An Army of Normal Folks - HIGHLIGHTS: His Tool Helped 13,000 Families Out of Crisis. This is How | Restore Hope

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Paul Chapman spent years doing charitable work until he finally got frustrated by this: the people trying to help were often doing great work — but they were doing it in silos and too many families still weren’t flourishing.  So he built "HopeHub” to connect nonprofits, churches, law enforcement, child welfare, treatment providers, and others around the very same family, so that they could stop making families try to find help in 10 different places and start working together to empower them. What started as an effort to help 100 families has now reached more than 13,000 and in Sebastian County, Arkansas family reunification rates have gone from a statewide average of 43% to 70% for Hope Hub clients!  This innovative leader will teach you how changing the world can start with only 100 families — and why breaking down silos just might be one of the most powerful ways to change lives. ARMY ACTIONS Subscribe to the podcast and rate & review us! Signup to join the Army, visit NormalFolks.org Follow us on social media @ArmyofNormalFolks Join or start an ANF local service club at https://normalfolks.org/service-clubs/ Take The 10 Level Challenge, "the hero's journey for service" at 10LevelChallenge.orgSupport the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm not giving you any money. You're solving the wrong problem. I'd go lock all those smart people that built this in a room and don't let them out until they come up with a solution for $10,000. The tool that you have provided has now held 51.004. On average, there are 10 people on one of our case. One human being has to feel like they literally do have a, quote, village around them. There's a community everywhere. Why don't you just start loving the community you're in? Your engagement really needs to follow what you're good at.

This is Army of Normal Folks, where our mission is to make service easier for us all, and together change the country. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Do we want to jump right in? Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish right inside the free IHard Radio app. Make some noise. Wooee!

Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like Bestie Listen, Hey Jonas, and Las Culturistas. Now with full video. I'll just leave that there. It's the same hosts and the same. same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen. Open the free IHR Radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my... your thing shut up. Don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the

IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. Someone says. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages

inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B.

I'm Julie Pinero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I'm a rare space where I I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people, and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of

yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Paul Chapman, the director of Restore Hope and Fort Smith, Arkansas, just drove three hours to hang out with me. What's up, dude? Hey, Bill. Thanks for the invite. Incarceration is down 20% in Sebastian County. That's Arkansas. And kids in foster care reunifying with their families is now 72% when the state average is 43% because of a tool you built. So what did you build? Yeah, it's called it.

We call it the Restore Hope model now. And there's some art and some science to it. And so there is this technology called Hope Hub. That's called Hope Hub. Hope Hub. Yep, hope hub.io is the website. It's a collaborative case management system that is Hephaferpa-Copa compliant, which just means that you can talk about someone's personal life and situations

if they give you permission across sectors. So the child welfare person could be talking to the substance abuse provider, could be talking to the church that provides the class that the mom needs to take in order to be able to get trial home placements and all the, these folks that are just trying to help mom get reunified with her children are all being able to collaborate, coordinate the same way. And then that system also takes all that interaction and builds you a set of real-time, so what numbers, outcome numbers, rather than just the, I delivered my unit of counseling, or I gave them a food box, or here's how much food we gave, which

are all important things. But the real question then is, so what? You know, did, did mom get her kids back. Is mom working? Well, what's her state? What's her mental state look like now? If mom slept in her car last night with her kids, and that's how she caught her child welfare case, right? You could give her to a mental health specialist, and if that mental health counselor is not connected to people who can address things like not sleeping in your car or not using substances, then the best that that counselor could probably do is just give you tools to deal with the trouble that you're in. Rather, than removing those types of things, like now you're in an apartment, and you're not stressed out because you and your baby's sleeping in the car. So it's not an app.

It's a, isn't it an app? I don't know. It's mobile accessible, but it is a web-based platform that allows people in the community, professionals in the community, to be able to put on one person's case and to coordinate their actions. You know what I think about when I heard this, when I've read this, read this about you. And it's probably a horrible metaphor, but I can't help it. It's prior to 911, the FBI had their database. The CIA had their database. The military had their database. The local police department had their database. The state police had their database. We had all of these. I think I think the number literally is when you add in the Port Authority, there are 14,

well-funded law enforcement agencies all designed to stop an issue from happening that was 9-11, but none of them ever talked to each other. It wasn't an information problem in that case, was it? Oh, and shortly after all that changed. And so now all of this information is cross-referenced, including the military at Fort Meade. One person's information cross-references with another person's information, and we fold the attack. Why do I think that's metaphorically interesting to your story is you are creating a web-based

platform. We do these stories all the time, and I want you to talk to this, but there's often someone really doing good foster care work, but they're not taking care of substance of use and this and that and the other. So even if they get the good foster care work, if the other issues aren't all connected into a holistic approach to helping someone, then, yeah, you're fixing one thing, but because they're not communicating, it's not a holistic approach, right? And so that's what you do, right?

You connect all of the issues into one platform where everybody's serving a person or a family can see all of the issues so they can be worked on together. Am I missing? No, no, you're exactly right. One of the kind of pictures that I used to think of, because I did a lot of kind of frontline work and then some funding of frontline partners back in the day before we developed this app. And we were constantly frustrated with, we were doing all this work to help men and women get out of prison and get back with their families. But then they would have a driver's license issue. And the court was, it was a misdemeanor court.

They've got a warrant out for their arrest. It's four years old when their life was chaos before they weren't. incarcerated and now they're coming back out, but that issue didn't go away. It's still there. But I don't have anyone on staff as well funded as we were in some of our programs to drive two hours away to court to sit there all day, to meet with the judge to address the particular issue, and then drive that person all the way back. So we just ignored it. And so the future, it's not, quote, what you do. And it's not what we do. But I didn't know anyone that did driver's license. Yet in Arkansas, in many other places, but in Arkansas, it's a really big deal for someone whose life has been chaos and crisis, and they're trying to get out of it.

Driver's license are a really big deal. Often, we will find someone in a district court, misdemeanor crime on their way to felony conviction and incarceration. And so they've got all these misdemeanor problems that are out there with warrants for their arrest. And so they've broken the law, but it's a misdemeanor crime. crime, then we've got felony, and then we've got incarceration, average. Is the felony a result of the misdemeanor? No, it's a, it's a result. Another felonies.

It's another thing. But when they've served their time on the felony and come back out. They cleaned up the misdemeanor. All the misdemeanor say, and so now they're up probation. You can be sober, you can, you're seeing your kids, you know, you're doing everything right, and then you get pulled over for a traffic violation, and then they'll send you over. They'll put you in jail, then someone from two hours away will come and get you in a couple of days when they can, and then you'll go. Now you've lost your job, and then you're not going to pay

your rent. And exactly, and so these issues, if we're going to help someone get clean and get on to live in life, then we're going to have to help them address all those things and not just leave them along that word picture I was thinking of in your talk of you could be really good at foster care but not some of these other things is it's a rocket that doesn't have enough fuel it's really impressive at lift off and I'm not saying that you don't help people I'm just saying that there's not enough fuel in that rocket to actually gain orbit and so it comes crashing back down we saw that over and over again it was one of the reasons why we ended up kind of kind of putting down our direct service work and not figuring out how do we help other direct service providers

all do what they do together. Were you surprised to find that there was somebody doing work in every need capacity out there? You just had to connect them all. Just got to go find them. Yeah. But they're there. Yes, in every community of any size. We work right now in a community with 3,000, it's a county in Arkansas, 3,000 humans, 12,000

deer is what the gammon fish think they're there. And they have resources in a 3,000 person county in Arkansas. And there's a lot of driving to the larger town where you do business, but everyone does that anyway. But there are services in a county with 3,000 people in it. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, there's Army members looking to start one of our ANF local service clubs in Oklahoma, San Antonio, Texas, Lincoln, Nebraska, Huntsville, Alabama, Bozeman, Montana, and Sumner County, Kansas. If you happen to live in one of those areas and would be interested in being a part of the potential club, shoot Alex an email at Alex at normalfolks.org, and he'd love to connect with you

and the person looking to start the club. And if you'd be interested in starting one of these clubs yourself, shoot Alex an email too. You can also learn more about them at normalfokes.org back slash service clubs. We'll be right back. Hey, I'm Ruby Carr, the host of the podcast, Encore. Check out our brand new episodes featuring music from the show

that everyone is reheating as we speak. Heated rivalry. Join me as I go behind the songs that brought Shane and Elia together I'll tell you the stories of Fice, My Moon, My Man, Wolf Parades, I'll Believe in Anything, and tattoos all the things she said, and how they all became a part of this global phenomenon. Stream encore on IHeart Radio, Crave, or wherever you get your podcasts. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part bookbookbook. Club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. So I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling. characters, and that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus, or this random dude is offering.

bring me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people, and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is, and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. So most nonprofits are competing for a lot of the same grant dollars. they're also serving a lot of the same families, but they don't partner, which clearly hasn't been working. I mean, there's a lot of nonprofits do great work, and what they do is working. But if you think about the success of the human being, if all of the other things aren't working, it's not all working. but HOPUB enables them to actually work together. So not only is it a platform that everybody's aware of the issues, it allows the, I'm going to call them providers, I guess, to work together.

So what kind of community has it created that, community of, I guess, providers has it created that the vast majority of us are missing? Yeah. Does that even ask right? Yeah, no, I know exactly what you're talking about. Let me give you the example of the first place we went was Fort Smith. We went to Fort Smith 10 years ago because... National Show.

Tell everybody to where Fort Smith is. Yeah, what's Fort Smith look like? Yeah, so Fort Smith, big manufacturing town, you know, back in the day, it was the true grit area. It's right on the Arkansas River. You look over the river and into Oklahoma, which used to be the territories. And so the hanging judge and the marshals, there's a big marshals. Did you know the Oklahoma was the 46 state admitted to the union? 46.

No, I didn't know that. I didn't either until about 20 months ago. If we showed up, we were recording a shop talk and that came up. Anyway, sorry. I just thought that was Atlantic is crossing a squirrel at a tree. Yeah, Fort Smith, River looking over. Yeah, yeah. Had this kind of frontier mindset back in the day, heavy manufacturing, so a lot of manufacturers

that are there. But kind of as the wall fell and globalization started taking place in the 90s and into the 2000s, one of those jobs were moving south and east. And so you had less jobs for people where you could make it. A family could make it on one or one and a half incomes. Now two incomes weren't one cutting it. And so in Arkansas, it was probably our largest community that was impacted by globalization. This doesn't count the Delta, which is a different agricultural problem. But we had high drug use. There are on average in every community across the nation, there are five kids per thousand. That's the national average in foster care. There were 28 kids per thousand in foster care. Three times. Free reduced launch was way, way up there. Drug use was

way up there, incarceration, and felony convictions way up there. And so what you had was you had about a 15-year period of time in which people felt hopeless. And it started to truly impact every institution in that community. And so we went there first just out of sheer need. And we were talking with law enforcement and county officials and the mayors and providers and law enforcement the pro probation and child welfare. We said, we've got a partner. And they all had some reason to want to partner because the morale was pretty low because it kept getting works.

And so no matter what program they were running in their silo, it still didn't impact the real problem that they were. Problem kept going out. So we had this one moment. Let me ask a question. You said in their silo. Yeah. So there were probably lots of people working.

on 10 different issues, but in individual 10 different individual silos. You bet. Okay. So that's the best people I've ever met. Right. They're just trying to hold it together. Right. But they are operating in their blinded silo because that's, quote, what they do.

You bet. And then there's nine other people doing other stuff that's important, but that's what they do. Yeah. Okay. So. And so we finally had this one meeting in the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith boardroom. room, which we had these leaders. And we all just kind of acknowledged that our best wasn't good enough individually. And so we were going to, and we had just acquired software system, this

base code that is now HOPUB. And we said, this is what I'm asking everyone to do, is can we work together in this new way? And we'll communicate in this software, but could we work together in this new way, solving problems for the individuals that we're all touching until we could help 100 families move from crisis to queer. And then we could call it quits. Not a for everything. We're not getting married. We're just going to get it done for 100 families. Let's see if it works. And let's see if it works. And by the time we had 22 families onboarded two months later, I'm sitting next to the brand new chief of police and Karen that works with us. She was the first coordinator, bringing everyone together there she starts pulling this data and sticking it in the PowerPoint we're all in this

big room and she's clicking through that here's where people started in housing and in substance abuse and then food and in jobs and income and here's where they are now just two months later and the police chief i knew that i knew that we had it because he goes it's working and that kind of momentum for the leaders of these key institutions is so important because they believe that now their effort, just like our clients, right? Why try if you don't, if there's no hope, why try? We say hope is fuel for action. It's true for leaders and communities, too. That's really a good point. You were told it would never work, but now governors are replicating your model, so what changed? Yeah, Arkansas, 10, 12 years ago, we were in trouble. We had the fastest growing

prison population in the nation in our foster care in Arkansas in Arkansas yeah we grew about 21 22 percent over about a four-year period of time a man had gotten out of prison in 2012 again and killed an 18-year-old young boy and it was one of those catalytic events where the legislator and the public are they were demanding they were nuts and so uh we reformed parole and probation but mostly parole but we incarcerated a lot of people. And it was usually on technical violations. You're not meeting the demands of parole. Bill, cells, lock them up.

Yep. And so we're leasing space from our neighbors, Louisiana, and maybe some from Texas, too. We just had a lot of people incarcerated. But the number of kids in foster care group of the same growth curve. You have an error. All right, so it was the increase in prison population was 20-something percent, which About 20% for about four years. And the amount of kids going and foster care was increasing by the same rate.

It was about the same amount, yeah. Well, I mean, I don't have any data or analytics on that, but you would have to be an idiot not to think that the two that were on a string together. So the directors for incarceration and foster care, they're bought in. They're like, we've got to get the community engaged in helping these people solve the problems that they have because we do not possess. the ability to get someone a job and to help them get back with their kids and their loved ones. And that's community work. And so how is it that agencies organize themselves to partner with the community? These are low-trust, high-risk environments. And so you've got to get it right. And so this tool was built with the input of these leaders of organizations,

with the partnership of the governor's office at the time. And then by many, many community-based organizations, many of whom had licenses, they're counselors of some type, they're professionals. And to keep that license, you have a lot of oversight. They're like, we can do it this way, we can't do it that way. All that went into the design of the tool. But I think I read you had a high net worth potential donor

sit and listen to you. And at the end of it, when he heard. He asked a question, like, how many people are you going to help? And you said, we're starting with the hundred families. And he was like, no, I'm not in. Yeah, that actually led to. That close. Yeah. So we had built this reentry program over a number of years where it was the only place in Arkansas

where inmates were being brought out of prison and were taken to a historically black college downtown Little Rock, Arkansas Baptist County. And I'm still friends and partners with Dr. Fitzhift. Hill over there, who's a coach, by the way, said, just bring those folks here. I'll get them college, and then we put some things around it, and then ended up over years of them going to college and many not being able to complete building a 240-hour pre-release program that we called the Exodus Project. That could lead many into a, we acquired a very large transitional house that had some

additional services around it that really helped a lot of people kind of get stabilized, get out and good job and get back in it. And so we were asking a benevolent guy who is a dynamite businessman. We said, you know, we showed him around and he said, this is dynamite. We're like, yeah, we know. We were reducing recidivism by 10% for six months. Department of Corrections asking us to replicate this anywhere and they'll help. So, you know, participants won't be a problem.

And he said, well, how many people can go through? We said, 200 people can go through a year. We're trying to make it 400. people a year. He said, but how many people get at Arkansas prison in a year? At the time, it was 10,000. He was 10,000 people. And he goes, I'm not giving you any money. You're solving

the wrong problem. He goes, with y'all's influence and relationships, he goes, I'd go lock all those smart people that built this in a room, don't let them out until they come up with a solution for 10,000. We'll be right back. You've heard the chaos. Now you can

see it. Do we want to jump right in? Watch all your favorite podcast. from start to finish right inside the free IHard Radio app. Make some noise. Wooee! Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like Bestie Listen, Hey Jonas and Las Culturistas. Now with full video. I'll just leave that there.

It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen. Open the free IHard Radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there. someone at the end of my bed and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters,

then that is the Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone

as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip,

I hope you listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'd love to hear the gross story about what happened in Arkansas. Okay. Yeah. So if you're going to ask him about like, you know, you started with those 100 families, but how did it, you know, in the more counties and how many, you know, how many people have you served? And I think last year was 550. Yeah. So it is, you know, the 100 and then the 22 and the chief says it's working.

So would we've gone from Fort Smith and 22 families to what? So we met with the governor at that time. And we had, I forgot how many clients we had in Fort Smith now that were being. operated, but there was a new life in that county. It was so different than going in before and after they started partnering in this way. Just the way that the leaders would communicate and would have hope that, hey, we, youth crime is up. We've got to bring the community in.

I need to show them this data. I mean, when your data's bad and you've got no hope, you're not seeking to display the bad news to anyone. Right. But it was a very different way. Especially in government. I mean, you can't do anything about it yet everyone, especially the press, going to hold you accountable to it. It may get called in front of committee meetings. I mean, it's just, but you don't feel like you've got tools to actually fix the problem.

And so, Governor was like, no doubt it's working. I'm hearing from everyone. And I can see the data now. So I don't know if lightning struck in Fort Smith or if it's replicatable. Let's find out if it's replicatable. So then we started three months. more counties, very different than Fort Smith, to see. One of them rule.

One of them was Lutter Rock, Pulaski County, so our urban. Our urban. Right. And then a smaller community. Little Rock's urban, for sure. Especially parts of it. But we've got deep history, deep history that's very different than the other communities in Litter Rock where we've got historic racial distrust.

We had to call the military out, allow black folks go to our, to Central Island. back in the 50s. And so, you know, all of that's lingering. All right. So it was the first one city. He said Little Rock and then. Yeah, Crawford County is over in Western Arkansas. It's a small rural county, Van Buren, Arkansas, Cerce. Arkansas is kind of in the Delta and Little Rock. And so we started there. We hired the people in partnership with United Way and really started to figure out how do we do this. And then we had this church from Russellville, which is in the River Valley. And they came, and they were deeply embedded in child welfare and in homeless outreach in their

community. And they said, we've got to have this. You know, it's so hard for us to be able to coordinate all these actions for people that need it. You know, when can you come here? And we're, you know, we're broke. And we're, I don't know that we have much more mind share. And so not for a long time, man.

And they were like, that's unacceptable. How about we just come hang out with y'all? you teach us how to do it and we'll self-fund and we'll be a kind of an outside and so that their success over the next year, year and a half of kind of self-funding and bootstrapping their way into this and their community really gave us the vision of okay so we're not going to build a very large organization that's hiring and training case managers doing all that but instead we need to now get game. Now that we've replicated ourselves, now we need to help others replicate. And so, and that's where the model is right now. So from that first year, 22 families, how many families

have you helped now? In the last 12 months, it's almost 5,100 families. And I'm estimating it, it will be in the next 12 months. It'll be 10,000 families. And so we're getting started to get into. And this isn't us doing. it. This is us equipping the model. But the local communities. The tool that you have provided has now helped local communities help 51. And the end of last month, it was over 13,000 families. When did you start this thing? What year? 2016, 10 years ago. 10 years ago. Yeah. So 10 years ago, you're told it wouldn't work. Now you've proven its work starting Ford Smith. and now you're expanding to Tennessee, Michigan, and Iowa.

For someone listening right now that doesn't have hope of in their communities yet, but would love to have it, what do they do? And how's Tennessee, Iowa, and Michigan doing? Yeah. So Michigan was a partnership of ours that God has his hand on. It was a medical doctor who's an immigrant, first-gen, from Cameroon. She set up shop in Lansing, Michigan, was running a clinic in a depressed part of town. And she was like, I just, you know, I came here. I wanted to help people, but I'm not

able to do what I need to. And I'm kind of stuck in this medical area. And I'm trying to give them food and other things. And she heard about us. And so, and so Doc started this by quitting her job, going to her assemblies of God Church, seeking over months to become a missionary, and then raise funds. It's amazing what she did in about a year and a half. She's strong. Yeah, very. She's incredibly impressive. So this is when we're still scaling across Arkansas.

We just became friends with Eleanor. And she just kept doing things that I didn't think that she'd ever be able to do. And so our rule is to agree whatever Eleanor asked for, we're going to try to make sure we do it. At least we make God mad at us. It's so clear that she said things right. Yeah, so that's Michigan. Oh, that's Michigan. In Iowa and Tennessee and in some other states that we're currently in talks with, what we do is we contract with the state.

We will find funding. With the actual state. With the actual state. Okay. And that division depends. It could be human services. It could be child welfare. Here in Tennessee, we contracted directly with the faith-based, the governor's faith-based office, which ironically.

We also just talked about in an earlier episode. So Bill spoke to their West Tennessee summit in May. Okay. Bill was one of the speakers. Yeah. I was there. You were there? Yeah, at the gardens.

You're out there? Yeah. When I spoke? Yeah. Okay. Well, there you have it. Yeah. You blew in and stirred us up.

And then I left. Everybody thinks it was a mic drop. I actually had a fire up my lumberyard. I had to go. That's honest and get this truth. All right. So you got connected with those folks. Yeah, we'll find we'll work with the state day hour very much.

We'll work with them on what funding is going to happen. And what does it, you know, our engagement from respect. or hope is usually a three-year plan to actually have built the state's infrastructure where you don't need us. You use our tools? Really? But you don't need us to come in and do the training of your advocates and the training of your coordinators, the assisting.

There's a lot of that that's needed up front, but we want to build the infrastructure in a state where you can replicate and expand across the entire state. So you kind of onboard it for three years, and then you're able to go away and just, keep the tool working well for them. Well, then if you're in Iowa and Arkansas and Michigan and Tennessee, it feels like you got 46 more customers. That's right. There are tribes out there, too.

So that's kind of our goal ultimately. Oh, no, that's interesting. Is to be able to contract with any of the nations or states who are very interested in helping people who are in multiple areas of crisis. That's what our tool does. is it organizes help using it's a technology existed help where the community it's for the community but by the community. And so we're helping the community organize itself in a new way to solve its own problems. Like practically speaking, if somebody's listening right now, what would be the best way for them to try to bring this to their community?

I know it's a little bit complex. It's not the easiest thing. But if they were interested, what are the next best practical steps for them? Typically, we're working with human services or child welfare directors. We have a partnership with a national philanthropic organization called For Others. It's Chris and Lauren Tomlin's foundation that they started. They will actually twice per year. They host a vision tour in Arkansas for these leaders to come and learn about the model to travel around to different communities and envision what contextually it would look like in their space.

that's kind of a hard one for someone who's not engaged right now in relationships with the government. But if you are and if you think it's right for your state and your community, then that's the starting point for us is to be able to talk with the human services, the governor's office or child welfare leaders, get them on site, allow them to figure out what it is and how they would. More importantly is, we have a lot of listeners and people that are engaged in this one silo of work. What they need to do is use their influence to reach out and say, hey, yeah, we could be

connecting people. One thing I think I had seen you say somewhere else, Paul, too, is maybe one avenue for a lot of normal people is also find the potential quarterback organization in your community. So like an agape here in Memphis knows all the right players, you know, at the Tennessee level. So that's true for probably a lot of other people's communities, too, is they could start there. Find those quarterback things. and share this episode with them and share restore hope with them and say, hey, this tool can put it all together for us. That bagbone organization is almost a make or break.

Yeah, that makes sense. They can't be seen as real competitor. They have to already have a heart for the community beyond themselves. That can be very difficult, especially if you're kind of organizations in survival mode. It's hard to think about how to help someone else, some other organization, But if you can, they're in every community. I have not, not found one yet. Right.

And in many communities, it's probably several. But if you can find that organization that's in a position to be able to play that backman role to serve the community coalition, we call an alliance as the alliance tries to work together, then you're going to see good. And as your historical numbers say. Changes communities. Reunification rates are up in in Arkansas, if, if mom will take the help she's offered, she improves her chance of reunification from 43 to about 70%.

The job numbers are just incredible. Housing, too, is really good. And recidivism. And recidivism, we've not had a official recidivism number done yet. It's a three-year number. but we are a part of the we are embedding that now in a reentry pilot so guys right now in the pilot are being onboarded into the system and you're able to talk from inside prison these advocates are to the local providers where the guy's going to be released to and go ahead and set up meetings

so they're prepped so you're not trying to build a plan no I get you've got a plan now you're just executing. Just when you get out, it's all there for. I already got to meet it. That's got to give you hope as a guy getting released on parole or serving his time that, okay, I'm not going to be given 50 bucks and a bus ticket. Actually, there's a community to accept me into, to help me get on my way. That's right. It's got to change the trajectory of anything. Everything. We think so. And so does the commissioner or the secretary of corrections in Arkansas. She's right now, looking at, okay, so the pilot is about over, it's working. How do we expand?

So ultimately that every guy or gal getting out of Arkansas prisons would be able to be presented with the help if they would take it. One final thing, this is quick. I think that's an interesting data point you guys have. So to your point, Bill, about not pulling people out of the river, but why are they falling in? That's 75% of your clients onboarded in our conference. saw in the last year did not have a child welfare case.

That's right. But if you look at their assessments, they very easily could have been. So you were meeting them at the point before that happens. That's huge. Yeah, just the thing. My wife was a teacher back in the day. And I can remember one year in particular, she had two kids. She had 26 kids in her classroom with some hippies that built their school building.

So it was an open. It was no walls in the building. You believe that bookshelves to find the classroom. So it was one of the loudest places ever. And she was teaching second grade. She had these two kids. And she would spend her nights before making a plan for these two kids. One was very pitiful.

Sometimes it would have to do it. We'd have to do his laundry. Sometimes she would take some food to him. So he's hungry and dirty often. Had no clue. She knew something was bad at home. No possess any tools to be able to reach it. And the other kid was kind of help him.

wills and she was like, how in the world do I, you know, get him settled so that I can have some kind of hope to teach the 24 kids. I must say all the other kids in the close. Yeah. And so schools across our land, the teachers and the teachers' aides in the administration, they know the families that need help. They don't possess the tools to be able to get inside the family. And so what they end up doing is putting IEPs and they do the best they can in the school.

But that's not solving the core issue. And so if you can network schools in with these other helps and what we found is schools, there's actually in Batesville, Arkansas School District and in Iowa, there's two school districts in Iowa that are the backbones. And they're like, we already kind of do this. We've been doing it, you know, with paper and some other things, but now the tools can allow us to do so much more for so many more people. And if your school is trusted, which many of them are, they're a key institution. And every one of our communities, it's a perfect place, whether they're the backbone or a significant node in the network that you're building. I love it.

So that's it, everybody. Restore Hope started in Fort Smith, Arkansas, hopefully spreading across our country. Well, it is, but hopefully rapidly and really for my own purposes, I'm so glad. I cannot believe it's tomorrow, but I'm so glad it's coming to Memphis. It's a needy community for things like this. So Paul Chapman, everybody.

Paul, thanks so much for taking the time to come down. And thanks for being here. Really appreciate it. And thank you for joining us this week. If Paul Chapman has inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by exploring bringing Hope Hub, to your community, partnering better with other nonprofits or agencies to advocate for families, or something else entirely.

Let me know. Please, let me know. I really do want to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normalfolks.us, and I will respond to you. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social. Subscribe to the podcast wherever you're watching or listening to it. Rate it and review it. Join the army at normalfolks.org.

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