providers to make it so resources -- like number of beds at any given time -- are visible, we aim to create a solution that streamlines resource navigation for individuals and social workers, reducing barriers to critical services like shelter, food, and health support.

The Florida Community Resource Map (FRM) is a digital platform under development to help social and community workers find and manage information about essential services like food banks, childcare, and mental health resources. It provides a centralized database where users, especially social and community workers, can easily find and save updated resource availability tailored to their needs.

There are currently two versions of the FRM. The legacy version at www.floridaresourcemap.org has been supported by multiple community foundations, agencies, and muncipalities to share a combined database and resource management system in English and Spanish. The version under development being piloted in Holden Heights, Orlando, FL (dev.floridaresourcemap.org) is where we are building and testing the new features social and community workers have requested, like the ability to save resources and to give crowdsourced feedback about outdated information.

From our pilot, a main innovation we are currently building out is real-time capacity tracking for shelters and resource centers. We currently have resources listed, but with new API and real-time features, the FRM will ensure individuals and social workers seeking immediate assistance know exactly how many shelter beds and other key resources are available at any given time. 

Our target population includes unemployed/underemployed adults, particularly those in mid-to-late career stages, as well as social and community workers workers supporting these individuals. These populations often face systemic barriers to accessing critical resources, such as shelter, food, and mental health support. They are typically underserved due to fragmented resource systems, lack of real-time data, and reliance on manual or outdated methods for tracking service availability. We have validated this problem with graduate and undergraduate student research from American University, Georgetown, the University of Michigan, and the University of Florida.

For individuals experiencing homelessness or economic instability, the uncertainty of whether a shelter has available beds often results in wasted time, unmet needs, and increased vulnerability. Social and community workers, who act as intermediaries, also face challenges when navigating disconnected data systems to locate resources for their clients. 

The FRM is working to directly address these needs by providing real-time updates on resource availability, enabling individuals to make informed decisions and reducing the administrative burden on social workers. By ensuring accurate, timely access to essential services, the platform will foster greater economic mobility and stability for underserved populations, empowering them to overcome systemic barriers to success.

Florida Community Innovation (FCI) is deeply embedded in the communities we serve. Our team lead is a passionate, lifelong Floridian, and we intentionally engage students, especially underserved and first generation college students to work alongside social workers and community partners we recruit. Engage social workers as true partners has been transformational for our FRM project; they enjoy working with and mentoring talented students while co-designing a product they actually want. 

Our team’s approach is built on community listening and co-design. We have engaged over 50 stakeholders, including shelter staff and social service workers, to tailor the platform so it can best serve their needs. For instance, feedback from homeless shelters with limited technical capacity has led to the development of a phased onboarding process to ensure accessibility and ease of use.

Our leadership and student worker population includes individuals with lived experiences of navigating systemic barriers, bringing a personal understanding of the challenges faced by our target population. This proximity to the community ensures that the FRM is designed and implemented with empathy and practicality, reflecting the priorities and ideas of the people it serves.

The FRM is at the growth stage, with an established design and pilot implementation underway in Holden Heights, Orlando, FL. We have already built and tested the platform’s core features, including its interactive map and initial resource database with data from community foundations, agencies, and municipaliteis. These features have been refined through feedback from users and social workers who participated in pilot testing.

To date, FCI has secured funding from community foundation grants and individual donations, enabling us to maintain operations and develop the platform. We have also partnered with universities, involving students in the iterative design and testing process, which has ensured continuous improvements to the platform’s usability and effectiveness.

With its current success in specific communities, FRM is ready to scale statewide, with plans to integrate real-time tracking of shelter bed availability as the next critical feature. This growth phase focuses on expanding outreach, onboarding more shelters and resource centers, and enhancing automation to standardize data across stakeholders, especially the community foundations.

Our track record of collaboration, our research-into-practice approach, and the platform’s impact thusfar demonstrate that FRM is ready for broader implementation, ensuring that underserved populations statewide have timely access to essential services.

www.floridaresourcemap.org

dev.floridaresourcemap.org

https://instagram.com/floridacommunityinnovation

The FRM is innovative because it will combine real-time resource availability tracking with a hyper-localized, community-centered approach, distinguishing it from platforms like UniteUs, FindHelp.org, and 211. While these solutions offer resource directories and referral capabilities, the FRM will uniquely integrate community-driven design and dynamic, real-time updates tailored to both social workers and individuals seeking immediate assistance.

Unlike UniteUs, which often requires formal partnerships and can be cost-prohibitive for smaller organizations, FRM is openly accessible, ensuring that underserved and rural communities are not excluded. The FRM emphasizes grassroots collaboration, co-designed by students and community partners, making it adaptable to the unique needs of each region. The fact that social workers can collaboratively edit resource listings will make the map more accurate and representative.

In contrast to FindHelp.org, which focuses primarily on resource listings, FRM is priortizing actionable data by incorporating real-time shelter bed availability. This feature is critical for addressing immediate needs, such as housing for homeless individuals, reducing uncertainty, and improving decision-making for social workers. 

211, while widely known, often relies on static, phone-based systems that lack the speed and precision of a real-time digital platform. FRM enhances transparency and accessibility, offering a mobile-friendly interface and geospatial mapping to streamline resource navigation. Also, social workers will be able to save the resources they go back to most frequently, a feature other platforms do not offer.

The FRM’s open and scalable design has the potential to catalyze a shift in the market toward user-driven, real-time resource platforms. By setting a precedent for transparency and community co-creation, it can inspire broader adoption of similar practices, encouraging stakeholders to move beyond static directories to dynamic, equitable solutions. This evolution could reshape the social services landscape, ensuring underserved populations receive timely and effective support.

1. Enhance Access to Real-Time Resources:

   • Goal: Ensure the social and community workers helping individuals experiencing homelessness or economic instability can access accurate, real-time information about shelter availability, food, and essential services.
   • Measurement:
     • Increase in the number of shelters and resource centers providing real-time updates on FRM (e.g., 50% of shelters in pilot regions onboarded within the first year).
     • Reduction in time spent by individuals or social workers locating available resources, measured through user surveys and time-use studies.

2. Empower Social Workers with a User-Friendly, Efficient Tool:

   • Goal: Equip social workers with a reliable, centralized platform tofind and manage information. 
   • Measurement:
     • Percentage of social workers reporting improved efficiency and satisfaction using FRM (e.g., a 25% improvement in annual surveys).
     • Number of social workers using the platform.

3. Foster Equity in Resource Accessibility Across Florida:

   • Goal: Address systemic barriers in underserved communities by making FRM widely available and accessible, particularly in rural and economically disadvantaged regions.
   • Measurement:
     • Number of rural or low-income communities actively using FRM to locate resources.
     • Increased resource utilization rates in these areas, tracked through shelter and agency feedback.

4. Scale Statewide Adoption and Sustainability:

   • Goal: Expand FRM to every county in Florida, ensuring long-term sustainability through partnerships and funding.
   • Measurement:
     • Geographic coverage: Percentage of counties in Florida.
     • Annual increase in active partnerships with shelters, government agencies, and community organizations.
     • Progress toward sustainable funding goals, such as recurring revenue from subscriptions or grants.

• Goal 1: No Poverty – Indicator: Proportion of population living below the national poverty line, disaggregated by location and demographics.

• Goal 17: Partnerships for the Goals – Indicator: Number of multi-stakeholder partnerships supporting development initiatives.

We measure these indicators through:

• User analytics and platform usage reports.
• Annual surveys with end-users (individuals, social workers) and partner organizations.
• Qualitative feedback from focus groups and case studies in pilot communities. 

The FRM has proven its effectiveness through research, pilot implementations, and iterative refinement driven by community feedback. Thanks to FCI's unique model, our student researchers have laid the groundwork at each step for our student and volunteer technologists to take action with community members.

Initially developed based on research conducted by Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, FRM was created to address resource gaps and systemic inefficiencies in accessing critical services like shelter, food, and mental health support. Georgetown's capstone team identified the need for an innovative, community-centered solution to enhance resource accessibility for Florida’s vulnerable populations. Their recommendations, including the integration of real-time updates, regional expansions, and user-friendly features, laid the foundation for FRM’s success.

The FRM’s most impactful pilot implementation is in Holden Heights, Orlando, a project developed in partnership with the University of Central Florida and the Central Florida Foundation. This ongoing collaboration has demonstrated the map’s potential to transform resource access through community engagement and targeted solutions. By integrating local input from social workers, nonprofits, and residents, FRM has evolved into a tool that meets the unique needs of underserved communities, providing timely and accurate information on critical resources.

Recent research conducted by the University of Michigan’s Reach Consulting Group builds on this foundation, addressing the urgent need for real-time capacity tracking in response to Florida’s new anti-camping law. This law criminalizes camping in public spaces, increasing the urgency for accessible shelter resources for individuals experiencing homelessness. Michigan’s research revealed that many shelters rely on outdated, manual systems that fail to provide accurate, real-time data on bed availability. For example, the Crestview Area Shelter and Food Bank of Manatee highlighted the challenges of manual data updates and limited technology infrastructure. By integrating real-time capacity tracking, FRM will address these issues, ensuring that both individuals and social workers can quickly locate available resources.

FRM’s innovation lies in its ability to combine real-time tracking with community-centered design, making it distinct from similar tools like UniteUs, FindHelp.org, and 211. Unlike these platforms, FRM is built with direct input from the communities it serves, ensuring it reflects local needs and priorities. Its focus on transparency, accessibility, and real-time updates allows it to address immediate needs effectively while fostering equity in resource access.

The map’s impact is evident in its pilot regions, where measurable improvements in resource accessibility and user engagement have been recorded. As it scales statewide, FRM is poised to become an indispensable tool for addressing systemic barriers to resource access. Backed by research from leading institutions and partnerships with organizations like UCF and the Central Florida Foundation, FRM exemplifies how human-centered design and collaborative innovation can create transformational change.

For further validation, consult research showcased on FCI's website from Georgetown University, University of Michigan, University of Florida, UC Berkeley, and American University students, which collectively demonstrate FRM’s effectiveness and potential for broader impact.

We have a volunteer board of 6 individuals, one full-time executive director who is unpaid, 32 volunteers, and 20 students who receive a $500 semester stipend.

We have been working on this solution since August 2020, when we started scoping the problem.

Our leadership team includes individuals from a variety of backgrounds, including women, first-generation college graduates, and members of underrepresented groups in technology and civic innovation. 

To minimize barriers to opportunity, we actively recruit interns and staff from diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Most of our team members are students, including first-generation college attendees and those from historically underserved communities. Recognizing that financial barriers often limit participation, we pay students who work on the FRM. This approach helps ensure that low-income and first-generation students can fully participate and contribute without sacrificing financial stability.

We also prioritize creating a welcoming and inclusive work environment. Team meetings are designed to foster collaboration and respect for different perspectives. We provide mentorship opportunities to support the professional growth of our interns and volunteers, ensuring equitable access to advancement within the organization.

To deepen our commitment to DEI, we have established goals for continuous improvement:

• Expanding recruitment efforts to reach a wider network of candidates, particularly from underrepresented groups in technology and civic innovation.
• Investing in professional development for our team members to enhance their cultural competency and skills in inclusive leadership. Our executive director has been intentional in being involved in at least one diverse fellowship a quarter to learn and grow.
• Soliciting regular feedback from our students and volunteers to identify areas where we can improve inclusivity and equity within the organization. We have two listening sessions a month.

The Florida Community Resource Map (FRM) is a mission-driven platform designed to address barriers in accessing social services while maintaining sustainability. Our business model delivers value to underserved populations and social service organizations by providing free access to critical resources and offering actionable insights for enhanced service delivery.

Key Beneficiaries:

• Vulnerable populations, including individuals experiencing homelessness, unemployment, or marginalization.
• Social workers who need efficient tools to connect clients to services, as well as to save and manage information about these services.
• Nonprofits, government agencies, and community foundations optimizing resource delivery and seeking to reach more community members with data.

Products and Services:

• Free Access for Individuals and Social Workers: Users can search for resources, like shelters, food banks, and mental health services, including real-time updates, as well as manage information about them in the platform. Access will always remain free to ensure equity.
• Enhanced Analytics for Organizations: Subscription-based features will provide employers of social workers with insights into the most-used resources and referral trends.
• Data Sharing for Partners: Community partners can embed FRM on their websites and access aggregated insights. So far, this is how we have gotten most of our funding, because community foundations have paid for this. However, we plan to have free options and premium options for the map embed to ensure financial sustainability. 

Revenue Model:

• Grant Funding: Supported by grants from community foundations aiming to expand social worker access to nonprofit data that these foundations have.
• Subscription Options: Advanced analytics for organizations that employ social workers to improve efficiency and identify trends.
• Corporate Sponsorships: Partners provide funding for social impact alignment.

Sustainability and Scalability:

FRM ensures free access for those in need while generating revenue from advanced features for organizations. This model supports platform maintenance, scalability, and long-term impact, empowering social workers, nonprofits, and communities statewide.

The Florida Community Resource Map (FRM) is building financial sustainability through a combination of individual donations, grants, and future revenue streams like subscriptions and partnerships. Our goal is to maintain free access to core features while generating sustainable revenue to support operations, including a salary for our Executive Director, who is currently working unpaid to prioritize resources for students and community impact.

Current Funding Success:

1. Individual Donations:

   • The bulk of our funding has come from individual donors, enabling FRM’s development and pilot implementation.

2. Mini-Grants:

   • We have received mini-grants from foundations like the Central Florida Foundation to fund student stipends, reducing barriers for low-income and first-generation students and ensuring a diverse team.

3. Pilot Success:

   • Our pilot in Holden Heights, Orlando, in partnership with the Central Florida Foundation and UCF, demonstrated FRM’s impact and scalability.

Future Plans for Sustainability:

1. Subscription Services:

   • Organizations employing social workers can subscribe for advanced analytics to improve service delivery and track resource trends.

2. Corporate Sponsorships and Government Contracts:

   • Corporate partners and local governments will fund regional expansions and integrations.

Working with Truist Foundation and MIT Solve would be transformative in scaling the FRM and overcoming key barriers. The grant funding and capacity-building resources would help us refine our business model and sustainability strategy while allowing us to support more student innovators and provide honoraria to community partners like homeless shelters collaborating with us.

The tailored support program would guide us in solidifying recurring revenue streams, such as subscriptions for organizations employing social workers, while maintaining free access to underserved populations. Workshops and consultations would help enhance features like real-time capacity tracking for shelter beds and advanced analytics for organizational partners.

Access to industry experts, peer networks, and best practices would refine FRM’s scalability and impact, particularly as we address systemic barriers for social workers and vulnerable populations. The Truist Leadership Institute Retreat would strengthen our leadership capacity, enabling us to address critical needs, such as providing a salary for our Executive Director, who currently works unpaid so the students can be funded.

Pitch training and exposure at the Inspire Awards event would enhance our ability to attract new funding and partnerships, accelerating FRM’s statewide expansion. Truist Foundation and MIT Solve’s support would allow us to sustainably grow FRM while prioritizing equity, community collaboration, and student-driven innovation.