United Way Worldwide and New America’s New Practice Lab are currently partnering for a three month design sprint to identify how to make quality, free tax assistance more accessible to low income filers. This report explores how “Facilitated Self-Assistance,” where eligible filers file their own taxes online with assistance provided by IRS volunteers, can help increase accessibility to tax assistance and allow families to access benefits they are owed.
WIC programs across the country are already adapting and evolving to meet their participants’ needs. An API standard, which allows agencies to plug digital tools into existing technology systems, would remove some of the key barriers to innovating and sharing technology tools between agencies.
Code for America initially introduced the concept of Delivery-Driven Government in 2018. This article refreshes its original principles and expands on what the organization has learned to make its concepts clearer.
The US General Services Administration announces that it is seeking a limited number of state and local government partners to take advantage of login.gov to administer their federally funded programs.
The Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Family Assistance (OFA) worked with 18F to replace its legacy data reporting system through product management training, user research, and an assisted acquisition.
Building modular, open-source, human-centered software is necessary to create equitable government services fit for the digital age. Nava emphasizes addressing large scale digital service challenges by building and releasing small, modular software components that are loosely-coupled by well-defined APIs. This enables agencies to quickly and conistently deliver services that help people immediately, whilst also building a flexible foundation for long-term technical evolution.
Governments around the world are sharing custom-built software already, and have done so for many years. It’s vital, cost-saving, and meets the needs of users. This article provides examples of a range of different software sharing models.
The US Digital response partnered with dozens of states, counties, and cities to support them in using and tracking CARES Act grants. This article presents six lessons learned from their work to help governments better assist residents, particularly small businesses and low-income communities.
This article describes the necessary factors for a public interest technology project to succeed, including leadership support, organizational and team support, proper scoping, time and resources, and a sustainability plan.
This article discusses the various benefits of publicly-funded open-source software. These benefits include fairness and transparency, economic stimulus, and support of the Federal Source Code Policy Agenda.
Overwhelming unemployment rates during the pandemic created significant demand for state-based unemployment benefits. As a result of the increased applications, states are also experiencing an overwhelming volume of calls to their call centers. U.S. Digital Response has been working with states to mitigate problems arising from heavy demand on call centers. This article describes tangible steps state governments can take to manage call volume.
County workers typically spend most of their time trying to get income information right during eligibility interviews. This article provides several recommendations for asking about income, accounting for cognitive biases, under-reporting, and complexities in reporting income.
