nuAmple - Because frontline work is already hard enough

The Problem

The work that matters most is the work bad systems leave the least time for.

Ontario alone has 60,000 community programs and services in databases like 211 - the community services network operating across every US state and Canadian province - systems that don’t understand your context and don’t remember your last search. Navigating this friction can disconnect workers from the human being across the table. That person may be having a hard day, so the need is real and pressing.

We know that broken search isn’t the hardest part of nonprofit frontline work. But it’s a part we can do something about.

60,000+

community programs and services in Ontario alone - buried in systems that don’t understand context.

What’s Live

Lemy

An AI-powered resource discovery tool deployed to individual organizations - in co-design and testing with a Toronto community organization. One search bar. Natural language. Verified results from trusted sources, searched in parallel. Deployed organizations connect to Ontario 211’s live API - 60,000+ verified services - alongside their own private resource list. The search pipeline, data infrastructure, and measurement system are built and running; the interface is under active co-design with frontline workers.

Four trusted tiers. One search.

The org’s own knowledge, first.

Each organization’s internal resource list - contacts, intake tips, relationship notes that exist nowhere in 211 - becomes the highest-priority search tier. Workers see their own vetted resources before anything else.

Verified sources. No hallucinations.

Lemy’s core tiers are verified data: HCT’s curated directory, Ontario 211’s 60,000+ services via live API, and curated community listings. The web fallback is clearly labeled - verify before referring. AI reasons about meaning without inventing facts. A worker can’t hand a client a referral that might be fictional.

It preserves what workers know.

Workers annotate services with one tap - “good intake,” “long wait,” “ask for Maria.” That knowledge accumulates across all workers, survives staff turnover, and makes the next worker better. Individual expertise becomes organizational memory.

It reveals what communities need.

Every search, save, and referral generates data the sector has never had - which services are overwhelmed, which populations can’t connect, where the gaps are - anonymously. No extra data entry. The intelligence is a byproduct of the work.

Lemy works at the intersection of needs and service - the seeker and the helper - to improve the outcome for both.

Our Roots

How we got here.

2018–2022

Ample Labs. CG Chen founded Ample Labs after friends experienced housing instability. Built Canada’s first conversational AI for homeless services in Toronto. Raised $1M. National media. The need was validated. But ‘stateless’ chat didn’t fit frontline workflow. By 2022, wound down. The need was validated. The approach needed rethinking.

2023

A new steward. Ample Labs was handed to John Rademaker - four startups, one IPO, and a street-level view of life. A path through addiction and recovery - including jail, rehabs, and volunteer work in prison, locked psychiatric wards, recovery facilities, and youth programs - gave him connection to marginalized communities that most tech CEOs never have.

2024

Homeless Connect Toronto. Thirteen years in service to GTA’s homeless community led to launching Everyday Connect. EC is an online portal accessing a curated list of trusted partner resources.

2025

nuAmple. From Ample Labs: relationships, credibility, knowledge of what doesn’t work. From HCT: a trusted platform, network of partners, and 13 years of community. What Ample Labs got wrong is what Lemy is built to fix.

Teammates

Leadership

John Rademaker - Founder & CEO

Four startups. One IPO (NASDAQ:SYNX). Recovery background. Connection to the communities this project serves.

Georgia Mackenzie-MacPherson - Design & co-design

Deep nonprofit sector experience. Principal at MacMac. Designer of the initial Everyday Connect.

Board & Advisors

CG Chen - Founding Advisor

3x Founder, YC alum. Founded Ample Labs in 2018. Created the foundation nuAmple is built on.

Geordie Graham - Board

2x founder, YC alum. Co-founded Ample Labs. Product and user experience, thought leader in UXR.

Kay Taylor - Board

Organizational leader and consultant, MBA, specializing in personal development and transformational practice.

Our Intervention

What Lemy Is

Lemy (Let me... help you) is a portable AI widget for any website, portal, or case management system. Workers click “Ask Lemy,” describe what they need in plain language, and get relevant results immediately. Context retained across queries - no starting over.

Lemy - AI-powered resource discovery for frontline community workers

How it searches

A worker types “Farsi-speaking senior with no fixed address, needs somewhere safe today.” Lemy searches four tiers in parallel - the organization’s own internal list first (highest trust), where a colleague may have noted a drop-in that serves in real time, without Central Intake; then HCT’s curated directory, Ontario 211’s 60,000+ verified services via live API, and a web fallback for anything not in verified sources. Results arrive in seconds with phone numbers, hours, intake instructions, and addresses.

How it preserves knowledge

Workers annotate services with one tap - “helpful,” “long wait,” “good intake process.” They can print referral cards or copy referral details to text or email. Every annotation accumulates across all workers. The next worker inherits what the organization has learned.

One frontline worker told us: “Workers don’t so much keep lists of services. They keep lists of people who respond.” Lemy makes that knowledge searchable, shareable, and permanent.

What accumulates

A Team Impact dashboard is being built to track searches, saves, and referrals across all workers. Search patterns reveal what communities need and where the gaps are. This data has never existed at the organizational level.

✨ Ask Lemy

Pilot Access - passphrase

Lemy in the Field

The community testbed is funded. Four frontline community workers at a Toronto organization have helped co-design Lemy to fit their actual workflow.

Lemy searches the organization’s private resources alongside HCT’s Everyday Connect listings and Ontario 211’s 60,000+ verified services. Workers see their own knowledge first, verified public data second.

Lemy is portable. What we prove in Toronto can go anywhere there’s a 211.

The testbed produces published findings - search quality data, worker feedback, annotation patterns - regardless of outcome. The evidence base for the proof of concept.

Roadmap

From Testbed to Scale

Phase 1: Community Testbed FUNDED • IN PROGRESS

Co-design with four frontline community workers. Organization’s internal resource list ingested. 211 live API connected. Team Impact dashboard tracking real usage. Published findings regardless of outcome.

Phase 2: Proof of Concept

Production-grade AI search pipeline with Cohere’s Embed and Rerank models, built by Sahaj. Annotations in a real database. Second deployment at a different type of organization to prove portability.

Phase 3: Community Intelligence & Scale

Self-service onboarding for any organization. A possible sustainability path: aggregated, fully anonymized community intelligence for funders and planners - counting outcomes, never people. Illustrative of a path, not a commitment. Expansion beyond Toronto to any city with 211.

Our Vision

Frontline community workers hold communities together, sitting with people during some of the hardest moments in their lives. They listen, search for help, make referrals they hope will land. Nobody captures what they know. When they leave, it leaves with them.

The systems they depend on weren’t built for them. 211 is slow and absent practical knowledge. General-purpose AI hallucinates. Workers deserve tools that search verified data, preserve what they know, and reveal what communities need.

This is more than a technology project. It is about amplifying what happens when a person in crisis sits down across from someone who can help - by finding what they need, instantly. And leaving time for the compassionate conversations that matter most.

Every city in the US and Canada has 211. What we prove in Toronto can go anywhere. The tool is free to organizations, always.

How We Work

Relationships first.

We work with communities, not for them. Every partnership starts with listening.

People, not products.

Technology is the tool. The person across the table is the point.

Close the gap.

The workers doing the hardest work have the least access to good technology. We’re here to change that.

Built with, not for.

Frontline workers shape what we make. If it doesn’t work in their hands, it doesn’t work.

Frontline workers and community members at an HCT event

Theory of Change

Lemy capability

Better search

Direct result

More meaningful referrals

Community outcome

Stronger worker-client bond

Knowledge retained

Collective expertise built

Amplified impact of worker and organization

Referral data

Visible patterns and gaps

Smarter funding and planning

Time enough to listen - which is what the person across the table will remember.

For workers

Reduced administrative friction. Less time navigating broken systems means more capacity for the human work they came to do. Not a cure for burnout - but one less thing adding to it.

For the people they serve

A worker who has time to listen, who knows where to send you, and whose referral carries weight because a real person made it. That’s what dignity in a moment of crisis looks like.

We can’t create housing or meals. We can make sure the systems aren’t standing between a worker and the person who needs them.

We don’t claim to solve homelessness. We claim to make the people trying to solve it more effective at their work.

Every city throughout North America has frontline community workers navigating fragmented systems. Most have 211. If this works in Toronto, the model is portable - to any city, any 211, any frontline organization.

What It Takes

The Test - ~$25K

This fall

An EC-hosted Lemy shown to real frontline workers, to prove usefulness - plus the retrieval-quality tune. A focused milestone before scaling anything.

Then - The Build

Contingent on the test

A second deployment at a different kind of organization, production search, adaptive interfaces. Funded on the evidence the test produces.

Sustainability

A hypothetical path

Aggregated, fully anonymized community intelligence for funders and planners - counting outcomes, never people. Illustrative of a path, not a commitment.

~$52K

In-Kind Committed

$25K

Raising

~$30K

Invested by Founders

Cost to Orgs

We publish regardless of outcome.

Frontline work carries a cost that doesn’t appear in job descriptions. We can’t change that. We can make sure the systems aren’t adding to the weight.

Better technology won’t solve homelessness. But it can amplify what happens when a person in crisis sits down across from someone who can help - by finding what they need, instantly.

Support the Proof of Concept

Lemy is a working prototype on production infrastructure: the search pipeline, data infrastructure, and measurement system are built and running; the interface is under active co-design with frontline workers. The proof of concept - a version real frontline workers can trial - requires about $25,000. Any contribution moves it forward.

Support This Work

Start a Conversation

If any of this is relevant to your work, we’d welcome hearing from you.

Or email directly: john@nuample.org

US 501(c)(3) · Ontario Not-for-Profit

AI-powered resource discovery. Free. For everyone who serves.