This guide highlights approachable ideas for state and local public benefits agencies to improve applications, renewals, and correspondence. As outlined in this resource, even small improvements can be transformative for residents and caseworkers alike.
This guide provides practical insights for benefits administrators on redesigning benefits systems using human-centered design to ensure all eligible residents can access crucial social safety net resources.
Code for America offers government agencies a general overview of getting started with implementing text messaging services for clear, responsive communication during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Innovators inside and outside of government are working to improve access to the social safety net using data, technology, and design. This report highlights innovations carried out by The Rockefeller Foundation’s Data and Technology grantees from 2018 to 2021, including extraordinary efforts to meet the challenges of the pandemic. Those grantees are: Benefits Data Trust, Code for America, Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation, U.S. Digital Response, and the Digital Innovation and Governance Initiative at New America. In 2020, these projects secured more than $200 million in benefits for close to 100,000 people across at least 36 states, and helped millions more through policy change, training, and guidance.
The Hawai‘i Department of Human Services (DHS), in partnership with the Hawai‘i Department of Health (DOH) and the Children’s Healthy Living Center of Excellence (CHL Center) at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, is building foundational capacity to share and analyze administrative data across the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). This groundwork will enable Hawai‘i to increase access to nutrition support programs, in alignment with Hawai‘i’s ‘Ohana Nui framework, which aims to dismantle intergenerational poverty.
American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
ACCESS NYC is an online public screening tool that residents can use to determine the City, State, and Federal health and human service benefit programs for which they are eligible.
The Benefits Enrollment Field Guide looks at the landscape of America’s safety net benefits experience in 2023 and tracks the differences from our 2019 assessment based on expanded evaluation criteria. It also highlights successful paths to equitable, human-centered experiences. It examines online enrollment for Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), and WIC.
In this webinar, a panel of experts discuss what states can do right now to improve EBT security, how to use data to analyze theft patterns, and how EBT payment technology needs to evolve to ensure efficiency, security, and dignity for beneficiaries.
Benefits Data Trust (BDT) is a nonprofit that connects people to public benefits through a streamlined, phone-based application system called Benefits Launch, which reduces redundant questions and speeds up the process for multiple programs. BDT's approach, supported by a custom-built rules engine, has facilitated over 800,000 benefit enrollments, helping secure over $9 billion for eligible households across seven states.
