Giving Compass' Take:

• Sonal Shah explains how the Digital Service Collaborative is working to help government services take advantage of digital innovation to improve their work. 

• What services could benefit from digital updates in your community? 

• Read about principles and practices for government in the digital age. 

Our lives intersect with government services in countless ways — giving veterans access to healthcare, caring for children in foster programs, and even helping us get around using public transit. In an effort to improve those interactions, governments around the world are working to reimagine how they provide public services in a digital age.

While early leaders in this work are already providing measurable outcomes showing cost savings and efficiencies, most governments are not equipped for this new way of working. Which is why the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation is proud to launch the Digital Service Collaborative with support from The Rockefeller Foundation to provide expert support to government teams in delivering better results for society at scale.

From Georgia to San Francisco, digital services teams are already focused on delivering high-quality services to their communities. Yet government officials continue to announce new initiatives, resources, and support for this type of work including in Connecticut, Maine, and California. Nationally, leaders across the U.S. government have made service delivery a priority throughout federal departments and agencies, as well as in the U.S. Digital Service and 18F. Some of these great work includes:

  • Making it easier for military veterans to apply for benefits by consolidating 1,000 separate websites and 950 different telephone numbers so military veterans could more easily determine their eligibility for services;
  • Providing students and families better information on higher education including full costs, average loan amounts borrowed, and graduation rates;
  • Creating a people-based process immigration process to help individuals and families understand and follow the naturalization process; and
  • Helping people find affordable housing in San Francisco; and
  • Improving live-saving alerts for flooded roadways in Austin, Texas.

Read the full article about digital innovation for government services by Sonal Shah at The Rockefeller Foundation.