Challenge: Create digital tools that enable hard to count communities to see and experience the value of the Census data in order to increase participation in the 2020 Census.
Policy priority: Every decade, the U.S. Census Bureau conducts the Decennial Census, which is used to apportioning representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, electoral college votes, and federal funds for critical infrastructure and services such as housing, highways, schools, hospitals, and more. It is critical that all those living in the U.S. participate in the 2020 Census so representation and funds can be correctly given to all communities throughout the US.
Problem: Certain segments of the US population have been hard to count in the Census at disproportionately high rates. Historically, 18% of the U.S. population goes uncounted due to lack of knowledge about the census and mistrust of the federal government. This results in fewer resources allocated, imprecise policy recommendations, and less congressional representation for those communities. The 2020 Census will be the first to have an online response option, presenting new challenges with those who aren’t digitally connected, but also opening up new opportunities for creative solutions to the undercount challenge.
Additional resources on this problem:
- Census Barriers, Attitudes and Motivators Survey (please note pages 48-55)
- Census Planning Database and Low Response Score
Challenge: Create digital tools that help local leaders to visualize and understand information on federal funding in their communities.
Policy Priority: The Office of Management and Budget is focused on ensuring that organizations and taxpayers can easily access information on financial assistance opportunities, including funding that is available to them, where the funding is currently awarded, and the outcomes of existing projects.
Problem: Despite an overabundance of information on existing financial assistance opportunities and awards, community leaders, potential applicants, researchers, and Congress continue to express frustration that they cannot easily find the information they need or are interested in. Example scenario: the Mayor of a large city is currently facing a financial crisis and city has filed for bankruptcy. The city is looking for available Federal funds for assistance. The mayor is trying to determine what available funds the city has, how those funds are making a difference for the city, or what funds the city could apply for, but is unable to get a complete picture of what funds are available that could be used to provide essential city services.
Potential data sets:
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Government-wide sites:
- USAspending.gov
- SAM.gov, including CFDA.gov
- Federal Audit Clearinghouse
- Grants.gov
- Performance.gov
- Benefits.gov
- USA.gov
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In addition to government-wide sites, most agencies have agency specific sites that include additional information (and in some cases more helpful information) regarding their assistance awards, below are a few examples:
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Performance related agency sites (some agencies post performance and outcomes related to assistance awards online, others have this information internally, generally this type of information is hard to find):
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Payment management systems (internal) – currently non-public, but these systems could be leveraged to reflect the amount of funds organizations have available to them for disbursement:
Visit opportunity.census.gov to find more user scenarios and data sets that you can use to solve different types of problems. Choose a problem, learn about the user, find helpful data, and create a solution with your own civic tech team! Use the Opportunity Project Playbook to guide your team through the process.