The challenge of poverty and homelessness in the United States has reached a critical juncture. Recent data highlights a troubling trend, with a record-high 653,104 people experiencing homelessness in 2023 alone. This figure is not merely a statistic; it represents a staggering 12% increase from the previous year, signaling a deepening crisis that ripples through communities nationwide. This surge underscores the inadequacy of temporary solutions and highlights a profound, systemic issue. The rising numbers, coupled with stagnant rates of poverty, demand solutions that move beyond providing basic shelter. The focus must shift toward long-term empowerment, stability, and the restoration of dignity for those affected. It is in this environment of urgent need that community-based organizations become absolutely essential, serving as lifelines for individuals and families on the brink.
Amid these systemic challenges, many individuals find themselves turning to programs that offer more than just a temporary reprieve. They seek life-changing, and often lifesaving, resources and support. The goal of these advanced support systems is to help those in need reach their full potential, breaking cycles of instability that can span generations. This is the precise mission space occupied by So Others Might Eat, widely known as SOME. As a dedicated community-based organization, SOME has committed itself to serving the comprehensive needs of at-risk populations throughout the District of Columbia. Its work is a testament to the power of a localized, holistic approach. Furthermore, through strategic partnerships aimed at internal improvement, SOME is not only changing lives within its community but is also actively revolutionizing the workplace experience for its own employees, recognizing that a supported team provides better support.
SOME: A Beacon of Hope in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., serves as a stark microcosm of the nation’s economic divides. The city is characterized by soaring living costs that consistently outpace wage growth, creating an environment where affordable housing is increasingly scarce. For many residents, this economic pressure means they are living in a state of constant precarity, often just one unexpected hardship—such as a medical emergency, a car repair, or a sudden job loss—away from dislocation and homelessness. These pervasive issues of housing instability inherently influence job security. Individuals are forced to balance the struggle of finding and maintaining consistent work with the overwhelming worry about their ability to maintain a stable home environment. This dynamic creates a vicious cycle of poverty that becomes incredibly difficult to break without comprehensive intervention.
Since its founding in 1970, SOME has established itself as a critical care provider and a genuine beacon of hope for thousands of D.C. residents navigating these exact challenges. The organization’s philosophy is built on offering a whole-person model of care. This model is intentionally designed to be inclusive, serving individuals, families, senior citizens, veterans, and those affected by physical or mental illness. Crucially, SOME provides this support regardless of where an individual is on their personal or professional journey. This unconditional support is fundamental to its mission, ensuring that help is available to those who need it most, without judgment or prerequisites that often become barriers to care in other systems.
The Whole-Person Model of Care
The whole-person model of care championed by SOME is a comprehensive strategy designed to address the multifaceted nature of poverty. This approach includes a wide and integrated range of services, recognizing that a person’s needs are interconnected. Key components include safe and affordable housing, comprehensive healthcare that addresses both physical and mental well-being, emergency and social services for immediate crises, and robust education and workforce development programs. This framework is rounded out by advocacy efforts that seek to address the systemic issues that perpetuate poverty and homelessness in the first place. This multifaceted support system is the backbone of the organization’s success, moving beyond symptomatic treatment to address root causes.
This extensive network of services is sustained by a deeply devoted team of professionals and volunteers. This team includes social workers, clinicians, instructors, case managers, and countless volunteers, all of whom are committed to working together toward a common goal. Their collective mission is to make a tangible difference in their communities by effectively breaking the cycle of homelessness and poverty. By providing integrated support, they work to put their clients on a sustainable path to success, defined not just by housing or employment, but by overall well-being, stability, and self-sufficiency. Meredith Maimone, an Employee Experience Specialist in Learning & Development, is a crucial part of the internal team ensuring that SOME’s staff are just as supported as their clients.
Supporting Employees Who Support the Community
The mission of SOME is fundamentally grounded in the core values of dignity, respect, and autonomy. The organization aims not just to serve, but to empower and elevate community members through a consistently people-centered approach. This philosophy extends inward to its own staff, recognizing that the employees are the single most important asset in achieving this mission. Central to SOME’s ability to succeed is its commitment to robust employee Learning & Development initiatives. This focus is particularly important given the diverse backgrounds of the organization’s workforce. Many of SOME’s employees have non-traditional education paths and varied professional journeys, bringing invaluable life experience but sometimes lacking formal training in specific areas.
Investing in comprehensive training programs is, therefore, a proactive strategy. It equips all employees, from frontline staff to senior management, with the specific skills and knowledge necessary to perform their roles effectively and, just as importantly, to secure and maintain stable employment and advance in their own careers. When discussing the experiences of SOME employees, Meredith Maimone highlighted a common barrier. “Not all of them have traditional educational and professional backgrounds,” she expressed, “and it can be intimidating for them to ask for help because they might not know where to start.” This intimidation factor is a significant hurdle that a structured, accessible learning program aims to eliminate, creating an environment of psychological safety and growth.
Transforming the Employee Experience
To support the long-term education and professional growth of its team, all SOME employees are given access to Skillsoft’s Percipio platform. This tool serves as a centralized hub for learning, where employees are encouraged to utilize an extensive library of unique courses. The available content spans a vast range of topics, from highly specific technical training relevant to healthcare or data management to crucial personal and professional development courses in areas like communication, conflict resolution, and leadership. The platform provides an accessible, non-judgmental starting point for employees who may not have known where to begin. “Percipio gives [our employees] a very easy-to-use starting point,” Maimone added, emphasizing the platform’s role in lowering the barrier to entry for professional development.
In the modern workforce, especially within the complex field of social services, skills are the new currency. They possess the power to drive meaningful growth for both the organization and the individuals within it. To meet the challenge of ever-changing strategic goals, shifting client needs, and evolving compliance requirements, non-profit enterprises must invest in consistent upskilling and reskilling. This commitment supports both employee development and overall organizational resilience. When leadership visibly commits to investing in their employees, it sends a powerful message. This investment not only helps improve individual career development paths but also leads directly to a stronger, more capable, and more productive organization, ultimately enhancing the quality of service delivered to the community.
Meeting the Challenge of Organizational Growth
According to data from Skillsoft’s IT Skills and Salary Report, the benefits of committing to robust training programs are numerous and significant. These benefits include improving team morale, which is particularly vital in high-stress non-profit environments. Training can also shorten project durations, improve talent retention rates, and make it easier for an organization to attract new, high-quality talent. In many cases, these internal improvements can lead to an increased ability to innovate and even enhance fundraising or revenue-generating activities. At SOME, the organization’s needs were rapidly evolving and outgrowing the capacity of its existing tools. Leaders were facing significant struggles with managing the centralization of essential tasks, keeping up with complex compliance requirements, and providing supervisors with adequate support for managing their employees’ development effectively.
Today, Meredith Maimone is actively using the Percipio platform to transform this entire employee experience at SOME. By making the processes for learning and development more organized, engaging, and accessible, the L&D team has successfully increased employee enthusiasm for these initiatives. The platform offers a wide rangeof courses, from technical skills and professional certifications to vital soft skills and leadership training. By providing access to these high-quality educational resources, SOME ensures that all its employees have the opportunity to invest in themselves and commit to a journey of continuous growth. This strategic internal focus is the key to sustaining their external mission for the long term.
The ‘Whole-Person’ Model: A Holistic Strategy for Breaking the Cycle
The concept of “whole-person care” is a foundational pillar for organizations like So Others Might Eat (SOME). It represents a paradigm shift away from traditional, siloed models of social service. In a siloed approach, an individual experiencing homelessness might receive a meal from one organization, temporary shelter from another, and healthcare from a third, all while navigating complex and often contradictory systems with little to no communication between them. This fragmented process places an immense burden on the person in crisis, forcing them to manage their own case, reiterate their trauma, and navigate bureaucratic hurdles just to meet basic needs. The whole-person model, in contrast, is an integrated and comprehensive strategy designed to address the complex, interconnected nature of poverty and instability.
This model operates on the understanding that an individual’s challenges are rarely isolated. A lack of housing, for example, directly impacts a person’s ability to maintain employment, manage their physical and mental health, and even care for their children. By offering a wide array of services under one organizational umbrella, the whole-person model seeks to wrap support around the individual or family. This includes everything from housing and healthcare to workforce development and emergency services. This approach is grounded in dignity and respect, meeting people where they are and working with them to build a personalized roadmap to stability. The goal is not just to manage poverty, but to provide a clear and supported path out of it.
Beyond Shelter: The Critical Need for Integrated Services
The most immediate and visible need for an individual experiencing homelessness is shelter. However, providing a bed for the night, while essential for survival, does not address the underlying causes that led to that person losing their home. The “whole-person” or “Housing First” philosophy, which organizations like SOME embrace, posits that housing is the critical first step, not the last. Once an individual or family is stably housed, they are in a much stronger position to address other aspects of their lives. They no longer have to focus all their energy on daily survival—finding a safe place to sleep or protecting their belongings. Instead, they gain the mental and physical space to focus on health, employment, and personal goals.
This integration of services is what makes the model so effective. It creates a seamless support system where a case manager can connect a client with an in-house healthcare clinic, enroll them in a job training program, and provide access to mental health counseling simultaneously. This removes the logistical and emotional barriers to access, increases follow-through, and builds a trusting, long-term relationship between the client and the service provider. This holistic support system is sustained by a dedicated team of social workers, clinicians, and instructors who collaborate to ensure all of a client’s needs are being met, paving a sustainable path to success and self-sufficiency.
Component One: Housing First and Long-Term Stability
At the core of the whole-person model is a robust housing program. This component moves beyond the limitations of temporary emergency shelters to provide a continuum of housing options. This can include transitional housing, which offers a supportive environment for a set period, as well as permanent supportive housing for individuals and families who may have disabilities or chronic health conditions and require ongoing support. For organizations like SOME, this also includes the development of new, affordable housing units across the city, directly tackling the scarcity of low-cost living options that plagues residents. This commitment to creating physical homes is a tangible, long-term investment in the community’s stability.
The “Housing First” approach, a key part of this strategy, is revolutionary in its simplicity: it provides housing immediately, without prerequisites like mandatory sobriety or program participation. This evidence-based practice has shown that people are more successful in achieving goals related to health and employment once they are securely housed. By providing this foundational stability, organizations empower individuals to begin the work of rebuilding other areas of their lives. Housing becomes the platform from which all other recovery and growth are launched, rather than a reward to be earned after navigating a gauntlet of other requirements.
Component Two: Comprehensive Healthcare for At-Risk Populations
Individuals experiencing homelessness face severe and disproportionate health challenges. The stress of survival, exposure to the elements, and lack of access to basic hygiene facilities can exacerbate existing chronic conditions and lead to new, acute health problems. Furthermore, mental health issues and substance use disorders are often both a cause and a consequence of homelessness. A whole-person care model directly addresses this by integrating comprehensive healthcare services. This often includes on-site medical clinics, dental services, and behavioral health support, including psychiatric care and counseling. These services are offered to individuals, families, seniors, and veterans, ensuring all community members are cared for.
By co-locating healthcare with other services, organizations like SOME eliminate the common barriers of transportation, cost, and stigma. A person visiting a dining hall for a meal can also see a doctor, speak with a therapist, or get a dental check-up in a familiar, trusting environment. This integrated approach is particularly critical for treating chronic conditions like diabetes or hypertension, which require consistent management. It also allows for a more compassionate and effective approach to mental health and addiction treatment, framing them as health issues to be managed with dignity and clinical expertise, rather than as moral failures.
Component Three: Emergency and Social Services
While the long-term goal is stability, a whole-person model must also be equipped to handle immediate crises. This is the role of emergency and social services. This component acts as the organization’s frontline, providing a low-barrier entry point for individuals in acute distress. Services often include nutritious meals served daily in a welcoming dining hall, access to shower and laundry facilities, and the distribution of essential items like clothing and hygiene kits. These services are critical for meeting basic human needs and affirming the dignity of every person who walks through the door.
Beyond these immediate material needs, the social services team provides invaluable support. This includes case management, where individuals are paired with a dedicated social worker who helps them navigate the system, apply for benefits like food stamps or disability, obtain identification documents, and create a personalized plan for moving forward. This one-on-one support is the connective tissue that links clients to the organization’s other offerings, from housing placements to job training. It provides a consistent, supportive relationship that can be a powerful motivator for change and a crucial buffer against the isolation that so often accompanies poverty.
Component Four: Education and Workforce Development
The final, crucial pillar of the whole-person model is education and workforce development. This component is designed to equip individuals with the skills, credentials, and confidence they need to secure stable, living-wage employment and build a career. Recognizing that many clients have non-traditional education paths or gaps in their employment history, these programs are tailored to meet a wide range of needs. This might start with adult basic education, helping individuals earn their GED, and progress to more specialized career tracks. Organizations like SOME develop their own training programs, often in fields with clear local hiring pathways, such as healthcare administration, building maintenance, or information technology.
These workforce development programs go beyond simple technical training. They often include “soft skills” development, teaching essential workplace competencies like communication, teamwork, reliability, and conflict resolution. Job placement assistance, resume writing workshops, mock interviews, and retention support—which continues to help the client even after they are hired—are all vital parts of the process. This comprehensive approach empowers individuals to not only get a job but to keep it and advance within the workforce. It is this component that truly breaks the cycle of poverty, moving individuals from dependence on emergency services to a future defined by economic independence and success.
The Unseen Engine: Empowering Employees in Mission-Driven Organizations
The success of any community-based organization, particularly one employing a complex whole-person care model, rests entirely on the quality and dedication of its staff. The individuals who work on the frontline—the social workers, clinicians, instructors, and case managers—are the unseen engine driving the mission forward. They are the human connection that transforms a programmatic model into a lifeline of hope. At organizations like So Others Might Eat (SOME), this workforce is the primary vehicle for delivering dignity, respect, and empowerment to thousands of clients each year. Therefore, the well-being, skills, and professional growth of these employees are not secondary concerns; they are mission-critical imperatives.
However, working in this sector presents unique and significant challenges. The roles are often emotionally demanding, dealing with human trauma and systemic failure on a daily basis. Compensation in the non-profit sector frequently lags behind for-profit counterparts, and the risk of burnout is exceptionally high. Furthermore, many of these organizations, including SOME, make a conscious effort to hire from the communities they serve, bringing in employees who may have invaluable lived experience but who may also share non-traditional educational or professional backgrounds. Supporting this diverse and dedicated workforce requires an organizational commitment that mirrors the whole-person care model extended to clients.
Recognizing Non-Traditional Career Paths
A significant portion of the workforce in community-based organizations comes from non-traditional backgrounds. This may include individuals who have been recipients of similar services themselves, people entering the field as a second career, or those who have built their expertise through years of experience rather than a linear path of academic degrees. This lived experience is an irreplaceable asset. It fosters a deeper level of empathy, builds trust with clients more quickly, and provides practical insights that someone with only theoretical knowledge might miss. An employee who has successfully navigated the benefits system or overcome addiction can guide a client with an authenticity that cannot be taught.
However, this strength also presents a unique L&D challenge. An employee with incredible frontline instincts may lack the formal administrative skills needed to manage grant reporting. A gifted peer counselor might not have experience in clinical documentation. Organizations have a responsibility to honor the skills these employees bring while simultaneously providing the training needed to bridge any gaps. This investment is a proactive strategy that equips all employees with the comprehensive skills and knowledge necessary to not only excel in their current roles but also to advance within the workforce, creating career ladders within the organization.
The Intimidation Barrier: Asking for Help in High-Stakes Roles
In high-stakes, mission-driven work, asking for help can feel like an admission of failure. Employees are acutely aware that their performance directly impacts the well-being of vulnerable people. This pressure can create what Meredith Maimone, an Employee Experience Specialist at SOME, identifies as an “intimidation barrier.” Employees, particularly those with non-traditional backgrounds, may feel intimidated to ask for help or admit they don’t know how to do something. They might not even know where to begin to look for resources or what questions to ask. This reluctance to show vulnerability can lead to staff feeling isolated, stressed, and ill-equipped to handle the complex demands of their jobs.
This is where a formalized, accessible, and non-judgmental Learning & Development system becomes critical. It must create a safe space for growth. When learning resources are readily available, comprehensive, and private, employees are empowered to seek out information on their own terms. A frontline worker can take a course on de-escalation techniques, a new manager can review modules on effective supervision, and an administrative assistant can learn advanced spreadsheet skills, all without having to formally “ask for help” in a way that might feel exposing. This approach dismantles the intimidation barrier and fosters a culture of continuous, self-directed learning and psychological safety.
The Business Case for L&D in the Non-Profit Sector
Investing in robust employee training is not just a “nice to have” for non-profits; it is a strategic necessity. The dividends paid by this investment are manifold. Firstly, it directly improves the quality of service. A better-trained employee is a more effective, confident, and efficient employee. They make fewer errors, navigate complex client situations more skillfully, and are better equipped to manage the high-stress nature of the work. This leads directly to better outcomes for the clients being served. Secondly, it is a powerful tool for talent retention. The non-profit sector struggles with high turnover rates, which are costly and disruptive. Providing clear paths for professional development and growth shows employees they are valued, increasing their loyalty and reducing the desire to seek opportunities elsewhere.
Furthermore, a strong L&D program is essential for risk management and compliance. Non-profits operate in a highly regulated environment, with strict rules governing healthcare (like HIPAA), housing, and the handling of funds. Failure to comply can result in lost funding or legal jeopardy. Centralized training ensures that all staff are kept up-to-date on these critical requirements. Finally, this investment helps to build a more resilient and innovative organization. According to Skillsoft’s IT Skills and Salary Report, training improves team morale, shortens project durations, and increases the ability to innovate. For a non-profit, this translates to a greater capacity to adapt to changing community needs and develop new, effective solutions.
Bridging the Skills Gap for Frontline Staff
The skills required for frontline social service work are incredibly broad. An employee must be a counselor, an administrator, a mediator, and a subject-matter expert all at once. They need exceptional “soft skills”—empathy, active listening, patience, and cultural competency—to build trust with clients. Simultaneously, they require “hard skills”—proficiency in database management for case notes, knowledge of complex benefits eligibility rules, and an understanding of legal and ethical guidelines. Many employees are strong in one area but need development in the other. A comprehensive L&D strategy must address this full spectrum.
Organizations like SOME use learning platforms to provide a vast library of courses that cover this entire range. An employee can access technical training for a specific software program right alongside a course on personal resilience and managing secondary trauma. This ability to mix and match learning modules allows for a highly personalized development plan. It ensures that the organization is not just filling immediate, job-specific skill gaps but is also investing in the long-term well-being and professional maturity of its team. This holistic approach to employee development mirrors the holistic care model offered to clients, reinforcing the organization’s core values from the inside out.
The Role of the Employee Experience Specialist
The creation of roles like the “Employee Experience Specialist” signifies a critical shift in how non-profits view human resources. This role, held by Meredith Maimone at SOME, moves beyond traditional HR functions of compliance and payroll. It is strategically focused on the entire employee journey, from onboarding to career development and retention. This specialist is tasked with championing the internal culture and ensuring that the organization is a place where people can do their best work. A primary focus of this role is the implementation and promotion of Learning &Development initiatives.
This individual acts as a bridge between the organization’s strategic goals and the employees’ development needs. They are responsible for curating the learning content, promoting its use, and demonstrating its value to both leadership and staff. By focusing on the “experience” of learning, they work to make training engaging, relevant, and accessible, rather than a bureaucratic chore. This role is essential for transforming a simple collection of courses into a dynamic culture of learning. It ensures that the L&D platform is not just a tool that the organization has, but a resource that the organization uses effectively to empower its people.
Transforming Internal Culture Through Learning
Ultimately, the goal of investing in employee L&D is to transform the internal culture. When employees feel supported, competent, and valued, the entire organizational climate shifts. Morale improves, collaboration increases, and staff become more proactive and exploratory in solving problems. At SOME, the introduction of the Percipio platform was noted for precisely this effect. Maimone observed that staff “have become more exploratory and independent, often autonomously searching for and completing training modules that are in alignment with their professional and personal goals.” This shift is profound. It moves the organization from a reactive “compliance” model of training to a proactive “growth” model.
When employees “take charge of their growth,” as Maimone puts it, a powerful ripple effect is created. They become better at their jobs, which leads to better client outcomes. They become more engaged, which reduces burnout and turnover. And they become models of the very empowerment the organization seeks to instill in its clients. By providing a safe and accessible space for learning, the organization is tangibly demonstrating its commitment to continuous growth. This commitment ties directly back to the core mission: to serve the community as a whole, which includes the employees who are themselves vital community members.
Revolutionizing Non-Profit L&D: The Role of Modern Learning Platforms
For many mission-driven organizations, rapid growth and evolving community needs can quickly expose the limitations of traditional, ad-hoc training methods. What once worked for a small team, such as in-person workshops or emailed PDF guides, becomes completely unsustainable as the organization scales. At So Others Might Eat (SOME), leaders found themselves in this exact position. The organization’s needs were quickly outgrowing the available tools. They faced significant challenges in several key areas: the centralization of tasks, the consistent management of compliance requirements, and the ability to provide supervisors with adequate support and resources for managing their employees’ development. This is a common story in the non-profit world, where resources are tight and operational infrastructure often lags behind programmatic passion.
The solution lies in leveraging technology to create a more streamlined, efficient, and effective Learning & Development (L&D) ecosystem. Modern learning platforms, such as Skillsoft’s Percipio platform used by SOME, are designed to solve these specific challenges. These systems move beyond being simple content repositories; they are comprehensive “learning experience platforms” (LXPs) that can manage, deliver, and track learning across an entire organization. For a non-profit, this technological leap is not a luxury—it is a critical investment in sustainability and impact. It provides the infrastructure necessary to support a growing, diverse workforce, ensuring that every employee has the knowledge and skills needed to serve the community effectively.
The Challenge of Centralization and Compliance
In a large, multifaceted non-profit organization, training is not a single-track endeavor. The healthcare department has different compliance needs (like HIPAA) than the housing department (like Fair Housing laws), which has different needs than the administrative staff. Managing this complex web of requirements manually is a logistical nightmare. It often results in duplicated efforts, inconsistent information, and critical gaps in mandatory training. This lack of centralization creates significant risk for the organization, both legally and financially. Furthermore, it makes it impossible to get a clear, high-level view of the organization’s overall competency and compliance posture.
A modern learning platform solves this by serving as a single source of truth. All training materials, from internal policy documents to external certification courses, can be housed, updated, and distributed from one central dashboard. Administrators can create specific “learning journeys” or assignments for different roles or departments, ensuring that the right people get the right training at the right time. The platform can automatically track completions, send reminders for recertifications, and generate detailed reports. This centralization saves countless administrative hours, reduces risk, and provides leadership with the assurance that the organization is meeting all its compliance obligations efficiently.
Skills as the New Currency in Social Impact
The modern workforce, both in for-profit and non-profit sectors, increasingly operates on a currency of skills. An individual’s value and career trajectory are defined by their demonstrable competencies, not just their job title or years of service. For a social impact organization, this concept is twofold. First, the organization’s ability to achieve its mission is directly proportional to the collective skills of its staff. Second, a key part of the mission itself is to impart skills to clients through workforce development programs. Therefore, building a “skills-based” culture internally is essential. This requires a commitment to continuous upskilling and reskilling to keep pace with changing technologies, new therapeutic models, and evolving client needs.
This is where a robust learning platform becomes a driver of growth. To meet the challenge of ever-changing strategic goals, organizations must invest in their people. When leaders commit to this investment, it creates a virtuous cycle. Employees gain new skills, which improves their individual career development and job satisfaction. This, in turn, leads to a stronger, more adaptable, and more productive organization. As noted in Skillsoft’s IT Skills and Salary Report, this investment improves morale, retention, and the ability to innovate—all critical components for a non-profit seeking to make a lasting difference in a complex and challenging environment.
Introducing the Modern Learning Experience Platform
Meredith Maimone, the Employee Experience Specialist at SOME, is using the Percipio platform to fundamentally transform the employee experience. The key to this transformation is shifting from a passive, compliance-based training model to an active, engaging learning culture. A Learning Experience Platform (LXP) is designed to do exactly this. Unlike older Learning Management Systems (LMS) that were primarily top-down administrative tools, an LXP is built around the user. It functions more like a consumer streaming service, using personalization, recommendations, and a user-friendly interface to encourage exploration and self-directed learning.
For the staff at SOME, this has been a game-changer. Maimone notes that the platform’s ease of use and accessibility have made employees “more exploratory and independent.” They are no longer limited to the training that is assigned to them. They can now “autonomously search for and complete training modules that are in alignment with their professional and personal goals.” This autonomy is empowering. It gives employees ownership over their own growth and encourages them to pursue interests that may be adjacent to their current role, building a broader and more flexible skill set that benefits both them and the organization.
Key Features: Personalization and Customization
One of the most powerful features of a modern learning platform is its ability to deliver a personalized experience. The system can deliver training that is relevant to individual employees based on their role, their tenure, and even their answers to pre-training assessments. This personalization ensures that employees are not wasting time on content they already know or that is irrelevant to their job. It meets them where they are, making the learning process far more efficient and engaging. For an adult learner, relevance is the key to motivation.
Furthermore, these platforms are highly customizable to the organization’s specific needs. As Meredith Maimone, a former educator specializing in adult education, stated, “I am thoroughly impressed at Percipio’s ease of use and accessibility.” This customizability allows an organization like SOME to integrate its own internal lexicon, reflect its specific roles, and upload its own proprietary training materials alongside the platform’s existing library. This blending of internal and external content creates a seamless learning universe that feels specific and relevant to the employee, reinforcing the organization’s unique culture and values while simultaneously providing access to world-class, externally validated content.
Key Features: Scalability for a Diverse Workforce
For an organization like SOME, which serves diverse client populations and employs staff with equally diverse backgrounds, scalability is not optional. The L&D solution must be able to serve a frontline worker with a non-traditional education path just as effectively as it serves a clinician with an advanced degree. A modern LXP achieves this through its holistic learning journeys and assignments. These tools can adapt to changing business needs, new compliance requirements, and a growing or changing workforce without requiring a complete administrative overhaul.
This scalability is what allows the L&D team to move from putting out fires to thinking strategically. Instead of scrambling to organize individual workshops, administrators can design and deploy a comprehensive onboarding journey for all new hires, a leadership development track for new managers, or a recertification campaign for all clinical staff, all with a few clicks. This efficiency means that as the organization grows, its ability to train and support its staff grows with it, ensuring that quality and consistency of service are never compromised by scale.
Key Features: Efficiency and Versatility in Content
The versatility of content offered by platforms like Percipio is a massive advantage. Administrators are not limited to a single format. They can develop an assignment or learning path using virtually any combination of resources, including traditional courses, short micro-learning videos, audio summaries, e-books, and interactive simulations. This “multi-modal” approach caters to different learning styles and time constraints. An employee on a lunch break might watch a 5-minute video on conflict resolution, while a manager might dedicate an afternoon to a deep-dive course on strategic planning.
This dynamic content library also creates incredible efficiency. It reduces the need for administrators to create separate, redundant courses on similar topics. Instead, they can pull from a vast, existing library of high-quality content and customize it to their needs. This saves the L&D department an enormous amount of time and resources, freeing them up to focus on higher-level tasks like analyzing skills gaps and consulting with department heads on their specific development needs. For the employee, it means they have a rich, always-on library of resources at their fingertips, giving them an “easy-to-use starting point” for any question they might have.
Creating a Safe Space for Learning and Mistakes
Perhaps the most profound impact of a self-directed learning platform is the creation of a psychologically safe space for growth. As Maimone noted, many employees are intimidated to ask for help. A learning platform provides a private, consequence-free environment where employees can explore topics, make mistakes, and learn from them. They can retake a quiz, rewatch a video, or look up a term they don’t understand without fear of judgment. This is particularly important for building “soft skills,” which can feel personal and vulnerable to practice.
This safe space is where true learning happens. It encourages curiosity and intellectual humility. Maimone directly connects this internal benefit back to the organization’s external mission. “This ties back to our mission to serve our community as a whole,” she explained, “and provide this continuing education for our employees who are also our community members.” By investing in a tool that empowers employees to learn and grow without fear, SOME is reinforcing its core values of dignity and respect, applying them not only to the people they serve but to the people who serve.
Developing Leaders and Enhancing Support Systems
In the complex and demanding environment of social services, effective leadership is not a luxury; it is the fulcrum upon which programmatic success and staff well-being depend. Supervisors and managers are the primary conduit for organizational culture, strategy, and support. However, in many non-profit organizations, individuals are promoted into leadership roles because they were excellent at their frontline jobs—being a great case manager, for example—not necessarily because they have been trained in the distinct skills of managing, mentoring, and leading people. This common phenomenon creates a critical skills gap at the management level, which can lead to team burnout, high turnover, and inconsistent service delivery.
Recognizing this, organizations like So Others Might Eat (SOME) understand that their Learning & Development initiatives must have a dedicated focus on enhancing leadership development. When it comes to professional training programs, it is abundantly clear that one size does not fit all. The training needs of a new supervisor are fundamentally different from those of a frontline clinician or an administrative assistant. Leveraging a versatile learning platform like Percipio has been instrumental in allowing SOME to move beyond generic training and toward a more personalized and effective system of support. This targeted approach strengthens the leadership capabilities of supervisors, which in turn results in tangible, positive differences for the at-risk communities they serve.
Empowering Supervisors as L&D Partners
A modern learning platform transforms supervisors from being passive observers of training to active partners in their team’s development. In a traditional model, a manager might simply approve a training request. With an integrated LXP, supervisors are given tools and data to become true “people leaders.” They can work with their employees to co-create personalized development plans, pulling from the vast library of courses to target specific growth areas. They can assign relevant modules to help an employee prepare for a new project or move toward a promotion. This makes professional development an ongoing, collaborative conversation rather than a once-a-year review.
This partnership is a key part of the transformation Maimone describes at SOME. The platform helps supervisors to better provide this personalized support to their teams. A manager can see which employees are actively engaging in learning, what topics they are exploring, and where the entire team might share a common skills gap. This empowers the manager to have more meaningful, data-informed coaching conversations. Instead of just asking “How are things going?” they can ask, “I see you completed that course on project management. How can we apply those skills to our upcoming coat drive?” This makes learning immediate, practical, and integrated into the daily workflow.
Identifying and Closing Skills Gaps Proactively
One of the greatest challenges for any organization is identifying skills gaps before they become critical problems. Often, a gap is only discovered after a project fails, a compliance audit is negative, or a valued employee quits. A modern L&D platform provides the tools to be proactive rather than reactive. Through a combination of assessments, analytics, and supervisor feedback, the system can help L&D specialists and managers identify emerging gaps across the organization. For example, if many employees are searching for content on “managing remote teams” or “de-escalation,” it signals a clear organizational need that can be addressed system-wide.
At SOME, this capability allows supervisors to identify these gaps on their own teams and recommend relevant courses from the platform’s library. This is a highly efficient model. Instead of having to design and deliver a custom workshop for three people who need help with Excel, a manager can simply assign a pre-existing, high-quality course. This proactive and targeted approach ensures that the organization is constantly adapting and strengthening its collective skillset. It closes gaps quickly, preventing small issues from becoming major obstacles and ensuring the team is always equipped for the challenges at hand.
The Critical Importance of Soft Skills in Social Work
While technical skills and compliance knowledge are essential, the true currency of social service work is human connection. The “soft skills”—often more accurately described as “power skills”—are what allow an employee to build trust with a client in crisis, collaborate with a stressed colleague, or navigate the complex emotions of the work. These skills include active listening, empathy, communication, conflict resolution, time management, and personal resilience. For leaders, these skills are even more critical; they must be ableto motivate their team, give constructive feedback, and manage the secondary trauma that is prevalent in the field.
These are precisely the skills that organizations like SOME prioritize in their training. Skillsoft’s platform offers an extensive library dedicated to these areas, providing courses on leadership, communication, and emotional intelligence. For a workforce with diverse educational backgrounds, having access to this high-quality, standardized training in soft skills is invaluable. It provides a common language and a shared set of tools for navigating the intensely human-centered aspect of their work. Developing these skills is a direct investment in the quality of service, as a more empathetic and skilled communicator will always achieve better outcomes for their clients.
Fostering Leadership Capabilities at Every Level
A truly robust L&D strategy does not reserve leadership training only for those who already have “manager” in their title. It seeks to foster leadership capabilities at every level of the organization. A frontline case worker demonstrates leadership when they take initiative on a client’s case. An administrative assistant demonstrates leadership when they streamline a frustrating internal process. A healthy organization needs these “emergent leaders” to drive innovation and excellence from the ground up. An accessible, on-demand learning platform is the perfect tool for cultivating this.
Any employee, regardless of their role, can autonomously decide to take a course on “strategic thinking,” “public speaking,” or “influencing others.” This democratizes access to leadership development. Meredith Maimone highlighted this exact outcome when she noted that staff were “autonomously searching for and completing training modules that are in alignment with their professional and personal goals.” This self-directed upskilling creates a pipeline of future leaders for the organization. When a frontline employee takes the initiative to build their leadership skills, they are not only improving their own performance but are also preparing themselves to step into a formal leadership role when the opportunity arises, ensuring the organization’s long-term health.
Measuring the Tangible Differences in Community Outcomes
The ultimate test of any internal initiative within a non-profit is its impact on the mission. The reason for investing in leadership development and professional training is not just to create a happier workforce; it is to create a more effective one. The connection is direct: better-supported, better-trained, and better-led employees provide better services to the community. When a supervisor, newly trained in coaching and feedback, is able to help a struggling case manager improve their client engagement techniques, the direct result is a client who feels more respected and is more likely to follow through on their housing plan. This is the tangible difference.
While Maimone speaks of the internal “transformation” at SOME because of Percipio, this change is not the end goal. It is the means to an end. The enhanced leadership capabilities and stronger professional skills of the staff are what allow the organization to more effectively serve the at-row communities in D.C. A more efficient, skilled, and motivated team can house more people, provide better healthcare, and help more clients find stable employment. The L&D program becomes a critical component of program delivery, strengthening the entire organization’s capacity to break the cycle of poverty and restore hope.
The Ripple Effect: Continuous Growth, Community Impact, and a Better Future
The implementation of a strategic, technology-driven approach to Learning & Development within a community-based organization like So Others Might Eat (SOME) is more than just an internal upgrade. It is a profound investment that creates a powerful ripple effect, extending far beyond the organization’s walls and into the community it serves. The journey begins internally, by transforming the employee experience, but its ultimate destination is the fulfillment of the mission: breaking the cycles of poverty and homelessness. When employees are empowered with the tools and a culture that supports their continuous growth, they become more effective agents of change. This internal empowerment directly translates into a higher quality of service, deeper client impact, and a more sustainable model for social change.
“We’ve transformed because of Percipio,” stated Meredith Maimone, an Employee Experience Specialist at SOME. This declaration of transformation is not merely about administrative efficiency or a wider course catalog. It signifies a cultural shift. It reflects a move toward an organization that actively practices the empowerment it preaches. By prioritizing education and continuous personal growth for its own staff, SOME empowers its employees to transcend any past challenging circumstances they themselves may have faced. This, in turn, equips them with the skills, confidence, and resilience needed to work towards building a better, more stable future for themselves and for the thousands of community members they serve every day.
Transcending Challenging Circumstances Through Empowerment
Many employees at organizations like SOME have non-traditional career paths and may come from the very communities they now serve. This lived experience is an invaluable asset, but it can also be coupled with a history of facing systemic barriers to education and professional advancement. A workplace that offers free, accessible, and high-quality learning opportunities becomes a powerful tool for social mobility. It provides a tangible pathway for employees to build new skills, earn certifications, and advance in their careers. This is a life-changing benefit that goes far beyond a paycheck. It is an investment in their potential, sending a clear message that their growth matters.
This act of internal empowerment is the first “ripple.” An employee who feels invested in, valued, and confident in their skills is less likely to suffer from burnout and more likely to be engaged in their work. This positive energy is directly transferred to their client interactions. They become living proof that growth and change are possible. This dynamic is especially powerful in the context of SOME’s whole-person care model. The organization is not just providing services; it is fostering a community of “community members,” as Maimone puts it, where both staff and clients are on a journey of continuous growth and empowerment together.
Fostering Autonomy and Independent Growth
A key indicator of this cultural transformation is the shift from “mandatory training” to “autonomous learning.” Maimone’s observation that staff have become “more exploratory and independent” is critical. When employees are “autonomously searching for and completing training modules” that align with their personal and professional goals, the organization has successfully created a culture of learning, not just a training program. This autonomy is deeply empowering. It respects the employee as an adult learner who is capable of directing their own development. It dismantles the “intimidation barrier” and encourages curiosity, problem-solving, and personal initiative.
This independence is wonderful for the employee’s morale, but it is also a massive strategic benefit for the organization. An employee who independently seeks out a course on data analysis might develop a new way to track client outcomes. An employee who explores modules on public speaking might become a powerful advocate for the organization’s mission. As Maimone reflected, “It’s wonderful to see our employees take charge of their growth in this way.” This self-directed learning builds a more resilient, skilled, and innovative workforce from the ground up, ensuring the organization is prepared to meet future challenges.
The Ripple Effect: Better Staff, Better Services, Stronger Communities
This is where the ripple reaches the community. The connection is direct and undeniable. A well-trained, well-supported, and engaged workforce delivers a higher quality of service. A case manager who has completed training on new benefits policies can secure resources for a client more quickly. A clinician trained in the latest therapeutic techniques can provide more effective mental healthcare. A housing specialist who has taken courses on Fair Housing law can advocate more successfully for their clients. A leader trained in effective coaching can manage their team to reduce burnout, ensuring clients receive consistent, compassionate care from a stable and experienced staff.
This enhancement of skills across the organization leads to better client outcomes. More clients are housed, more clients secure and maintain employment, and more clients achieve stability and health. The investment in a platform like Skillsoft’s Percipio, therefore, is not an administrative overhead cost. It is a direct program investment. It is the mechanism that sharpens the organization’s most important tool: its people. The “tangible differences for the at-risk communities in D.C.” that the program enables are the entire point. By building a better internal support system, SOME builds a more powerful engine for external social change.
The Future of Education in the Non-Profit Sector
The model demonstrated by SOME and its partnership with Skillsoft points to the future of education and development in the non-profit sector. In this model, learning is not a sporadic, one-off event. It is continuous, integrated, and accessible to everyone. Technology serves as the great equalizer, providing world-class educational resources to employees who may not have had access to them otherwise. This democratization of learning is essential for building a more equitable and effective social service sector. It allows organizations to be more agile, responding to new challenges by quickly upskilling their workforce.
As a former educator specializing in adult education, Maimone’s endorsement of the platform’s “ease of use and accessibility” is a powerful testament to this new model. The future of non-profit L&D is not about forcing compliance; it is about inspiring growth. It is about providing tools that are so intuitive and valuable that employees want to use them. This approach respects the professionalism of the staff and trusts them to be partners in the organization’s mission, rather than just recipients of top-down directives.
Building a Sustainable Model for Social Change
The challenges of poverty and homelessness are immense, and the 12% increase in homelessness in a single year shows the fight is far from over. For community-based organizations on the front lines, sustainability is a constant concern. Burnout, high turnover, and funding challenges can threaten to derail even the most passionate efforts. The strategic investment in employee education and development is a core component of building a sustainable organization. It future-proofs the workforce, reduces the high costs associated with turnover, and creates a virtuous cycle of improvement.
By making it easier than ever to support continuous learning, explore new skills, and develop existing ones, platforms like Percipio become part of the sustainability plan. They help create an organization that learns, adapts, and grows stronger over time. This resilience allows the organization to continue its lifesaving work year after year, weathering storms and seizing new opportunities to serve. The internal culture of growth becomes a renewable energy source that fuels the external mission.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the story of SOME and its L&D transformation is a story of hope. It begins with the record-high numbers of individuals experiencing homelessness, a statistic that can feel overwhelming. But it pivots to a tangible, effective solution. The organization’s whole-person care model provides a comprehensive pathway out of poverty. The internal L&D initiative ensures that the staff guiding people on that pathway are the most skilled, supported, and compassionate guides they can be.
By providing employees with a safe space to learn, make mistakes, and grow, SOME is doing more than just building a better workplace. It is living its mission from the inside out. This commitment to continuous growth for everyone—staff and clients alike—is the key to breaking the cycle. It empowers employees to transcend their own challenges, and in doing so, empowers them to help community members build a better future for themselves. This holistic, people-centered approach, powering both internal and external change, is how hope is restored and how, piece by piece, the cycle of poverty is broken.