Pathfinders for Hope
01 · —
IG
Cohort
For organizations
Cohort01StatusRecruitingLocationVallejo · CaliforniaPilotNot yet launched
This is where an organization can join the Operation Iron Gate Vallejo pilot before it opens. Operation Iron Gate has not launched. We are looking for the nonprofits, agencies and NGOs that will run the Vallejo pilot, and we would rather tell you what that involves than sell you on it.
Straight
Our answer
It is the first question every director asks and it is the right one. The pilot is scoped to the handoff — the moment a person moves from you to someone else — rather than to everything your staff already record.
Our answer
No. The people you serve are yours. Pathfinders for Hope is not a service provider and is not becoming one. The pilot exists so that a person you refer actually arrives somewhere, and so you can show that they did.
Our answer
No. Joining does not route your funding through us and does not put your contracts in our name. A confirmed handoff is a number you can use in your own reporting.
Our answer
Every system that holds data carries that risk, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. What we can tell you is exactly who can see what, which is written out below — and that your data stays yours. You can export it, and you can leave.
01
Nonprofits can confirm that a referral was received and acted on when the receiving organization acknowledges the handoff, records the next action, and reports a final outcome.
When you refer someone, you find out whether they arrived, not merely that the referral was sent.
A closed-loop referral system means the handoff only counts once it is confirmed, not once it is sent.
02
Your own numbers, in a form you can put in a board report or a renewal application.
03
A person without government ID will not be turned away at intake.
04
You can take your organization’s data out at any time, in a standard format.
05
Each participating organization will be assigned a named point of contact at Pathfinders for Hope when the pilot opens.
06
Access to the beta version of Operation Iron Gate, for the whole length of the pilot.
Vallejo pilot
Beta access
Organizations in the pilot get access to the beta version of Operation Iron Gate for the whole length of the Vallejo pilot.
What we ask. You bring your organization in, and you bring the people you already serve in with you. They stay yours — the system is only where the handoffs are recorded.
Nothing about your organization’s participation changes without your agreement in writing.
How it works
A conversation. You tell us what your organization runs and where handoffs break.
A written outline: what you would do, what we would do, and what neither of us would do.
You decide. There is no obligation to continue.
A person’s file is visible to the staff working with that person, not to everyone who holds a login.
Every time a file is opened, that is recorded.
The public view carries counts and rates only. No names and no case identifiers, ever.
Your organization’s data belongs to your organization. You can export it and you can leave.
Q 01
No. Operation Iron Gate is a program of Pathfinders for Hope, a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and organizations join the Vallejo pilot as program partners. You bring your organization and the people you already serve; they stay yours. You can export your data and leave at any time.
Q 02
We’ll walk through how this fits alongside what you already use.
Q 03
None yet. We are recruiting the first cohort, and we would rather say so plainly than show you a wall of logos.
Q 04
No. Pathfinders for Hope is a California 501(c)(3), and Operation Iron Gate is its program.
Q 05
You leave, and you take your data with you.
Q 06
Not in the field. There are no results to show you and none are claimed anywhere on this site. What exists is the build, the measurement standard published in 04, and the commitment to publish the numbers whether they are good or bad.
The problem itself is well documented even though our response to it is not yet tested. The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and the HUD Continuum of Care program guidance both treat coordination between providers as a core function rather than an optional one. What neither addresses is who is accountable when a person is referred and never arrives. That is the narrow gap this pilot is built to close.
We would rather you judge us on that distinction than on a claim we have not earned. If a confirmed handoff turns out not to change anything in Vallejo, that will be in the published numbers too.
More on how this works: What is a closed-loop referral? · Referral tracking software for homeless services · Operation Iron Gate and your HMIS · Who Operation Iron Gate is for
Door 3Vallejo pilotApplications open
Open now
The Operation Iron Gate Vallejo pilot has not launched. Recruiting for it has. Fill this out and a person on our team reads it. Nothing is verified or approved until they do.
Cohort 01 is deliberately small. We would rather start with a handful of organizations that actually refer people to each other in Vallejo than with a long list of names that never send a handoff between them. If your organization sits at a point where people arrive and then get sent somewhere else, that is exactly the position this pilot needs.
You are not committing to anything by applying. The next step is a conversation about what your organization runs and where your handoffs break, followed by a written outline of what each side would do. If it does not fit, you say so and nothing happens.
The map underneath
The hardest part of any referral is not sending it. It's knowing where to send someone in the first place — what they qualify for, what the door actually requires, whether it's even open today.
That map doesn't exist anywhere. Not in an HMIS, not in your intake and assessment system, not in a binder, not in the spreadsheet your team keeps because nothing else holds it. It lives in the heads of the people who have worked here longest, and it walks out the door when they do.
We're building it. Not as a directory nobody updates — as a live map of what exists in this community and who it is actually for.
01
What you do. Who you can serve. What someone needs to bring, and how they actually get in the door. That's it.
02
About five minutes. Nothing to sign, nothing to install, and no information about the people you serve — this is about your organization, not your clients.
03
Someone being sent across town to a door that was never going to open for them — an access point that was never theirs to begin with. Every referral that fails on eligibility is a person who spent the last of something getting there.
You do not have to join the pilot to be on the map.
Being on the map means that when someone walks into a front door somewhere in this county and needs what you provide, the person helping them knows you exist, knows whether that person qualifies, and knows what to tell them before they make the trip.
That is worth five minutes whether or not you ever run our software.
Already know you want the pilot? The cohort application is above.
This is for organizations, officials, funders and press. If you need services yourself, do not use this — go here instead. Nothing on this page asks a person in crisis for their details.
OrganizationsApply through the cohort form.
Officials and fundersRequest a briefing. To leadership with Pathfinders for Hope or call 707-205-7588.
PressRequest a briefing and mark it press.
No mailing address is published on this site. A map is deliberately absent: one is added only if a publishable business address exists, and never a home address or a dropped pin on a city.
