GovBenefits - Building a One-Stop Shop for Screening Eligibility & Applying for Government Benefits

Problem

OMB's Challenge: Thousands of web pages are dedicated to information about government benefit programs, many with long, complicated URLs, hidden within subdirectories, and written in nearly indecipherable 'legalese.' It is virtually impossible for a citizen to find all the benefits he or she may be eligible to receive. Further, millions of dollars are being spent to develop and maintain these sites by multiple agencies, many with redundant content. The challenge? Reverse the trend and turn government into a servant of its citizens — so citizens can actually benefit — while reducing the operating costs for the government.

Scenario: President Bush's Federal Management Agenda calls for the government to more effectively utilize advances in information technology to improve service for citizens and gain operational efficiency. As part of this agenda, 24 interagency e-government initiatives were created to address some of the greatest problems in government service that can be improved through applied information technology. Booz Allen worked with the federal government to develop more than half of these 24 e-government business cases and is now supporting their full concept-to-strategy-to-development lifecycle. The first initiative to be launched, GovBenefits.gov, is an online screening tool to help citizens identify government benefits they may be eligible to receive.

What Booz Allen Did: Booz Allen Hamilton began working with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the summer of 2001 to develop the business case for the GovBenefits solution. Using a multidisciplinary team of experts in e-government strategy, business analysis, and information technology strategy, Booz Allen developed the case to prove better service to our citizens and cost savings for government operations were both achievable.

Winning support for the business case from OMB, Booz Allen began working with the Department of Labor — the managing partner for GovBenefits — to create and execute the strategy to establish the program management office, assemble the interagency team, gather the necessary benefit program information, and finally, design, develop, and launch the GovBenefits solution — all in less than 100 working days.

To accomplish all of this in such a tight timeframe, Booz Allen and The Department of Labor adopted an iterative development approach with the goal of showing results quickly and continuing to improve and expand over time. A major challenge was mobilizing a diverse set of partners — and the many different individuals involved — to buy into the GovBenefits value proposition, allocate the necessary resources, and deliver program information to meet the initial launch milestone. Proactive outreach and communication to partners was a key component to early success.

Results: The first release of GovBenefits.gov, which went live on April 29, 2002, featured 55 major benefits programs from all ten partner agencies were included, totaling approximately $1 trillion in annual benefits to citizens. Visitors to the website answer a series of non-personal questions about themselves that are written in plain English to receive a list of benefits they may be eligible to receive, along with points of contact for applying or getting additional program information.