Rose Broome is a techno-nerd. Proudly so. She also agonizes emotionally about the homeless. Proudly so. She sees no disconnect there, contrary to stereotypes of uncaring,
young and well-off techies. And she has put proof to that lack of
disconnect by founding — and taking to wild success — one of the more
compassionate technological enterprises to emerge in recent years to
help the penniless. Three years ago, 34-year-old Broome invented a crowdfunding program
to raise money tailored to individual homeless people. She called it
HandUp, and to date, it has helped 1,637 people with more than $1.07 million funneled through her site — and she’s just getting started. “I don’t have all the answers; I have a lot of questions,” said
Broome, whose innocent-seeming sincerity belies the steely, no-nonsense
interior of someone who knows how to hammer home deals. “But as a person
who has worked in tech, I have seen how new ideas are nurturing and
encouraging.” For acting on that conviction, Broome has been nominated for the
second annual Visionary of the Year award, sponsored by The Chronicle
and St. Mary’s College of Economics and Business Administration. Some people need dentures. Others need glasses or security deposits
for moving indoors — the sort of things someone who is down and out
needs to get up and running in life. And as they fill those needs,
donors get to follow their progress online. It’s a double-feel-good
loop. Clients are found through case managers who help the needy, and donations are processed through organizations such as
Project Homeless Connect so
that they are sure to go to the need delineated. The organization
started out in San Francisco and is still based there, but it has
expanded around the nation to locations including Detroit, Oregon and
Utah. At the time, Broome was working as a data analyst for a
self-improvement startup, offering games to help people cope with
sickness or lose weight. Four months later, with the help of hackathon
buddies Zac Witte and Sammie Rayner, HandUp was born. It took months of fishing for startup money before she caught the ear
of angel investor Jason Calacanis. He gave her $35,000, which was
enough to get up and running. Soon investors from Ron Conway, who
nominated her for the award, to Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff were
weighing in, and she was well on her way. “I’m a New York and Los Angeles transfer, and I’d moved to San
Francisco and was in complete shock at what I saw here on the streets,”
Calacanis said. “So when I met Rose I was really intrigued. “Rose is an amazing person, and what she started changed my life,” said
Ronnie Goodman, 55, who gained national attention as
an artist and competitive runner while living in a tent in San
Francisco for five years. Goodman moved indoors in December after he got
more than $3,000 in move-in costs through HandUp. “What I got was not charity, not a handout,” Goodman said. “It was a
belief in what I was doing — belief in helping people up, giving them a
hand. It’s beautiful.”
SFGATE Photo
