Consumer Journeys and Voices in Hunger Reduction Programs

Welfare programs are critical to providing help in developed countries to people in need. However, program recipients face different challenges rarely addressed by mainstream service providers. The goal of the present research is to identify specific gaps between recipients’ needs and expectations and a social program delivery, with the end goal of understanding and bridging these gaps. We have conducted interviews with recipients and organizers of a food bank, and we will next use data mining on Reddit to understand how these sentiments are shared (or not) across a more general population. Finally, we plan to conduct a debriefing session with organizers and volunteers to discuss the results of our research. This project has the potential to impact the design of hunger reduction programs to better meet the needs of people living in poverty.