Beam

Beam uses tech to crowdfund employment training for homeless people. Its innovative approach uses digital technology to remove financial barriers for the homeless community and allows them to improve their skills to get into well-paid work. Bringing together the public sector and the best of tech, Beam is partnered with the Mayor of London while being advised by tech luminaries.

Homelessness in the UK is at a crisis point. There are 320,000 homeless people in the UK and this has risen by 60% since 2011. Most of these people are in hostels, with numerous financial barriers that stop them from getting into well-paid work – for example, the costs of training, equipment and childcare.

Beam provides an innovative way to remove these financial barriers whilst getting social support from thousands of members of the public. Homeless people are referred by charities and launch a crowdfunding campaign on the website to fund training. These campaigns are funded by members of the public (with 100% of campaigns successfully funded so far). The homeless person is supported by a trained Beam caseworker through their training and onto stable, well-paid work.

Throughout the process, donors are updated with the progress of the people they supported.

The largest homeless community in the UK is single mums and kids. Beam’s flexible model not only funds training but all other costs that stand in the way of someone and their professional ambitions. Practically, this often means childcare, which opens the door for new professional opportunities for thousands of disadvantaged homeless single mums.

Beam enables homeless people to improve their skills and get into well-paid work – empowering them to rebuild their lives and be reintegrated into society. So far, 82 campaigns have been funded, with donations totalling over £320,000. In total, 31 people completed their training (83% completion rate) and 26 started work (70% job start rate). The average salary for those starting work is £24,000 – 20% over London Living Wage. 19 people also moved into permanent housing.

Beam has been carefully co-designed with its users, including homeless people and homeless charities. This has led to the development of a private part of the website for the homeless people to use to get updates and communicate with other Beam users. The use of crowdfunding is an innovative, tech-driven way to tap into new resources that governments or charities may not have had access to previously. Beam’s ‘personal employment budgets’ are an innovative use of a concept growing more common in health and social care, where individuals are given a flexible and highly personalised pot of money to meet their specific needs.

Beam’s model is fully scalable and can be used around the world and with other communities than homeless people. Beam has only worked with a tiny fraction of the people that it could help in the UK, and the team has ambitious plans for growth. Its approach will be sustainable through commissioned partnerships with government to support people into work. The first of these, with Hammersmith and Fulham council, started in April 2019.

As the technology is scalable, there is no limit to Beam’s potential impact. The team plan to grow a community of millions of people around the world. Over time, they will create new ways for supporters to support homeless people, including career mentoring and surfacing job opportunities. This will grow impact and scale and ultimately mean that even more disadvantaged people get access to the resources they need to thrive.