Category: Blog
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Miami Open211 Phase One: Our Report
Last year, the Miami Open211 project set out to demonstrate that an information-and-referral helpline operator can evolve into an open platform — providing machine-readable data as a service to its community — in ways that are both technically efficient and institutionally sustainable. This project, which began in partnership with Switchboard of Miami, was Open Referral’s first formal pilot with…
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Upgrade: the Human Services Data Specification version 1.1
by Tim Davies of the Open Data Services Cooperative After two years of testing, feedback, and deliberation across the Open Referral initiative, we’ve just upgraded the Human Services Data Specification to version 1.1. Check HSDS v1.1 out here. If you have questions or feedback, you can comment there directly on the site or discuss the changes in…
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Talking Open Referral at Stanford’s Data on Purpose
Last month I visited Stanford to speak at the 2017 Data on Purpose conference, sponsored by Stanford’s Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society, the Stanford Social Innovation Review and Digital Impact (née Markets for Good). From Possibilities To Responsibilities: Unlocking Data and Unleashing Its Potential (Jake Porway et al) from Stanford PACS. Much of the…
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The Open Referral API project
The Open Referral Initiative’s next chapter starts now! Open Referral has helped over a dozen community organizations find new ways to share resource directory information about the health, human, and social services available to people in need. Our Human Services Data Specification provides a common ‘machine language’ that any technology can be programmed to understand.…
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Our 2016 Year in Review
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 →
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The Florida Legal Resource Directory Project
[Update: This pilot has come to a successful conclusion! Read our final report here.] Legal problems: sometimes you don’t even know you have one until it’s too late. When it comes to people with low incomes, legal problems of various kinds — issues with landlords, family disputes, rejected benefits, etc — can be outright debilitating. Yet while…
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Open Referral in Oklahoma!
This is a guest post from Aaron Bean of Asemio. Welcome, Aaron! We’re pleased to introduce the first iteration of the Oklahoma Open 2-1-1 project, which is leveraging the Ohana platform and the Open Referral format to make it easier for Oklahoma residents to find and share information about community resources that can help improve…
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Welcoming Benetech to Open Referral!
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…
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Leveling up: documentation improvements and spec upgrade
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…