People at TechSoup are not afraid to experiment. Sometimes extraordinary things can happen when we look at problems from a new point of view. Caravan Studios offers one of those different perspectives. Although still in its start-up phase, it has already delivered two apps: SafeNight for crowdfunding emergency shelter and Range for connecting underprivileged children with meals when school is out. As a close-knit team of tech veterans launched Caravan Studios, a series of inspiring events began to unfold. Tell Us Your Woes Last year at TechSoup we were privy to overhear “idea generators” being held in our meeting area. Caravan Studios drew in local nonprofits with an invitation for snacks and some serious brainstorming — to hear the problems that only those people deeply involved knew about because they ran into these obstacles daily. Discussions ran the gamut from sourcing and transporting donated food to the problems that shelters face when they get full. The Caravan Studios team were asking to hear about problems because they wanted to try to solve them using technology. SafeNight App: Sheltering Those in Danger Within a few months, Marnie Webb was announcing the new app Caravan Studios had developed — SafeNight , They’d discovered that shelters fill up, and when that happens, those in danger of domestic abuse and survivors of human trafficking have nowhere to go. With this simple app, anyone anywhere could donate to cover the cost of a night's stay. The app worked through crowdfunding. Sharing Their Lean Methodology Caravan Studios had such a good experience developing the SafeNight app that team members produced a webinar to show others how to develop an app . SafeNight was even named as a finalist — then winner — in the Reimagine: Opportunity challenge. The contest sought solutions to support and empower trafficking survivors. In January, finalists had the opportunity to develop their ideas at an Innovation Workshop in DC. You can read more about it in the announcement . Beyond its app, Caravan Studios had an innovative approach. Chronicle of Philanthropy cited it as an example of how nonprofits are trying new ways to test: Caravan Studios, the TechSoup division that created the [SafeNight] app, has embraced a new management approach popular in Silicon Valley known as “lean start-up.” The principles, which are increasingly popular among nonprofits, emphasize experimentation over long-term planning and urge groups to get products and services out to clients as early as possible, so the organizations can learn from feedback and make changes. Marnie Webb, CEO of Caravan, which is building an array of apps designed to curb social problems, says lean-start-up principles help Caravan work faster and meet real needs. “The central idea is that any product that we develop will get better if it lives as much of its life as possible outside of our office,” Ms. Webb says. “If we had kept SafeNight inside and polished it and polished it, it would have been super hard to bring on a partner because we would have invested too much.” (Ben Gose, “Charities Try New Ways to Test Ideas Quickly and Polish Them Later,” Chronicle of Philanthropy [March 23, 2014]) . Range App: Feeding Children Caravan Studios had more problems to solve though. Their next app release was sparked by a talk with a San Mateo, CA, official about connecting youth with local services (see the Forbes coverage by Tom Watson). They discovered that an astounding number of children in this country go hungry because they don’t have access to school-lunch-program meals when school is out of session. Sickened by the fact that children in the United States weren’t being fed simply because they didn’t know about services, Caravan Studios produced Range . They hope to put information about meals and services into the hands of those who work with children in need, kids who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Testing has begun with last year’s data for California, but soon fresh data from Why Hunger will be added for people all over the country who can use it this summer. The lean team at Caravan Studios won’t stop there. They’ll be here accepting new challenges and looking at them differently. Images: Caravan Studios