Our Mission
Our mission is to change the way we solve social problems by applying technology and building communities that fight homelessness.
Survive the Streets harnesses the power of crowdfunding to secure donations to pay for specific items or services that are delivered to people on the edge of homelessness. On this site, you can donate funds to buy items or services that are delivered directly to the individuals you choose to help in your community. And, by powering up your social networks, you can build and aggregate donations by sharing stories to get needs filled.
Have you ever walked past someone who was asking for money and, after giving them $5, do you ask yourself if that money is really going to go towards something useful? Most of us have and many of us don’t give anything because we don’t know if it will help. Survive the Streets offers a new approach. We provide a directed giving platform; a site where you can give knowing that we will make sure that each donation goes towards fulfilling the specific need of the person you have chosen.
In 2012, founders Michael Grabham and Patti Dunn were really touched by the amount of support they received from their local community which helped them make their annual Survive the Streets event a great success. Coats, socks, sleeping bags, and other items useful to people who were living on the streets were acquired. Local businesses and schools opened their doors with both adults and kids working hard putting on “gear drives” and raising money to donate to Survive the Streets. Working with a local nonprofit, the useful donated items were given to clients in Seattle on Thanksgiving Day. It was the most successful year since they started the event in 1999. Because of the large community involvement and the great success, Michael and Patti realized they wanted to take this idea to another level and not just help people in need once a year but actually develop a way to help these men and women seven days a week. That is when the idea of this expanded project was born.
Mike built the secure directed giving platform that powers Survive the Streets online. It allows you to learn more about people in need in your community; people who are very close to becoming homeless or might have just recently become homeless. You can read about their past, why they are in need, and what items or services they need to become more stable in their lives. It allows you to make a big difference in someone’s life without spending a lot of money. You can choose to just donate money towards a client’s specific need or you can help several of these families in your community. The choice is up to you. A donation of as little as $10 goes towards meeting the need of someone and can help them find stable ground in their life.
Here, you will find a group of people who are needing a few items that can dramatically change their life. It might be something as simple as being able to get a bus pass so they can travel to do day work, a post office box so they can have an address when they are filling out employment forms, or it might be something a bit bigger like taking a class towards learning a trade or seeing a dentist.
Survive the Streets works with local nonprofits that are already helping people in need within your community. Nonprofits connect men, women and families with our giving platform where they can post their stories and what they need in order to change the direction of the path they are on. Along with fulfilling the needs of their members, we will always try to work with local businesses in purchasing each item or service that is delivered to a member of Survive the Streets. This allows the community to get involved. What a better feeling knowing that you were able to buy a new pair of glasses for someone in need but also, in doing so, that you supported a local independent business.