From GUSR to Wayfinder: Anthony Verducci’s Journey to Creating Change
For Anthony Verducci (’16), the journey to becoming the founder of Wayfinder, a platform that helps case management agencies, service providers, and families coordinate care for those with disabilities, began with a feeling of belonging.
As a freshman, Verducci attended his first Gonzaga University Specialized Recreation (GUSR) event, where those with disabilities from the Spokane community came to campus for games, sports and activities with students.
He stayed involved in GUSR throughout his time at Gonzaga. The more involved he got, the more he began to realize the challenges his friends with disabilities faced beyond those weekly gatherings. This realization ultimately led him to switch his major to Special Education and thus began his passion for disability advocacy.
Verducci helped create several events to raise disability awareness, including the “Celebrate Abilities” and the Run for Respect, an on-campus 5K. The run partnered with Special Olympics, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and The Arc, who all helped create an accessible course where participants could run, walk, roll or cheer.
“Between the two initiatives we reached thousands of people,” he says. “My hope is that they walked away with something practical, a sense of how to make their own corner of the world a little more welcoming.”
This desire to create meaningful change would follow him far beyond Gonzaga.
While working as a caregiver though The Arc, an organization serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, he quickly discovered that finding the right services could be just as challenging as providing the care itself.
“I spent most of my time not providing care, but searching for it,” he says.
He wished there was a single place to find providers who were in-network, accepting clients and a good fit. Years later, that frustration would become the groundwork for Verducci’s company, Wayfinder.
“I built the thing I wished I’d had,” he explains.
The service is a digital health company that builds technology for Colorodo’s Medicaid system, maintaining a directory of more than 2,000 provider agencies serving people with disabilities, streamlining referrals and using data to help identify service gaps.
The positive impact is undeniable. Before Verducci began, it took an average of 63 days for someone to be connected with a service. Since then that number has dropped to 23 days. Alongside the faster service, families also receive more options, with a median of nine provider responses compared to the two previously.
Today, Wayfinder supports more than 40,000 Colorado residents with disabilities.
Verducci stresses the importance of understanding the people you serve, “leading with empathy is the fastest way to understand a problem well enough to solve it.” He credits his Gonzaga education and the university’s focus on service, and the value of learning through experimentation and failure.
His advice to current students who are interested in creating meaningful change is: Start small, solve a problem you genuinely care about, and involve the people you are serving from the beginning.
What began with finding a place where he felt belonged ultimately became a lifelong commitment to helping others find their way, too.