Update

I am delighted to report that Johego was selected as a winner of Washington University’s Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition!

Johego was one of 154 social enterprises to participate in this year’s competition. Here’s how the year-long competition worked:

In addition to the financial benefit, this prestigious award represents a validation of the technology and business model Johego has developed to help social workers, police officers, and other public servants connect people in need with resources: overnight shelter, medical assistance, mental health treatment, and more.

The award comes as Johego prepares to scale its innovative approach based on the success of its pilot project in and around Hannibal, MO. If you haven’t seen WGEM-TV’s coverage of our pilot project, we encourage you to check it out. Thank you to everyone who helped us during this twelve-month competition!

– Michael

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Some of our supporters have wanted to learn more about our work in Hannibal, MO. We are happy to share our story.

Since our beginning, Johego has believed in the importance of building partnerships when attempting to address public needs: in fact, that belief is the basis for why we chose Johego for our name. In Hannibal, MO, we have had the fortune to work with outstanding partners: Families and Communities Together, Health Literacy Media, and The Mission Center, among others.

Because of their relationships with the community, Johego was able to accomplish our objectives in Hannibal, MO in relatively short order:

• During the initial creation of our directory, they helped Johego mobilize a dozen volunteers who together made 226 phone calls to social service providers from the region in order to validate the information Johego collected about them via web scraping.


• Once our smartphone application became available for download on iOS and Android, they helped us connect directly with over fifty social service professionals from the area, whom we trained in-person how to use our app. The above photo was taken during the first of those sessions.


• During those training sessions, we encouraged these professionals to use our smartphone application to inform us when we need to update our directory — for example, when a provider changes their phone number. During the first four weeks following the first training session, we received 41 update requests, resolving each within 13.7 hours on average. We are particularly proud of that accomplishment, as most social service directories are updated only once each year!


• Meanwhile, we have recorded hundreds of search data points based on how people have been using our smartphone application to connect with social services. In the future, such information may be able to help policy makers, funding agencies, and direct service nonprofits more efficiently allocate their resources.

In the coming weeks, Johego will be releasing our smartphone application to the public throughout northeast Missouri. We will be sure to keep you posted on that front, and if any other exciting developments occur.

As always, thank you for your support!

– Michael Kehoe

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At its core, our mission has been, and will always be, strengthening social services.

For much of our existence, Johego’s slogan has been Revolutionizing Community Development. Despite our previous blog entries about building a social movement, Johego has never been interested in revolutionizing community development for its own sake: rather, our hearts and minds have been moved by the reality that, every single year in the United States, tens of millions of dollars are unnecessarily spent by nonprofits creating and maintaining redundant (and quickly outdated) directories of nearby social service providers. For every dollar spent in this fashion, one fewer dollar is available for directly help people in need.

Meanwhile, as we’ve written about previously, despite a great number of nonprofits, congregations, and government programs dedicated to serving the public interest throughout the United States, more than 45 million people remain in poverty, including one in five children. During the 21st Century in the United States, this should not be the case. At its core, then, our mission has been, and will always be, supporting and strengthening those individuals and groups who are working day-in and day-out to deliver the social services that are necessary for human well-being and progress.

With that said, you may have noticed that Johego’s website and social media profiles have significantly changed during recent days. Nonetheless, Johego remains as committed as ever to improving community development, including mobilizing volunteers on behalf of social service providers, but we wanted to make sure that our branding best reflects our core mission. To that end, we are happy to announce our new slogan, Strengthening Social Services, and our new logo, which you can view below:

We are currently working on a couple of initiatives to help bring our efforts to scale. We will be sure to keep you posted as they progress. In the meantime, thank you so much for your interest and support.

– Michael

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In recent posts, we talked about the resources required to bring Johego nationwide and the various ways you can help make that happen. In this post, we are excited to announce a fantastic fundraising opportunity made possible by a generous supporter.

1:1 Donation Matching Program Begins Today!

We are excited to announce that, between now and October 15th, a generous supporter has agreed to sponsor a 1:1 donation matching program on behalf of Johego! This means that for every dollar that you donate to Johego, this confidential supporter will donate an additional dollar to Johego (up to $1000 total), thereby doubling your impact!

We will be applying to several major grants over the next few months, including one application that is due in mid-October. We are trying to mobilize 50 unique donors before we submit our first application: the broader base of support we are able to show, the more likely we are to win these types of competitive grants.

If you are able, please send us a donation of $20 or more today to double your impact:

Donate

As a reminder, because Johego is a 501(c)(3) charity, your donations are tax-deductible! If you are not able to support us financially at this time, please consider sharing this post on social media and encouraging your friends to make a donation. With your help, we can finish our app, expand its coverage nationwide, and revolutionize community development.

Thank you so much for your support!

– Michael

Want to support Johego or learn more? Follow us on social media & let us know what you think:

Today, we are excited to announce that the beta (demo) version of our smartphone application is live! You can access the beta by visiting our new Demo page, or by clicking on the button at the bottom of this post.

We hope that this incomplete, yet functional, proof-of-concept will help illuminate how Johego is trying to revolutionize community development. In addition, we hope that you will send us a message using our email submission form so we can learn about your experience with the app. Your feedback is essential to our longterm success!

A Few Things You Should Know Beforehand:

• Currently, the social service providers referenced by the beta application are located exclusively in the Washington, D.C. metro area, so you will need to type in a location from that region, such as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (the White House), to see nearby services.


• The beta application has been optimized for use on mobile devices, so it looks best on smaller screens.


• If you are trying to view the beta application from within a mobile app (such as Facebook’s mobile app), you will need to, instead, copy this link and open it in a browser like Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Safari.


• By utilizing this beta application, you are expressing your full agreement with the terms and conditions associated with the beta.

Thank you very much for your interest! We look forward to reviewing your feedback!

– Michael

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Hello, everyone! Greetings from beautiful West Lafayette, IN!

Over the past few months, we have been hard at work trying to make our vision for our application a reality. In order to build the best product possible, we have had numerous conversations with experts in a variety of fields, from mobile application development to user-centered design to social service delivery. We have supplemented these conversations with our own independent research, trying to figure out why people engage in activities that strengthen their communities and what motivates them to remain active.

We are excited to announce that we are planning on releasing a beta version of our application over the next few months. (For those that are not familiar with the term, a “beta version” is an incomplete, yet functional, proof-of-concept.) Before it can be released, we will be taking care of a few remaining technical items and working with our attorneys to develop the terms and conditions that will accompany the application.

Therefore, we hope that you will take a few moments to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn. By doing so, you will increase the visibility of our efforts, and you will be among the first to know when the beta version is released. In the meantime, if you have a question, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you in advance for your interest!

Want to support Johego or learn more? Follow us on social media & let us know what you think:

My name is Michael Kehoe, and I am the founder and executive director of Johego, an organization that is dedicated to building stronger communities. During the coming months, I will be writing on behalf the Johego team, which currently consists of a full-time executive director, five volunteer board members, and a variety of part-time volunteers, including a data scientist, a computer programmer, a mobile app developer, a marketing specialist, and a user-centered designer. You can meet some of the team here:

For the past few months, we have been working hard to create a smartphone application, that will empower individuals to become more constructively engaged in their communities. Over the next few months, we are planning on launching a beta version of our app, which will be made available through our website.

We decided to start blogging in order to keep people posted about our progress, to generate excitement about community engagement, and to share some of the insights we have gained from our efforts. We are planning on posting semi-regular status updates, providing background information about various initiatives, and sharing stories that will hopefully interest and inspire you.

In the meantime, we want to hear from you. You can connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. Alternatively, you can use our Contact page to sign up for our email list or to send us a message.

We look forward to hearing from you during the months to come!

– Michael

Want to support Johego or learn more? Follow us on social media & let us know what you think: