Transforming what it's like to find and access help.
Step was built by a team with deep experience working in the charity sector, in partnership with local and national charity services. We understand the challenges of delivering support and helping people find the right help: navigating complex needs, keeping local signposting information up to date, and helping people take the next step when time with each client is limited.
Step combines a trusted, continually maintained network of over 80,000 support options with digital tools that help charities guide people to through their support journey: from finding the right service, provide digital referral pathways that prepare them for support, and following through to find out whether it helped, and whether further support is needed.
What Step provides
Intelligent signposting advice tools
Step can be used by your front line team and volunteers to help find the right support for your clients - or offered to them to use themselves, at their own pace, and in their own language. Step allows people to describe their problems, needs and preferences in their own words. It then matches them to a small set of tailored support recommendations, from our national mapping of over 80,000 support options.
On selecting options, Step asks any important eligibility questions to check if it's going to be right for them, and then offers either a personalised support plan, giving them the key information they need to take their next steps, or where possible, Step helps facilitate a referral.
Signposting lists
Your teams can curate their own lists of the local services they know work for your clients. Once created, these are accessible by any team, sharing the knowledge that usually never gets transferred across the whole organisation. Signposting list can be accessed on mobile, in interactive map format, and anything selected, shared with a client in a personalized support plan with a tap.
The real game changer though - is that signposting lists can use our shared, continually quality-checked and updated national mapping of support. As soon as we learn something's changed about a service - which might be a change of contacts or hours, your lists get automatically updated with up-to-date information.
Explore signposting listsDigital referrals that do more than just collect information
Step makes it easy for people to access your services with digital referral journeys that guide them from their first enquiry to being ready for support.
Within minutes of setup, you can start accepting referrals through your website or from trusted referral partners via a dedicated portal. But this is more than an online form. Our accessible, multilingual journeys can explain what to expect, check eligibility and suitability, and help people find the right route forward. If your service isn't the right fit, Step can signpost them to more suitable support - helping create a no wrong door experience.
People can also prepare for their first contact by gathering relevant information, finding documents and completing practical actions in advance. That means they arrive better prepared, with a clearer understanding of what happens next.
Explore digital referralsA digital support passport that stays with the person
So people don't have to start again every time they need help.
When a service finishes working with someone, valuable information can be left behind: what they've been through, what they've learned, what support they've tried and what works best for them. But getting their life back on track may mean working with several organisations - often having to explain everything again from the beginning.
Step's digital passport gives people a way to carry relevant information about themselves and their support journey between services. They can build a record of their needs, preferences and experiences, then choose to share relevant information when accessing further help.
Available as part of the digital referral journey, the passport can help reduce repetition for clients and practitioners, support continuity between services, and create better opportunities to understand progress over time.
Outcome reporting & impact tracking
Measuring outcomes takes time and expertise. Choosing the right framework, gathering meaningful evidence and following up with clients - particularly after support ends - can be complex and expensive.
As part of client onboarding or a referral, Step recommends an outcome measurement framework suited to your work. Adapt it to your needs or add your own measures. Step then gives simple, visual tools to record outcomes with clients and understand how things change over time. Step can also reach out to clients digitally, in their own language, during or after support, to understand their progress and the difference your service has made - and automates the burden of managing impact capture processes.
Step gives you the evidence you need to improve services and demonstrate impact to funders - without managing the process yourself.