From First Connection to Care

For years, the Road Home Program has used data to improve treatment outcomes. More recently its Veteran Outreach and Marketing team asked: why not apply that same mindset to outreach? 

And so, Roadhome.io was born. Built and led by Christopher Miller, veteran outreach digital marketing strategist and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Roadhome.io is a custom digital outreach platform designed to connect the entire outreach journey, from a veteran's first interaction with Road Home through event engagement, referral and, when appropriate, entry into care. By bringing registration, attribution, engagement data and outreach reporting into one system, the platform gives the team a clearer understanding of which efforts are reaching veterans and helping move them toward treatment. 

“For so long, outreach was quite difficult, because you don’t always see how the seeds you plant grow over time,” said Joseph Zolper, director of marketing and outreach and U.S. Army veteran. “Chris has allowed us to do that.” 

Roadhome.io officially launched about a year ago, with Miller drawing on his background in digital marketing, analytics and software development to bring his vision to life. 

“Over the years, we’ve used a lot of different tools to manage and track event registrations and interest in engagements with Road Home,” Miller said. “The hard part was always evaluating how people found us. Roadhome.io started when I built a QR code generator about a year ago. I realized I can track registrations from the first touchpoint online all the way through to the point where someone becomes a client.” 

From there, Miller expanded Roadhome.io into a broader outreach operations platform, bringing functions that previously existed across multiple third-party tools into one unified system. The platform now supports areas such as event registration, source and campaign attribution, QR-code tracking, referral pathways, outreach activity management and reporting, giving the team a common system for understanding how its work translates into engagement and care. 

“We’ve always been able to track clinical outcomes,” Zolper said. “Now, we can track the outreach: how folks get to us, what’s working, what’s not, and how to shift and reach more people.” 

Launching new initiatives and evaluating impact 

This year, the team put this new software to the test through two key use cases: an outreach blitz in San Diego, California, and the Road Home’s Ambassadors Leading with Unity & Mission, or ALUM, Program. Through both concentrated efforts, the team tracked, in great detail, how its outreach activities performed. 

In April 2026, the outreach team coordinated an intensive five-day campaign across the San Diego region, which has the country's densest military community. They ran a paid ad campaign and broadcast events to Road Home’s social media networks. Roadhome.io tracked how attendees registered for events and, for attendees who went on to become clients, even tracked how long they waited after events to get care. 

“Now, we can answer more questions other than ‘How did you hear about us?’” Miller said. “Like ‘Where did you hear about us? What was the tipping point for you to get care?’ We can answer more in-depth questions because we have a ton of data coming in. We’re seeing leads more clearly now than at any point in our history.” 

The team visited military bases, veterans organizations, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs centers and more. They engaged everyone from the top military brass to community members to the mayor. 

“Building those relationships turns into referral paths,” said Modie Lavin, manager of veteran outreach and networking and U.S. Marine Corps Gold Star mother, who spearheaded the San Diego campaign. “We’ve seen someone from San Diego in every accelerated brain health program cohort since we returned. We went all in. Our goal was to connect with as many people as possible.” 

Connections extended to large local nonprofit organizations that serve veterans and service members, clinicians, and researchers who have asked the Road Home team to visit and share information with them or have asked to visit the Road Home team in Chicago. 

With the interest and need in the area so great, the team is returning in October for another five-day stretch. 

While Roadhome.io helps the team plan and track outreach events and understand how people discover Road Home, the ALUM Program helps create connections in communities across the country. 

The ALUM Program is spearheaded by Mathias Carter, MBA, veteran outreach coordinator and U.S. Army veteran. It recruits people who have received care from the Road Home, are at least three months past treatment completion, and are passionate about spreading the word about the program. Alumni speak at events and create their own outreach initiatives across the country. 

“It’s important to have veterans speak to their own journeys,” Zolper said. “For other veterans, it can mean a lot more to hear about someone’s experience when they’re similar to you. If you’re hearing someone say, ‘This program saved my life, my marriage, allowed me to see my kids again,’ that goes a long way for increasing trust in seeking mental health care.” 

Word of mouth has long been one of the Road Home’s most powerful referral sources. ALUM harnesses the program’s valuable network of advocates to spread the word about its resources in their own neighborhoods. 

“It’s cool to see someone in San Antonio, for example, doing an event with little involvement from us,” Miller said. “They’re showing up on behalf of us and referring people in, and through Roadhome.io, we can track how it all works.” 

For many people who are referred to the Road Home, this is not their first stop in their mental health journeys. 

“But we want to be their last stop,” Lavin said. “You hear how many times people have tried to improve their mental health before coming here. But when they leave here, 90 percent succeed. It’s important for our alumni to talk about that. Road Home is truly changing lives.”

Honing a data-driven approach to outreach 

As Roadhome.io captures more information across campaigns, events, referrals and geographic markets, the team can use those insights to identify where outreach resources are most effective, understand which messages and relationships help veterans take action, and design future outreach efforts around the populations and communities where Road Home can have the greatest impact. 

“The goal is to get smarter every time we do outreach,” Miller said. “If we understand where someone first encountered Road Home, what brought them back, what ultimately motivated them to reach out and how long that journey took, we can use that information to make the next outreach effort better. Over time, that gives us a much clearer picture of where we should be spending our time and resources to reach people sooner.” 

Together, Roadhome.io, the San Diego outreach campaign and the ALUM Program are giving the Veteran Outreach and Marketing team a clearer picture of how awareness becomes engagement and engagement becomes care. 

Thanks to the advancements driven by these three initiatives over the past year, the Road Home’s outreach is the most innovative it has ever been, and referrals to the Road Home are regularly increasing. The program can now measure not only how many people are engaging but also how long it takes for them to take the first step toward care. 

“This helps us connect people to the care they need quicker,” Zolper said. “It allows us to understand what’s not working, too. If there is a group that’s hard to reach, we can shift our focus.” 

When an event, like the San Diego campaign, worked, why did it work? By tracking data from the start, the team can capture a more robust picture of which types of activities people are more responsive to and where. 

“In San Diego, at almost every event, people asked us, ‘Why aren’t you guys here more often? Why haven’t we heard of you? We desperately needed you months or years earlier,’” Lavin said. “The vibe around us being there was incredible.” 

For example, when one U.S. Marine Corps veteran in the San Diego area saw a social media post about a Road Home event, he decided to attend, even though he knew no one there. He was moved by the presentation and sought care. 

“For whatever reason, he took that leap,” Lavin said. “He was tearful and grateful to be connected to our program. “I’m thrilled about the way our outreach work has come together. I look forward to using this momentum to have an even greater impact across the country.”