An Army of Normal Folks - Closing the Loop

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

For Shop Talk, we deep dive into 211, a nationwide helpline which fields over 16 million requests each year and how a brand-new solution is helping to close the loop on these calls. The story offers great lessons for Army members and a way that you might be able to help the 211 system. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney. Welcome to Shop Talk number 73. Alex, what's up? Wow. Yeah, that's a pretty exciting. Shut Talk number 73 intro, isn't it? How you doing? I'm doing great.

Good, good. Hey, how's my guy, George? What's he up to? Actually, we're time stamping it, but his birthday is going to be this Wednesday. Oh. Yeah. Good.

going to be six. It's going to be six. Good job, Bill. That's impressive. Yeah. Thank you. That's pretty cool. George is a sweet kid. He's also always got this funny look on his face. I like being around them. All right, everybody. Shop talk number 73. It's actually from Stand Together's website. How do I describe Stand Together, Alex? What do I say about Stand Together? I mean, something like they're a philanthropic community who believes in bottom-up solutions. Is that all we're going to say? That's good enough for now. Okay. They're awesome. They support. Actually, I mean, one thing we could say is they've um they've supported probably around 20 of our guests through their catalyst program um so a lot of our awesome guests that you've heard have come from them and when we say

support really backed them and supported them both financially and with uh wisdom tools yeah all kinds of stuff yeah and they're based in dc correct and what else can we say about stand together they're cool well you're about to find out how they're cool in this episode in this article and more to come on stand together i promise uh well we can also say they did a they did a little uh beautiful new video on us yeah we've not talked about on the podcast we'll tell them about so you go to stand together's youtube channel and they did like a beautiful seven and a half minute almost mini documentary on an army and normal folks and me and you stop being so arrogant well that's why it's so beautiful because i'm so pretty in it good lord i have a face for radio actually i don't we talked about this

before on one of your videos maybe it was on kelly clarkson or sherry they said you look like Donald Trump. I know, that's the worst ever. Oh, my gosh. That is the worst ever. But I've lost weight since then. So good. All right.

Shop Talk number 73 from Stand Together's website, more on Stand Together later, as we can reveal more, I guess. That's a tease, isn't it? It's ridiculous, but keep going. Okay. It's a good tease, though, isn't it? Kind of. I don't know.

What really happens after someone calls 211 for help? That's weird. I don't even understand it, but we're going to chop into it right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven,

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to get you to toss that sandwich So let's see how it goes Listen to season four of Snap-Foo With Ed Helms on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts At 19 Elena Sada believed she had found her calling In the new season of Sacred Scandal

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Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Secret Scandal, the mini secrets of Marcial Marciel, as part of the My Cultura podcast network on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get her podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out.

of control. Thirty-five years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur. Thirty-five long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did. Why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right to the victim's family and apologize? Turn to the left, tell my family I love him.

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Okay, everybody, welcome back shop talk number 73. Three, from Stand Together's website, what really happens after someone calls 2-1-1 for help? When someone's heat gets shut off or they need shelter for the night or food to get through the week, they can call 2-1-1, a free nationwide helpline that connects people in crisis to local resources. For decades, that call was the end of the story, but now a new innovation is changing what happens next. Are you familiar with this phone number? No. I need to call 211 to find out about it, apparently. No worry, what's information, 311 or 411?

Yeah, I need to call 411 to find out about 211, and I need to do it on the PDQ. How about that? Just keep going. I might do it on the QT. Okay. Every year, 211 receives between 16 and 20 million requests for help. I don't know what 211 is, but clearly 20 million people do. Your family's called it about you.

Probably so. Every year, 211 receives between 16 and 20 million requests for help. It's the country's most comprehensive source for connecting individuals and families to food, housing, medical care, and more. But for decades, one of the phone lines disconnected the federal specialist. That's the person who took the call and connected the caller. never knew what happened next. Really? So once the phone line disconnected,

the referral specialist had no idea what happened to the people that he referred to somebody. All right. Quote, I worried we were setting people up with a false promise, says KC. Fox,

vice president of 211 and community crisis at mile high United Way in Denver. We offered to follow up, but we didn't have the capacity to actually do it. This was a problem 211 leaders had identified and brought to the Stand Together Foundation.

Together, they created Loop. Loop is a mobile-based platform that checks back in with callers after the line goes dead, asking simple essential questions. Did you get the help you needed? What stood in the way? Loop closes the loop, Fox explained. It changes the conversation from one and done to an ongoing connection. We're not just hoping anymore.

We're actually hearing what happened. The change began with a request. 211 call centers across the country wanted to know whether the people they served were actually getting the support they needed. In response, Stand Together Foundation partnered directly with 211 teams across the country to co-create Loop, a text-based platform that ensures every customer gets a feedback response text. Loop collects feedback from callers, tracks referral outcomes, and gives 211 centers real-time, insight into what's working and probably more importantly what's not we were doing some follow-up before loop but it was under 5% said Bill Crum CEO of the United Way of

Salt Lake City with Loop we're now reaching out virtually 100% of the people we serve that kind of impact didn't happen by accident from the beginning Loop was developed through a hands-on collaborative process between local 211 leaders and the stand-together from Foundation. Frontline teams help shape every part of the platform, identifying pain points, stress testing workflows, and ensuring that the design reflected real-world needs. For Todd Jordan, the Vice President of Community Impact, and Executive Director of 211 for United Way of Greater Kansas City, Loop filled the long-standing operational gap. Quote, we never had the capacity to follow

up consistently. We'd send people to resources and hope it worked out to explain. Now we know. We're not just guessing. We're learning what actually happens next. And when those results reveal issues, teams can respond in real time. Lupas also help us improve accuracy of our data, Fox added. Callers let us know when something like a food pantry is closed and we're able to immediately update our system so the next person doesn't hit that same wall. Through their work with Loop, 211 leaders uncovered a surprising pattern. When people failed to connect with the help they needed, the root problem often wasn't a lack of motivation or failure to follow through. Instead, it was something far more structural, Krimm explained, that most barriers fell into one

of three categories, personal, systemic, or availability-related. Sometimes the service provider's own system was very difficult to navigate, Krim said, and sometimes the service simply wasn't available like affordable housing or utility assistant that's already out of funds. This insight revealed a fundamental flaw in the traditional two-one run approach. Handing someone a phone number or a list of services wasn't enough. For many, the system was too complicated, too fragmented, or simply out of options. That realization led to a critical shift. from providing information to actively navigating services. Rather than expecting people to figure it out alone,

2-1-1 teams began walking alongside them through the process. Service navigation means more than pointing someone the right direction. It includes help with filling out forms, following up to ensure services were accessed, and even creative solutions like partnering with ride-hailing companies to overcome transportation barriers. We no longer start with a mindset of giving information. We start with service navigation, Krim said.

The point isn't just to tell people where to go, is to walk with them until they get what they need. The transformation was echoed in Kansas City, too. We're evolving from a list of referrals to being a real partner in navigating an increasingly complex system, Jordan said. That's what people deserve. Fox agreed. People are in fight or flight when they call. call us. Loop keeps the conversation going so they don't have to start over each time. They know we're still there, still walking with them. How cool is that? That's very, very cool. I didn't

know what 211 was. So apparently when you call 211, if you're in dire need, they have traditionally just said, okay, call these people for food, call these people for rent assistance, call these people if your lights are about to go off in the winter or whatever. And now this loop system actually helps this call centers walk people through the process so they actually get the help they need. Very cool. And another awesome deal that stand together did. Amen. So two thoughts. One is if you know the most obvious thing, if you know people at United Way in your community, it'd be great to connect them to this solution. Yeah, that's awesome. And then the second thing is thinking more deeply, like so many nonprofits and efforts. like this. People just talk about how many people we served. We served this many people. We took

this many phone calls. We connected. And there's no follow-up in figuring out was the person actually helped. There's no data points to know. Did any of that actually have any effect? Darren Babcock, I'd speak about it beautifully like, hey, you help someone get housing or a job. But it's like, what happens six months or a year later? There's no data in so many of these places like tracking what actually happened. So the point is, Luke for 211, loop on a grander scale needs to that that the example of what loop is done for 211 could certainly be used in all of the other stuff we talk about what's the follow up yep for those that aren't following up pretty cool all right everybody shop

number 73 loop for 211 but it's a great example or reminder of It's not just enough to point someone in the right direction. Oftentimes, we need to be able to walk with them and help them navigate processes to get what we're actually trying to help them to get when serving them. You saying that just made me think of a funny example. Did you know, Bill, that the original Home Depot did not have aisle numbers in them?

Why? So Bernie Marcus, the founder, his idea was, you are going to take that customer's hand and walk them over to the aisle because it was that level of service we want to have with people. Is that right? Is that right? Yep. What happened?

It's a shame they exchanged it. I don't know. But that's pretty interesting. Isn't that? Yeah. Did you know that the first supermarket, the customers didn't walk the aisles? I know that. I've actually done a ton of storytelling on supermarkets.

Yeah, that's really cool. Actually, you would walk in with your list, and it was a system of conveyors. instead of vials and stock clerks would go get your list and put on conveyors and all come up to the front of the store and then you'd bag it and go that's kind of interesting yeah you know invented that oh i think you might be wrong about that i know you said before it's uh it's clarence saunders i don't know it's pigly wiggly no i don't think it's actually true really yeah so i've done some storytelling about mire they're the first super center in the country it's actually funny as sam walton but try to buy him three times and he said no each time and he started refusing sam walton's

phone number but he copied it off of somebody else i think it's actually a guy named sol i'm blank on his name right now but i don't think it was pigly wiggily sorry i think it was clarence saunders i'll probably do a new future shop talk about this all right well don't you figure it out we'll do yeah all right that shop talk number 73 the idea is this don't just show help walk with people loop them, just like Stand Together has done to help the 2-1-1 system actually become more effective in our country.

It is a cool example of, like, so many of our stories, like, obviously we want people to get involved in what they can do in their community, but a lot of that impact could be pretty simple. It's like literally reaching out, like, hey, I'm in Memphis, I know somebody who's involved with the United Way. Let me send this to them. Like, often you can make a big impact

of just like a five-minute phone call or email. Yeah, but first you have to listen to an army and normal folks and shop talk. to even get the ideas. So the segue to that is, please share us with friends and on social, tell people about us, rate and review us,

join the army at normalfolks. And if you have any ideas for shop talk or guest, write me anytime at bill at normalfolks. And until we meet again, do what you can. That's shop talk number 73. We'll see you next week. Two rich young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over,

but one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve and a spectacular new home. But little by little, they lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to hell in heaven on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ed Helms host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode.

32 lost nuclear weapons. Wait, stop? What? Yeah, it's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Shearer. Angela and Jenna. Nick Kroll. Jordan, Klepper.

Listen to season four of Snafu with Ed Helms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Elena Sada was a nun for the Legion of Cruel. Christ. This season, she's telling her story. When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Marcia Maselle, the leader of the legionaries, look me in the eye and told me I had a calling. Surviving meant hiding. Escaping took courage, risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Marcial Masiel on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here, this season on Revisionous

history, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years, that's probably not long enough. And I didn't kill them. From Revisionous History,

this is The Alabama murders. Listen to Revisionous History, the Alabama murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast.

Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about how to be a better you. When you think about emotion regulation, we're not going to choose an adaptive strategy, which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denials easier. Complex problem solving.

Takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Thank you.