Information from the City of Seattle

 Today, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the expansion of the City’s Affordable Seattle initiative – part of his efforts to make City discount and benefit programs easily accessible to all. Mayor Harrell has championed CiviForm – an innovative portal designed as a simple one-stop shop to quickly and conveniently apply for City services to save residents time and money by making it easier to apply for multiple benefit and discount programs at the same time. This initiative is supported by a new Executive Order directing all City benefit and discount programs to identify and implement changes that decrease the burden on residents. Among the changes, departments are directed to adopt or integrate with the CiviForm platform by the end of 2024.  

CiviForm is a tool that makes it faster and easier for residents to apply to City of Seattle benefit and discount programs and was designed with community input to ensure it works for the neighbors who will benefit the most. The tool was developed by the City of Seattle’s Innovation and Performance team and Seattle Information Technology Department with pro-bono support from Google.orgFellows – a program through Google’s philanthropic arm that provides technical expertise to help nonprofits and civic entities solve their biggest technical challenges. The City of Seattle is the custodian of all data and data is not shared with Google.org.  

“CiviForm is a game changer for our communities – this exciting initiative and new technology is already making a meaningful difference supporting Seattle residents, helping them save time, save money, and access the resources and programs they need,” said Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell. “Rooted in Seattle’s spirit of big ideas and support for those in need, we are leveraging innovation and collaboration to make it easier for people to understand what assistance programs they qualify for and then apply in just minutes. CiviForm exemplifies our One Seattle approach to public-private collaborations: its development was supported by know-how from technology companies and its design was informed by testing with community non-profit partners.” 

Residents and community partners can learn about, check their eligibility, and apply for City of Seattle benefits and discount programs at www.seattle.gov/affordable. The site is accessible via desktop and mobile in eight languages: English, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Somali, Amharic, Korean and Tagalog.  

In its first year of piloting with community partners in Seattle, CiviForm reduced time for residents to apply to a City discount program from an average of 30 minutes to 5 minutes, resulting in time savings of 80%. For qualified households, the total available savings through programs that use CiviForm is up to $23,000 per year, and the City is continuing to add more benefits to the tool with a goal of including over 20 assistance programs by the end of 2024.  

"We jumped at the opportunity to support the City of Seattle through the Google.org Fellowship program which offered local Googlers across a range of functions including Program Management, Engineering, UX and more the chance to give back to their communities,” said Paco Galanes, Google director and leader of their Puget Sound offices. “This collaboration demonstrates what can happen when the public and private sector come together and use technology as a vehicle to create equitable access to critical resources, for everyone." 

Currently, the City of Seattle offers residents the ability to apply for the following programs via CiviForm: 

• Seattle Parks and Recreation Scholarship Program: Residents can save 50-90% off recreation programs for all ages including aquatics, recreation, preschool and childcare.  
• Seattle Preschool Program: Residents can get access to free or discounted preschool for children ages three and four. 
• Gold Card: Residents ages 60 and older can save on retail, services, art, entertainment, and tourism with the Gold Card, including free passes to the Seattle Aquarium. 

• FLASH Card: Residents ages 18-59 with qualifying disabilities can save on retail, services, art, entertainment, and tourism with the FLASH Card, including free passes to the Seattle Aquarium. 

Mayor Harrell’s July 12th Affordable Seattle Executive Order directs all City departments with resident benefit and discount programs to begin working with the Affordable Seattle team (a collaboration of the City Budget Office, Innovation & Performance team, and Seattle Information Technology Department) to map out the current state and develop a timeline to adopt or implement CiviForm. This work will include identifying barriers to access, standardizing data collection, and continuously improving programs to make it easier for residents to live and thrive in our communities. 

“We heard from residents how tired they are finding and then repeating their information to apply to each individual City program,” said Seattle Innovation and Performance Director Leah Tivoli. “We also heard from residents the critical role community-based organizations play in their lives helping them connect to the myriad of programs offered at the City of Seattle and other jurisdictions and authorities. We are proud of our collaboration with Google.org to make it simpler for residents and community-based organizations and excited to scale a better experience to other programs in the coming year.” 

A pro bono team of 14 full-time Google.org Fellows including product managers, engineers, user experience researchers and designers dedicated nine months to the project. Fellows worked with staff across the City to co-create the CiviFormsolution. Community-based organizations were also involved from the start, with partners including El Centro de la Raza, Chinese Information and Service Center (CISC), and Refugee Women’s Alliance (ReWA) providing invaluable input throughout development. CiviForm was designed knowing that case workers at trusted community-based organizations often apply for programs on behalf of their clients.  

The City of Bloomington, Indiana and the State of Arkansas have also adopted CiviForm and the City of Charlotte, North Carolina is the latest addition to join the software collaborative. Exygy is the steward of the CiviForm shared open-source software project and is supported through a grant from Google.org. Smart Cities Connect recently named CiviForm as one the 50 most transformative smart projects of 2023. 

“The Civiform program is at the cutting-edge – not only as a bold use of technology but also by cutting down costs, paperwork, and application times,” said Mayor Bruce Harrell. “Based on CiviForm’s early success, this is a model that other jurisdictions across the country are learning from and adopting, and we hope to continue to see more embrace this approach. Our commitment to serving as a learning, growing organization means we won't just stop at releasing CiviForm – we will continue to improve and enhance this program for neighbors across Seattle. Thank you to everyone who supported this effort.” 

Learn more about the CiviForm open-source tool or reach out to the team at info@civiform.us.