Socialserve.com is proud to be the focus of a recent Philanthropy Journal feature. North Carolina-based Philanthropy Journal is published by the A.J. Fletcher Foundation as a vehicle for nonprofit news and resources.

The story, titled "Socialserve.com Plugs In Affordable Housing," focuses on the initial development and ongoing national expansion of Socialserve.com:

SocialServe.com plugs in affordable housing
By Todd Cohen

Nine years ago, Van Gottel woke from a dream, tore a page from a calendar and scribbled an idea to create an online database of affordable housing for caseworkers serving homeless people.

Today, SocialServe.com, the Charlotte-based nonprofit he created from that idea, operates websites for 20 states that contain records on over 360,000 housing units and handle 32,000 searches a day.

SocialServe.com also is self-sustaining, generating enough revenue from contracts with those 20 states to cover its entire annual operating budget of $1.5 million.

"When I was thinking about this in 1998," Gottel says, "I did not want to rely on grant funding."

A former corporate marketing manager, Gottel had returned to school at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in the mid-1990s after his older brother committed suicide.

"I was looking for a change anyway, and this was the impetus," he says.

Having earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and criminal justice at Western Illinois University in 1983, Gottel majored in social work at UNCC.

After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1996, he commuted to a job in Lexington, N.C., with the youth and family services division of the Davidson County Department of Social Services, working as a case worker with families who were homeless or inadequately housed, and counseling high-risk youth.

A year later, he went to work for Community Link, a Charlotte nonprofit, working as a case manager with homeless families before being promoted to housing development director, looking for housing for the agency's clients.

Then he had his dream...

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