Leveraging Government Partnerships
How can social enterprises prepare for and successfully partner with government to dramatically accelerate the scale of impact? Code for America on understanding the whole government ecosystem before engaging Jen…
Code for America supports 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.
Flawed bureaucratic processes keep government programs from reaching the tens of millions of Americans who need the help most.
Code for America’s open source, user-centered approach equips government to optimize services for people in need.
Jennifer Pahlka helped found the U.S. Digital Service before launching Code For America to leverage technology to fix how government works.
Code for America is expanding to eight more states in 2018, and now has 64 active "brigade" volunteer chapters across the country.
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.
Code for America open-sources its code and processes to enable replication, and codifies its processes and learnings for dissemination to government leaders and influencers. Code for America advises government program and procurement leaders and large vendors, and hosts the largest civic tech convening in the country: the Code for America Summit.
Founder, Code for America
Jennifer Pahlka is the Founder and 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.
Code for America’s GetCalFresh product (which enhances California’s food assistance program enrollment process) quickly scaled from two counties and 10,000 people in 2016 to 36 counties and 500,000 people in 2018. Following launch, participating counties experienced an average 30 percent increase in SNAP enrollment. GetCalFresh costs less than $4 million a year to operate while one of the incumbent websites cost $80 million a 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 percent of the costs GetCalFresh, and Code for America was awarded a $1 million 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, five city/county governments have implemented automatic criminal record expungement. Code for America’s influence on governments has manifested as more than 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 $500 million 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 five 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.
How can social enterprises prepare for and successfully partner with government to dramatically accelerate the scale of impact? Code for America on understanding the whole government ecosystem before engaging Jen…