In 2024, we celebrated our eighth year of Beam. It was one defined by a significant growth of Beam’s presence and a full embrace of our scope and mission: building America’s digital infrastructure to power resilient and just communities.
After years of high-impact work shaping this infrastructure, we’ve identified three key themes that have informed our mission and continued to evolve our approach.
The first is aimed toward building the next generation of the social safety net. We seek to ensure our neighbors facing difficult circumstances can access critical benefits—such as emergency relief, recurring grants, and other assistance—in ways that are dignified, efficient, and effective. On this front, Beam expanded our efforts to include new initiatives such as our first child care fee assistance programs, health and human services programs (with a heavy focus on Summer EBT), rental and housing assistance, and disaster relief—including emergency aid administered in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
Critically, we began to see many of these initiatives become de-siloed across organizations and take a more intersectional approach. We’ve seen programs targeting homelessness prevention in K-12 schools, higher education financial aid programs leveraging state benefits eligibility data, and initiatives exploring the connection between child care supply and rental costs, particularly for home-based care providers. Coming out of 2024, we’re energized by the progress both Beam and the broader field are making in this realm.
But the goal isn’t just to keep individuals and families treading water. Rather, it’s about promoting pathways to prosperity, narrowing racial wealth and health equity gaps, and contributing to thriving communities.
With that in mind, the second area of focus is catalyzing community economic development. In 2024, Beam saw transformative growth in programs that support educational attainment and workforce development, which are deeply rooted in our origins. These include state-led workforce initiatives and small business grant programs, such as our growing partnership with Kansas City.
Across all of our work to date, we’ve helped distribute more than $350 million to more than 300,000 individuals and families. In 2025, we set a bold target of reaching half a billion dollars in distributions to communities in need.
As we think about the year ahead, it brings us back to our last element for defining just and resilient communities: our core values. Beam’s work is a manifestation of policy design, and as 2025 ushers in change nationally, we remain committed to showing up. By staying true to our core values, we’re ensuring our work contributes to the right and necessary outcomes for communities and shapes more thoughtful, high impact policies over time.
We are tremendously proud of all we achieved in 2024. Heading into 2025, a year that will be defined by change, we remain motivated as ever to increase the velocity, reach, and intersectionality of our impact. We hope you join us.
David Helene
CEO and Founder, Beam
.png)
Our partners–and the communities they serve–are at the heart of what we do. Last year, we helped more than 120 partner organizations administer 153 programs. We also welcomed 16 new partners and expanded our impact to new states like Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania.
Each partnership represents a shared commitment to tackling complex challenges with a human-centered approach. By partnering with nonprofits, governments, and higher education institutions, we amplify our impact and help drive sustainable change across a spectrum of systems.
Through this work, we help community organizations, local and state governments, and higher education institutions deliver real change. Across the U.S. we’re narrowing equity gaps, creating opportunities, and strengthening critical systems that help people thrive. Together, we’re building stronger, more resilient communities.
From helping cities deliver small business grants to supporting child care fee assistance programs, Beam’s innovative platform allowed our partners to deliver more than 104,000 payments in 2024. Hours of dedication and compassion lie behind every person whose work touches these critical aid programs. Together, with Beam streamlining the process, they distributed $57 million to students, families, and small business owners. Here are a few stories about our impact over the years.
Supporting home-based child care providers via cash transfers with Home Grown
Beam helped Home Grown support the wellbeing of home-based child care providers. By providing more than $1.25 million in direct payments, their program helps improve the quality and availability of care for working families.
Helping small businesses in Kansas City recover from the pandemic
Using Beam, Kansas City processed more than 300 applications for its Kansas City Small Business Capital Program that empowers local entrepreneurs with business development grants. We distributed more than $70,000 to promote economic expansion in the city.
Distributing essential aid to support college success across the U.S.
Our partners at the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) launched DCPS Persists, the nation’s first urban school district alumni program. With Beam, they distributed over $1.2 million in microgrants and emergency aid to help students across the country overcome financial barriers and achieve their college dreams.
“For so many of our students, a sudden expense—like a car repair or an unpaid bill—can be the difference between staying in college or dropping out. With Beam, we’re able to step in at just the right moment, providing the kind of support that says, ‘We’ve got your back.’ It’s allowed us to grow DCPS Persists and make sure more of our students stay on track to achieve their dreams.”
– Jim Kline, Executive Director, DC Public Education Fund
Promoting economic mobility with guaranteed income
We partnered with Fairfax County, Virginia to launch the county’s first economy mobility pilot that supported the wellbeing of 180 families through monthly guaranteed payments for 18 months. We delivered more than 720 recurring payments totalling $540,000. Early reporting from the county’s research partners at George Mason University reported positive feedback from the program participants, including improvements to mental health, enrolling children in extracurricular activities, and increasing workforce skills development.
At Beam, we believe service delivery should be simpler, more dignified, and less error prone. In 2024, our team of technologists made great strides in handling complex programs and designing interactions that led to greater ease of use for program administrators and applicants alike. With each release, Beam’s platform grew more resilient, secure, accessible, and efficient. Here are a few highlights.
Streamlining complex programs with multi-party applications
Our multi-party enhancement empowered programs to manage complex benefit processes more effectively and pay multiple participant types, like landlords and tenants or families and child care providers. By enhancing efficiency and transparency for caseworkers, critical payments were delivered faster to recipients.
Enhancing security and reducing friction with Google Identity Platform authentication
We introduced passwordless login through Google Identity Platform to enhance security and improve your experience with Beam. This update allows both case workers and applicants alike to use a magic link to easily log in without passwords. We made it easier for the 90% of Beam users who use this feature to manage their account logins.
Simplifying document management with AI
In 2024, we launched Docs AI, our AI-powered document classification feature, to help expedite application reviews. By identifying and flagging missing documentation and pre-filling applicant information, Docs AI streamlines workflows and frees up valuable time for both caseworkers and applicants.
Enhancing connections for caseworkers and applicants
Our new communication tools enable two-way conversations between caseworkers and applicants via SMS text messaging and email. Caseworkers can send individual or bulk communications about required documents, case status updates, and more. Applicants can quickly respond to facilitate their application review. Each message is tracked in Beam, allowing caseworkers to see the entire communications history for each applicant, creating more transparency, clarity, and faster processing times.
"This has been one of the easiest technology implementations I have experienced in terms of lift from our end."
– Shawn Anderson, Interim System Director for Student Development & Success, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities
Beam was founded with a commitment to ensure everyone can easily access the life-changing cash assistance our platform helps deliver. This starts with making sure our platform meets the diverse needs of all users. In 2024, we underwent a comprehensive third-party accessibility audit from the National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM)—a national leader in making digital media accessible for people living with disabilities.
Through this work together, Beam has created a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template). This important document gives us a transparent way to communicate our commitment to accessibility and ensures our platform is in compliance with major accessibility standards like Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act in the U.S. and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
We are honored to be part of an extraordinary community of changemakers dedicated to solving complex systemic challenges. Throughout the year, Beam’s team attended events centered on empowering communities and advancing economic opportunity. At these gatherings, we held deep, collaborative conversations that highlighted the power of shared learning and collective knowledge. These opportunities reinforced the power of collective action and collaboration to create stronger, more resilient communities. Here’s a snapshot of where we went in 2024.
Sharing space with an inspiring community of public service innovators and government leaders at the Digital Benefits Conference hosted by the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation.
We’re inspired by the progress we made this past year with our partners and motivated to build on that momentum. By fostering initiatives that intersect multiple layers of America’s social safety net and economic development programs, we’re building systems that go beyond supporting families and communities' basic needs.
Our vision for the next generation of the safety net is aimed at creating lasting pathways to prosperity. This may not be simple or easy, but it’s why we’re here.
As we take on this work, we will remain grounded in the belief that meaningful change is possible when we all come together to create it. Together, we’re not just responding to today’s challenges, we’re building the digital infrastructure for a more aspirational and thriving future. We hope you join us.
If you'd like to partner with us, please get in touch. Or stay up to date on the latest Beam news and events by joining our mailing list.