Category: Blog
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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…
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Joining Up Data Standards: the U.S. Data Federation and beyond
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…
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Meet the Open Data Services Cooperative
This post is from Tim Davies, founding member of the Open Data Services Co-operative. We’re really delighted to announce the Open Data Services Co-operative’s new collaboration with Open Referral on the Miami Open 211 project, and on wider developments of the Human Services Data Specification (HSDS). At the Open Data Services Co-operative, we’re passionate about…
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Open Referral for legal services in Illinois: the new IllinoisLegalAid.org
This is a guest post from Teri Ross, Program Director for Illinois Legal Aid Online. Illinois Legal Aid Online develops technology and information to increase access to justice for people in Illinois who may otherwise be foreclosed from it, especially for those who cannot find or afford a lawyer. Illinois Legal Aid Online, or…
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Crisis Text Line: lives in the balance
This guest post is from Rebecca Kan, the head of referral services for Crisis Text Line. I’m not safe. I have nowhere to sleep tonight. I don’t recognize myself anymore, I need help. I said no…was I raped? Crisis Text Line is a free, 24/7 text service for people in crisis. By texting 741741,…
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OpenCIOC: Exploring New Models for Sharing and Collaboration
Across Canada, OpenCIOC project software supports the work of hundreds of diverse community organizations, including community information providers and volunteer centres, local and provincial governments, 211 providers, mental health associations, health support networks/organizations, seniors’ support services, and many others – as well as millions of public users each year. … We’re so excited to now…
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Making Complexity Friendly
Last year, SIMLab completed a project [discussed previously on this blog] with DC Public Library (DCPL) to find out how the library could deliver and maintain good information on social services in DC. Funded by the Knight Foundation’s Prototype Fund, this project sparked a prolonged investigation into how the American social safety net is constructed. What…
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Open Referral in Ontario: A Big Step Forward
[This guest post is from Karen Milligan, the new executive director of Ontario 211. Welcome, Karen!] Excerpt: In partnership with iCarol, and leveraging the Human Services Data Specification, we are now developing a new web platform with new search capabilities to provide accurate and timely information to the public. Behind the scenes of this platform,…