A Locally Based Initiative to Support People and Communities by Transformative Use of Data

A Locally Based Initiative to Support People and Communities by Transformative Use of Data Julia Lane, David C. Kendrick, and David T. Ellwood May 2018 The ideas in this paper were shaped by discussions within the Partnership but do not necessarily represent the views of all members. The authors would like to thank the attendees of the workshop “A Road-Map to Transform the Secure and Accessible Use Of data for High Impact Program Management, Policy Development, and Scholarship” as well as the contributors to the resulting volume in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science: Beth Blauer, TC Burnett, Dennis Culhane, Peter Elias, John Fantuzzo, Ian Foster, Simson L. Garfinkel, Robert M. Goerge, Daniel Goroff, Matthew Hill, Jeffrey B. Liebman, Jeffrey Mays, Carla Medalia, Amy O’Hara, John Petrila, Jules Polonetsky, Nancy Potok, Andrew Reamer, Alexander S. Szalay, and Omer Tene. We are also grateful to participants in a follow-on workshop on the design of national data infrastructures, Robert Grossman, Mike Holland, Jeffrey B. Liebman, Amy O’Hara, and Andrew Reamer. Responsibility for any errors lies with the authors alone. Responsibility for any errors lies with the authors alone. ABOUT THE US PARTNERSHIP ON MOBILITY FROM POVERTY With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Urban Institute is supporting the US Partnership on Mobility from Poverty. Led by chair David Ellwood and executive director Nisha Patel, the Partnership consists of 24 leading voices representing academia, practice, the faith community, philanthropy, and the private sector. The Partnership’s definition of mobility has three core principles: economic success, power and autonomy, and being valued in community. Our collective aspiration is that all people achieve a reasonable standard of living with the dignity that comes from having power over their lives and being engaged in and valued by their community. Contents Executive Summary iv The Problem: Data That Could Empower People and Improve Programs Are Barely Being Used 1 Building Scalable and Sustainable Data Solutions 3 Lessons from Past Successes (and Failures) 3 Promising Places to Start: Building Research or Planning Capacity and Creating Real-Time, Integrated Service Tracking 10 Research and Planning Focus 10 Direct Services and Program Operations Focus 11 A Strategy for Moving Forward 13 Short-Term Demonstration Phase 13 Medium- to Long-Term Scaling and Sustainability Phase 15 Next Steps for Government, Philanthropy, Service Providers, and Others 17 Pathways to Prosperity: The Power of Data 19 Appendix. Successes That Can Be Built Upon 20 New Zealand’s Integrated Data Structure 20 Oklahoma’s MyHealth Access Network 21 The Coleridge Initiative‘s Administrative Data Research Facility 23 Notes 25 IV EXECUTIVE SUMMARY XECUTIVE SUMMARY Executive Summary Effective use of data is central to any effort to increase mobility. The wise use of data amplifies and accelerates the impact of all other strategies. Scholars need data to understand the forces shaping mobility and poverty. Program managers need data to determine the effectiveness of different programs and to create opportunities for continuous improvement. And higher-level decisionmakers need data to inform policy choices, from which programs to expand or reshape to when and whether to target places or people for additional assistance. Going beyond an operational level, data can enable innovation by making it possible to measure outcomes rather than just processes. As such, data can be the basis for embracing new programmatic ideas. Data can hold programs accountable for increasing mobility in its several dimensions. Data can help low-income people become empowered and families striving to make strong choices in their lives navigate the often-bewildering variety and complexity of “the system.” And, perhaps most important, data are a powerful tool for connecting the US Partnership on Mobility from Poverty’s other four reinforcing strategies for increasing mobility from poverty: c hanging the narrative, creating access to good jobs, ensuring z ip code is not destiny, and providing s upport that empowers.1 By using data to measure the success of people and programs, practitioners and scholars can understand the separate effects of very different efforts and begin to understand how they can amplify each other. Fortunately, a great deal of potentially highly useful data already exists, much of it held by state and local governments. Unfortunately, much is held in ways that make it close to impossible to use effectively. From legal barriers to bureaucratic indifference or hostility, privacy concerns to stove-piped systems using widely divergent data structures, poorly maintained documentation to resource-starved technology, lack of training to perceived high political risks, the deck is stacked against those hoping to use data and information to transform how the nonprofit and public sect