Lean Startups for Social Change

2

Lean Principles and Process

“Top of the heap … in homelessness!”

That’s what Monica Martinez said to herself after taking the job as CEO of Santa Cruz’s Homelessness Services Center (HSC). Santa Cruz County, her new home turf, held the distinction of having the highest homelessness rate in America. Twenty-five years into the center’s existence, Monica was determined to do something different. She was going to go lean.

For the past twenty-five years, HSC had followed the classic game plan: get an idea, write a plan, raise money (through charitable or governmental sources), and then carry out your plan. If you succeed at getting this far, then you take up what’s next: measure impacts, evaluate, raise more money (see Figure 2.1).

This Plan–Fund–Do ...