Author: Greg Bloom

  • Our 2016 Year in Review

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    Greg Bloom
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    I’m pleased to share Open Referral’s 2016 Year in Review. (You can browse the document here, download the complete PDF here, or skim through the document embedded at the end of this post.) Continue reading →

  • Welcoming Benetech to Open Referral!

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    Greg Bloom
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    We’re pleased to announce a new strategic partnership with Benetech, one of the world’s leading non-profit software development organizations. Benetech was formed in 1989 and in the time since has developed a series of products that have improved lives and transformed industries around the world — starting with Bookshare (the world’s largest online library of…

  • Leveling up: documentation improvements and spec upgrade

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    Greg Bloom
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    Last year, Open Referral introduced Version 1.0 of the Human Services Data Specification — an open data exchange format designed to make it easier for different organizations to share standardized information about the health, human, and social services available to people in need. Since then, a broad range of organizations have used the HSDS to…

  • Joining Up Data Standards: the U.S. Data Federation and beyond

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    Greg Bloom
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    We’re pleased to announce that Open Referral is one of the first seven initiatives to be featured by the U.S. Data Federation, a new initiative from the federal General Services Administration, in association with Data.Gov, to promote the effective use of civic data through interoperability. As the GSA explains in its introduction of the new…

  • The Civic Imagination Fellowship with Civic Hall Labs [UPDATED with video]

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    Greg Bloom
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    I’m excited to share that I’ve been invited to join Civic Hall Labs as part of their inaugural cohort of Civic Imagination Fellows. Civic Hall is a community center civic innovators located in the Flatiron District of New York City. It was started by the proprietors of the Personal Democracy Forum, which is a conference and…

  • The 2016 AIRS style guide: newly open sourced!

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    Greg Bloom
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    The Alliance of Information and Referral Systems (www.airs.org) is the trade association for ‘information and referral’ providers across North America — such as 2-1-1s, Area Agencies on Aging, and other organizations that help people connect to services that can meet their needs. The AIRS Style Guide puts forth a formal set of recommended practices for collecting,…

  • New Philanthropy Capital: Joining the Dots

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    Greg Bloom
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    Last October, I had the opportunity to visit London and spend some time learning about the UK social sector, at events such as the excellent NPC Ignites conference. On this trip, I was impressed by people’s sense of pride in the country’s long history of public service provision. But I also heard clear notes of…

  • Annual Review wrap-up: the path ahead

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    Greg Bloom
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    In 2014, we formed a table and conducted research. In 2015, we initiated action. In 2016, we’ll put these ideas to the test, and learn from our work. Based on your feedback so far, here’s what that might look like… (This note is far from a final word on the matter — please share your…

  • 2015 in Review: who’s doing what, where and why

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    Greg Bloom
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    In the last blog post, we discussed the different technological products that have emerged through Open Referral. [See our entire 2015 Year in Review here.] In this post, we’ll discuss the different projects in which people are using these tools to find new ways to share and use information about the health, human, and social services available…

  • 2015 in Review: the building blocks of an open ecosystem

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    Greg Bloom
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    A world in which information about community resources is easy for anyone to find, trust, and effectively use — in whatever way works best for them. This is Open Referral’s hopeful vision of the future. In 2015, we saw the first glimmers of such a world. Let’s take a look: Continue reading →