In episode 31 of the Disruptors for Good podcast, I speak with Alex Stephany, the founder of Beam, on solving homelessness using crowdfunding and technology.

About Beam and How it’s Solving Homelessness

Beam is a crowdfunding platform solving homelesses by enabling new career opportunities for homeless men and women. Beam uses technology and global citizens to help fund skills training and education to homeless individuals. With the Beam platform, you can help someone start a new career and leave homelessness for good.

The platform works like this. Each person on the platform is referred to Beam by an established homeless charity or their local council.

They receive a dedicated support specialist – a Beam employee who supports them all the way into their new career! The support specialists conduct basic security checks to make sure the referred person is mentally and physically ready to enter full-time employment. After that they help each person develop a tailored career plan, building on their unique strengths and interests.

Once approved to be on the Beam platform, we as global citizens, can choose to help fund one person’s training or fund everyone equally. You can choose support once or monthly. You’ll get an email introducing you to a new person you’re supporting every month and learn more about their individual story.

The founder of Beam, Alex Stephany, was inspired to build Beam after getting to know a homeless man at his local Tube station in London. The man had spent decades out of work. Alex would buy him cups of coffee and pairs of socks, but could see his condition going from very bad to even worse.

When the man had a heart attack, Alex asked himself: “What could we do to make a real difference to that man’s life?” The answer lay in giving him the skills to support himself. Alex knew that’d cost much more than a coffee. But what if everyone chipped in to solving homelessness in this particular case?

Before Beam, Alex ran the parking app, JustPark, which he grew from 2 to over 40 people and still support as a Board Advisor. At JustPark, he had his first experience with crowdfunding when he led a record-breaking equity crowdfunding round – what was the largest crowdfunding round for a startup in history.

He is also the author of a book on the sharing economy called The Business of Sharing, and also advised the city of Seoul as part of the Mayor’s Sharing Economy Advisory Panel.

Interview Transcript

Grant: What’s up everybody, this is Grant from Causeartist. Today we are chatting with Alex Stephany, the founder of Beam. Beam is an amazing platform that allows us as individuals to crowdfund and help homeless individuals regain their lives and gain skills to get jobs in the workforce.

Essentially, Beam works with organizations to find individuals capable of being trained and educated in a specific skill they want to pursue.

For as little as $5,000 or 5000 pounds, we can change a person’s life by contributing to their training. Alex has a background in tech startups and took that philosophy to create technology for the most disadvantaged in our communities. Beam’s mission is to scale this platform globally, helping every community in the world.

04:39

Grant: The first thing I like to start with is the journey that led you to your life’s work. Beam seems to be that for you now. What was the catalyst for starting Beam?

Alex: About three years ago, I became friends with a homeless man who would sit on the steps of my local tube station. I’d buy him coffee and socks, but I saw his condition worsening. After he disappeared for about seven weeks, he reappeared looking much older.

He told me he’d been in the hospital after a heart attack. I realized that despite my efforts, he was in worse shape than when we first met. It wasn’t another cup of coffee he needed, but the skills, confidence, and support to get into work and provide for himself.

He’d been out of work longer than he could remember, and that struck me as tragic and unnecessary, especially in a thriving economy. That’s when I thought, what if we could crowdfund the money needed to train people like him? My background is in running tech companies, and we’d raised over 10 million pounds through crowdfunding for a previous business.

I thought, maybe we can crowdfund smaller sums to make life-changing investments in people. That was the initial idea, and after meeting with homeless people and charities, we launched Beam. We crowdfunded for Tony, a man who wanted to become an electrician but couldn’t afford the training. The campaign became a major news story, and we raised the money.

Tony got his electrical certificate, and today, for the first time in about 20 years, he’s working as an electrician in London, earning a good income, and living in his own place. Over the past few years, Beam has built the technology and operational model to help millions of people like Tony in cities around the world.

09:34

Grant: Tony seemed to know what he wanted to do, which might have made the process easier. How do you handle situations where individuals don’t know what they want to do?

Alex: It’s a great question. About half of the people we help know what they want to do, whether it’s something they’ve always wanted or something they did before a disruption in their life. For those who are less clear, we do a session to help them discover potential career paths and educate them about available options.

We’ve supported people into 43 different career pathways, so they can look on our website and be inspired by others who have walked similar paths. We also do a task with them where they rank what’s most important to them—whether it’s earning power, confidence, support networks, or learning new skills.

This helps us tailor a personalized career plan around their strengths and ambitions. Beam works so well because it combines technology and data to create scalability and efficiency, while still providing a very personalized service. It’s about understanding the risks in their lives and planning around those, and then building a career plan that’s right for them.

12:38

Grant: How did companies respond to this idea? Was it difficult to get them on board?

Alex: Companies have been very supportive, and we’re contacted by companies wanting to work with us pretty much every day. The conversation isn’t about asking companies to be socially responsible and hire a homeless person—it’s about presenting them with trained, skilled talent that can add value to their business.

These individuals are ready to go, and they can bring commercial value, social value, and diversity to the workforce. It’s about making businesses better and more profitable while also enriching them in the broadest sense.

14:34

Grant: Tony’s story is a great example, but was the process as smooth as it seems? How did you move from the idea to getting him trained and into a job?

Alex: Each person on the platform has a support specialist from Beam who is responsible for supporting them on their journey. Some people are easier to help, while others have more challenges, but it’s all about giving them the right tools. People face peaks to climb, and some of those are mountains with bad weather and rocks.

Too often, society gives people flip-flops and sends them off to climb those mountains. Beam is about giving them the right tools—boots, a rucksack, a water bottle—so they can make the climb themselves.

We’ve built technology and services for people who need them the most, and it’s both morally right and economically rational to do so. Supporting someone into stable, skilled work for less than $5,000 is a fantastic investment, both for the individual and society.

17:59

Grant: When you first had the idea for Beam, did you assess the broader issue of homelessness in London, or was it just about helping that one person at first?

Alex: I knew that there were people like Tony, and I knew how big the problem was, but I wanted to test this idea with just one person first.

It was a simple, common-sense approach—sit down with someone, understand their risks and goals, remove financial barriers, and help them along the way. I did spend a good amount of time researching and reading about homelessness, but I wouldn’t claim to be an expert in housing policy or welfare benefits.

We’re lucky to have great advisors with years of experience in this space. It’s a very collaborative approach—we’re partnered with more than 30 charities who refer people to the platform, the public crowdfunds their campaigns, training providers do the training, and companies hire them.

It’s a partnership model, and we see a fantastic opportunity to make progress on homelessness by getting everyone working together and playing to their strengths.

21:02

Grant: How has the government responded to Beam? Have they been supportive?

Alex: Government has been very welcoming, both at a local and national level. We’ve been invited to Downing Street multiple times, and there’s real interest in what we’re doing. There are people in government and the civil service who care deeply about making things better.

The UK political landscape has been dominated by Brexit, which makes things challenging, but I think government recognizes that they don’t have all the answers and that working with tech startups can be a great way to get more output with less input.

Startups are great at doing a lot with very little, and Beam is a perfect example of that. We’ve built our technology, processed about 20,000 donations, and built a pioneering model for supporting homeless people into work—all for less than half a million dollars. It’s exciting to see how government is beginning to embrace the potential of startups and Govtech.

I’m speaking at a conference in Paris next week on this topic, and it’s great to see the community coming together around Govtech.

25:40

Grant: Do you see Beam expanding to other cities or countries? Are there other governments reaching out to you?

Alex: We’re having some of those conversations, but right now we’re very focused on London. I’ll be in New York and Boston in the next couple of weeks having some early conversations, but our main priority is executing well in London.

The technology is not super hard to build, but the real challenge is building the operational model that underpins it. We’re working with vulnerable people, and it’s about doing that in a way that is safe, scalable, and considers the complexities of their lives.

There’s a lot of edge cases when providing this service, and we have a lot more work to do to improve the operational model. Ultimately, we want to build the best employability service for disadvantaged people in the world, and we’re starting in London.

29:37

Grant: It seems like Beam is disrupting the social services industry. Do you see it that way?

Alex: I wouldn’t say we’re disrupting social services—we’re providing a valuable service for the individuals on the front lines of social services. They refer people to us, and we help them get those individuals into work.

It’s a way for them to reduce their caseload and redirect their resources to people who need more intensive support. It’s a great service for them because they got into this work to help people, and Beam helps them see the individuals they’ve worked with succeed.

They may have worked with someone when they were in a really bad place, and then they see them get trained, get into work, and flourish. It’s a positive experience for them as well.

31:49

Grant: It seems like Beam is serving many different areas, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Where do you see Beam in the next five to ten years?

Alex: In the next decade, I see Beam operating in multiple cities and countries around the world, fully integrated into the systems that support disadvantaged people.

I think we’ll be working with other disadvantaged groups beyond the homeless, and we’ll have built a strong reputation in the area of social mobility. I hope Beam will be providing a service for governments that I call “social mobility as a service.”

If a city has money and wants to support people in their community to get trained and employed, they should be able to purchase that service from us. We want to build a world-class service that helps people move forward with their lives, become socially integrated, and economically productive.

35:36

Grant: Thank you so much, Alex. It’s been a real treat talking to you. Best of luck to you and your team.

Alex: Thanks so much for the kind words, Grant. I really enjoyed chatting with you, and I appreciate your time.