AssistHub

Led and created by a team of committed community leaders and advocates from across California, nonprofit AssistHub is dedicated to eliminating the barriers that keep people from accessing resources ranging from SNAP benefits to tax credits. Joining with Golden State Opportunity as a member of the Community Connect program for the first time this year was a natural way to expand that work and help extend their services to more people than ever across the state.

“Our state and federal public benefits and programs were not designed for folks to prosper,” said Founding Executive Director Adulwahid Duso. “These are systems giving just enough for people to survive. What we are building at AssistHub is a scalable human-centered and compassionate model. We are trying to build a model and framework we believe can be adopted by other government agencies and organizations that centers compassion and helps people navigate public benefits and enables them to claim the resources to which they are entitled. What’s preventing people from thriving is the regressive systems and policies that are in place currently.”

AssistHub works to meet people where they are when it comes to navigating benefits. They accomplish this by offering a free, simple questionnaire on their website that provides visitors with information on what benefits they may be eligible for. If they need further help, they also have the option to connect with AssistHub coaches, who offer virtual coaching, more resources, email templates, and phone call scripts.

AssistHub’s main goal is to improve access to information about how to claim benefits in California and be the “human” on the other side of the phone that so many people wish for when navigating these systems. Partnering with GSO was a natural evolution, with the aim of connecting their beneficiaries with tax credit and free tax filing information.

“Given our work, helping individuals meet their basic needs, we find that folks have multiple layers of needs,” said Duso. “Once we help with food and housing, we often find people are eligible for more benefits and resources, including tax benefits. The opportunity to partner with GSO was a natural expansion of our work because we saw people were eligible for tax credits and we wanted to connect them with experts on these topics. We wanted to make sure we were passing them off to real humans who would help them file their taxes and get cash back they earned.”

Since AssistHub is an online and technology-based organization, the partnership with GSO is also helping them to reach more people across the state and connect directly with other members of the Community Connect network who can help their clients with tax preparation and more. In 2023, AssistHub served over 15,000 people across California and they hope to serve even more in 2025.

“We want to develop trust with community members because of how regressive and oppressive these systems already are,” said Duso. “People feel shame and a stigma accessing resources. What we often hear from beneficiaries is that AssistHub feels like a safe space for them and a place where they can be vulnerable and share challenges. This partnership is essential to expanding our work. We can’t work in a silo.”

Learn more about AssistHub and their work.