Soliguide, a digital platform for social action for people in precarious situations

Soliguide evolves the food category to meet the new challenges of food aid! The result of co-construction work with stakeholders, part of a project led by Solinum to combat food insecurity, the primary aim of these changes is to better guide the people concerned by adapting to their needs. Some services have been added in order to take into account the diversification of the offer on the ground.
The new services meet the challenge of providing access to sustainable food for all, and complement the range of products already on offer. They include solidarity fridges and gardens, shared kitchens and cooking workshops.

In winter, particularly in December, many structures adjust their opening hours or close temporarily, including social action departments. For this reason, Solinum carries out a twice-yearly update of its database Soliguide, to ensure that the information is up-to-date and of high quality. 

This year, on the Soliguide platform, we updated information for 17,800 structures, representing a total of 60,700 different services. 37% of structures updated themselves autonomously, i.e. without external help from our territorial teams. 

🔒How many social action services closed during the winter period (between November and January)?

More than 1/4 of social action services closed their doors at least one day during winter 2023. Of these services, 39% closed between 4 and 7 days, and 15% closed between 8 and 15 days.

The week between Christmas and New Year is the most impacted by these closures. A real challenge to direct people to suitable services that are not saturated.

🍽️Focus on food aid 

Since 2022, Solinum has begun the process of referencing all food aid services on Soliguide on a national scale: food distributions, social and solidarity grocery stores, solidarity restaurants, etc.). In partnership with social action players, all our forces are mobilized to facilitate access to food for those who need it. It's 6704 locations for food aid and 10591 services for food aid referenced.

This winter, between November 22 and January 6, 2024, 28% of food aid services closed at least one day, and of these services, 29% closed between 4 and 7 days. The week of December 25 is the most impacted by these closures, with around 15% of services closed between December 25 and 31.

Social and solidarity grocery stores are the most affected by winter closures (42%), followed by food parcel services and sit-down catering (26% of these services closed), then meal distribution (24%).

Thanks to solidarity players and Soliguide teams, 94.5% of Soliguide information was updated this winter !

The Fédération des Banques Alimentaires and Solinum have just signed a national partnership!
The Food Bank is:
- a network of 79 food banks
- 224 million meals distributed 
- ...to 2.4M people
- over 6,000 partner associations and CCAS
- over 7,000 volunteers
At a time when inflation is pushing many French households into a precarious situation, Solinum is particularly committed to fighting food insecurity. This partnership made perfect sense!
🤝 With the food bank, in concrete terms we're going to:
- Reference the activities of BAs on Soliguide
- Raise awareness of the grocery store network to provide better guidance
- Co-construct Soliguide with a view to improving access to food aid in France

Every 6 months, theSoliguide database is fully updated to ensure that people in precarious situations are properly guided. These seasonal updates take place in winter and summer, when associations and aid structures are more impacted by closures and schedule changes.
Solinum shares its dashboard to visualize this summer's various impacts on social action.

Solinum has signed a national partnership with Restos du Coeur!
The Soliguide tool for mapping useful places is becoming an orientation tool for the thousands of Restos du Coeur volunteers. The aim is to provide the best possible guidance to those welcomed into the centers, to facilitate their path to integration.
Today, all Restos du Coeur activities are listed on Soliguide, enabling people in difficulty to access the food aid on offer in France.
More information on Solinum.org and Soliguide.fr.

In 2021, the Solinum association carried out an impact measurement to better understand the needs of stakeholders (solidarity players, people in precarious situations) and how Soliguide could provide an appropriate response to the challenges of the social and solidarity economy. While the usefulness of the project has been proven, Solinum wanted to take the approach a step further and understand Soliguide's impact on society. To do this, Solinum has integrated an innovative method: the Social Return On Investment (SROI) to introduce a monetary value to Soliguide.
Discover without further ado the impact evaluation summary Soliguide !