INVESTORS · THEORY OF CHANGE
From the ALICE Threshold to public infrastructure, in five stages.
The long-form narrative behind the company. The same content as the visualization deck, written for readers rather than skimmers.
Theory of Change · five stages · problem → long-term impact
01 · The problem
There are roughly 56 million U.S. households at the ALICE Threshold, Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. Forty-two percent of all U.S. households are at or below this line. The safety net was designed for the population below the poverty line; the consumer-tech industry was designed for the population well above the cost of living. The largest population in the country, the working middle that can’t absorb a missed paycheck, has no infrastructure built for it.
02 · The premise
A household’s records, ID, income, immigration, housing, learning, health, benefits, should belong to the household. They should travel with the household. They should be shared only with permission, only for the part allowed, only for as long as allowed. That single idea changes everything else: case management changes when the case manager doesn’t own the file; eligibility screening changes when the check runs on the family’s own data; measuring outcomes changes when the household holds the record of who saw what.
03 · The build
Three products, in sequence:
LP Account is the core record. The family owns it and decides who can see each part. Partners work from the same record, and the Cliff Planner flags benefits cliffs before they hit.
OutPosts is the shared space built on top of LP Account, where everyone who touches the household meets: partner organizations, families, case managers, classes, clinics, events. The core service is free, forever; paid features serve operators and funders, never the household.
Oasis is the later stage: practitioners and community businesses earn on the platform, and cities, counties, and foundations can plug in. A 5–10% commission funds public goods inside the platform itself, allocated under the Charter and ratified by the Trust Advisory Board.
04 · The outcomes
The outcomes are stable, comparable, public. Continuous benefits, households don’t lose support to paperwork. Fewer cliffs, households can model and pre-empt benefit cliffs before they hit. Reduced administrative burden, case managers spend more time on care and less on re-asking the same question. Cross-partner coordination, warm referrals, not "call this number." These are measured and reported in the annual Impact Report.
05 · The long-term
The long-term outcome is public infrastructure: a record households own, a shared community network, and ready-to-adopt connections that cities, counties, and foundations come to rely on. The Charter blocks the practices that would let an acquirer strip-mine that infrastructure. The Mission Trust keeps the company from being bought out of its own purpose. Together, they make "public infrastructure built by a corporation" a claim that actually holds, not a marketing line.
Why now
Three shifts converge. First, letting people own and control their own records is finally practical: storage is cheap, nearly everyone has a smartphone, and the tools for granting and revoking access are mature. Second, the paperwork burden on the safety net is at a generational high, and government is openly looking for technical help. Third, both venture and foundation capital are looking for investments tied to real outcomes, and a Charter-bound PBC held in a Mission Trust is the most credible answer we can offer. The window is open for the next 24–36 months. After that, the public contracts that define this infrastructure go somewhere else.
DOWNLOAD · Theory of Change Deck (PDF · 13 slides) · Foundation One-Pager (PDF · 2 pp)
SOURCES · ALICE methodology from United Way / United For ALICE. Household counts from the 2024 ALICE Report. Federal/state benefits spend from CRS compilations. Detailed footnotes in the deck.