5 personal reasons for Frontdoor Benefits
Ben here. I wanted to share a little more about myself and my motivations for joining Charlotte to work on Frontdoor Benefits. Also, we want to limit the number of emails we blast everyone with; we’ll publish some posts, like this one, without emailing all subscribers and link back to it later when we do.
At the beginning of April, I left my previous job and committed to working with Charlotte on Frontdoor Benefits full time. In making that decision—and explaining it to my friends and family—there were five big reasons why Frontdoor Benefits is so compelling to me.
As background, I was one of the first software engineers to work on Code for America’s GetCalFresh. I eventually rose to become Director of Engineering Operations at Code for America where I helped build and deploy technology to help tens of millions of Americans navigate government services. That was long after I first started my career as an AmeriCorps*VISTA member and then running the Digital Arts Service Corp where I placed and supported hundreds of service members at community media and technology centers around the country. Since then I’ve worked in software for lots of different kinds of companies you may have heard of, like OkCupid and GitHub.
The work of Frontdoor Benefits is deeply familiar to me and uniquely stands out as to the scale of opportunity.
Reason #1: It’s meaningful work
The social impact of Frontdoor Benefits is straightforward: there are a lot of welfare benefits that go unclaimed; more than $100B annually across programs, about $15B in SNAP alone. Helping families and individuals access what they are entitled to but aren’t receiving—largely due to awareness and administrative burdens—is simply a good thing to do.
This is meaningful work and also not particularly unique to us. This work is, for example, Code for America’s bread-and-butter, as well as lots and lots of other national and community organizations.
Reason #2: Our focus on enrollment is unique
As Charlotte wrote in our last newsletter:
Ben and I don’t care about how many applications we submit, or how many “clients we serve.” We care about how many clients get enrolled. How many people successfully use their benefits. Our work is about social service delivery. Dollars in hand, food on the table, benefits delivered.
Our focus on enrollment and delivery looks far beyond awareness, eligibility screening, and intake application assistance. So far we’ve focused on verification document accuracy, navigating the SNAP enrollment interview, EBT card usability, even determination appeals and Fair Hearings. And we’re seeing good results.
I believe that this focus on enrollment and delivery is unique among digital assistance initiatives, and it’s exactly what I’ve been wanting to do for many years.
Reason #3: It’s a good business
I’ve spent half of my career working in nonprofits and government and it’s hard to maintain focus when philanthropic and public priorities shift. For example, working on GetCalFresh, I was told again and again “no one will fund scaling this up”; it’s heartbreaking now to see GetCalFresh being scaled down instead.
Therefore, I’m excited to work on a new financial model for making this work scale and sustain itself by partnering with private businesses. Given that welfare benefits like SNAP are only usable purchasing food from grocery stores and farmers, those businesses have a stake in the success of this work too.
Reason #4: Teamwork
Charlotte and I are a good team. While I recently joined full-time, we have been building together for nearly a year now. Charlotte and I have the same shared values and complementary skillsets and experience.
And the results show it. I’m really proud of what we’ve already built together and the clients that we’ve already helped: from a simplified digital intake application, to a set of secure communications tools for helping clients through the enrollment process. I’m excited too about building out a larger team to do this work, and grateful for the advisors and consultants who have helped us already.
Reason #5: The technology landscape
My professional tagline for the past several years has been “I help small teams do big things.” I’m proud of what we accomplished on GetCalFresh over five years with just a handful of software engineers, and during pandemic response efforts that accelerated what pairs of engineers could accomplish within merely weeks and months.
Today, software tools and platforms for securely and quickly building information technology is mature and affordable. That’s helped Frontdoor Benefits quickly deploy a digital intake application and suite of client management tools over just a few months.
Frontdoor Benefits is giving me the opportunity to use new AI software development and research tools, and prototype and build AI-assisted workflows into our software.
It’s fun and exciting what’s possible to build today, and I’m looking forward to sharing more about that here.