Code for America Skoll Awardee Profile

Organization Overview

Key Info

Social Entrepreneur Jennifer Pahlka

Year Awarded 2018

Issue Area Addressed Economic Opportunity

Countries Served USA

Website http://codeforamerica.org/

Twitter handle https://twitter.com/codeforamerica

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/codeforamerica/

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/user/CodeforAmeri ca

About the Organization

Government doesn’t work as it should for many Americans today. Flawed bureaucratic processes keep government programs from reaching the tens of millions of Americans they are intended to help. They also trap people with the fewest resources in cycles of needless incarceration. Forty percent of people behind bars in the U.S. are there for no compelling public safety reason. And in California alone, 2.2 million people eligible for food assistance don’t get it.

Code for America instruments government systems to uncover the impact of technology, operations, and policies on the public. Its program areas are threefold: health, criminal justice, and workforce development. Its process is user-centered, iterative, and data-driven. First, Code for America helps users navigate the systems; then it works with governments to improve those systems and get better outcomes for both users and taxpayers.

Code for America has built multiple pathways to scale. It builds easy-to-use, open source digital services that improve government program delivery, then uses data gleaned from these services to work with government partners to fix operations. Code for America promotes policy change that actually works by centering it in real-world data. It builds bridges for government leaders to share best practices via a nation-wide civic tech movement, with thousands of volunteers in 64 active chapters, called Brigades, which work with local governments to engage the community and improve services.

Impact

Code for America’s GetCalFresh product (which enhances California’s food assistance program enrollment process) quickly scaled from 2 counties and 10,000 people in 2016 to 36 counties and 500,000 people in 2018. Following launch, participating counties experienced an average 30% increase in SNAP enrollment. GetCalFresh costs less than $4M/year to operate while one of the incumbent websites cost $80M/year to maintain and only provided a fraction of GetCalFresh’s functionality. In 2018, the State renewed Code for America’s contract for two more years, covering 90% of the costs GetCalFresh, and CfA was awarded a $1M federal grant to bring the GetCalFresh model to Michigan. While Code for America’s Clear My Record product helped 650 people reduce or dismiss convictions in 2016, it helped 9,600 people do so in 2018. With Clear My Record, 5 city/county governments have implemented automatic criminal record expungement. Code for America’s influence on governments has manifested as 300+ structural changes in government processes, policy, training, and staff. For example, Code for America inspired CalWIN to release a more accessible MyBenefitsCalWIN page, and advised multiple California government agencies to redesign a $500M project to overhaul the child welfare system. Code for America’s new Integrated Benefits Initiative—which helps integrate multiple government benefits—is now being piloted in 5 states, with the help of partners. The Initiative is testing faster eligibility determination in Michigan, simpler verifications in Vermont, a unified client experience in Louisiana, improved access for remote communities in Alaska, and client self-service in Colorado.

Path to Scale CfA open-sources its code and processes to enable replication, and codifies its processes and learnings for dissemination to government leaders and influencers. CfA advises government program and procurement leaders and large vendors, and hosts the largest civic tech convening in the country: the Code for America Summit.

Social Entrepreneur

Jennifer Pahlka is the Founder and Former Executive Director of Code for America (CfA). Early in her career, she built a $15 million media portfolio for game developers and a similar business for web developers. But her first job out of college was with a child welfare agency. While running web 2.0 conferences, she began exploring how to apply the principles and values of the participatory web to government, and became aware of the disparity in how government programs run relative to tech companies. She became obsessed with the notion that technologists had a critical role to play in social change by helping to fix how government works. In 2009, she launched CfA to improve the way government delivers services by using the principles and practices of the digital age. In 2013, Jennifer took a year to serve as the U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the White House, where she architected and helped found the U.S. Digital Service. Jennifer has won MIT’s Kevin Lynch Award, the National Democratic Institute’s Democracy Award, and a 2012 Ashoka Fellowship.

Equilibrium Overview

Current Equilibrium

In the current equilibrium, many government services are delivered via technology, yet the services for the most vulnerable are not reaching the people they are intending to serve. Government services are developed within existing government processes and with legal and compliance constraints in mind rather than citizens. In most government IT projects, systems development teams contract out to large IT vendors. Vendors are give incentives to build to spec, rather than outcomes. The result is expensive programs with hard-to-navigate processes for verifying eligibility, enrolling in and receiving benefits. Front-line government staff are held back by bad processes, despite their desire to provide improved services for clients.

New Equilibrium

In the new equilibrium, the target users of government services will have their needs met through simple and easy to use platforms. The services will demonstrate a respect and understanding of the needs of citizen. Citizens will be more likely to use them. The resulting efficiency gains will lower costs for government and create better, more measurable outcomes for citizens. Technology is a driver for these efficiency gains, but more importantly, it will reflect a design process that incorporates the needs of the intended beneficiaries. Government meets its potential to serve all citizens, and the playing field begins to be leveled with access to safety net services for the disadvantaged. Innovation

Code for America focuses on government and technology across three important areas in the lives of vulnerable Americans: the social safety net, the criminal justice system, and the public workforce system. They improve the experience of citizens in those areas in three ways: 1. Show what’s possible by working with partners to make government services so good and effective that they inspire change. Start by redesigning key interactions between citizens and government; enabling strong feedback loops. Work closely with government partners who use CfA data and support to fix their operations to get better outcomes for users at a lower cost.Integrate the delivery of services across silos so that government can work as it should in the digital age. 2. Help others do it themselves by articulating and sharing the principles and practices that make change real. Discover and document the principles and practices of delivery- driven government that work. Share resources that enable others to adopt these principles and practices, engaging those best positioned to make this change real.Build and nurture networks of people who put these resources into action and continually improve them, while supporting and learning from each other. 3. Build a movement by creating a learning community that makes change stick. Start by increasing the capacity of the 77 Brigades already working in their own cities.Grow their ranks, and increase their collective power by networking them to cover each state and the entire nation, from the grassroots up.Build a vocal, national constituency devoted to showing that government can work, holding the American people and our public servants accountable, and materially helping, not just complaining.

Ambition for Change

Americans eligible for critical government services will equally access these services through simple, respectful, and easy-to-use platforms. Government meets its potential to serve all citizens, and the playing field is leveled with access to safety net services for the disadvantaged.