Our 2022 Year in Review report is now available to review!
This annual practice of review and reflection is an opportunity for us to step back and assess our progress across multiple objectives as we work towards our shared goal: a future in which it’s easy to share, find, and use information about the resources available to people in need.
This year is especially notable for the range of ways in which we’ve helped governments, nonprofits, and private sector actors take action to modernize their resource directory information supply chains – on a local, statewide, and even national level.
The report shares stories of pilot projects across the U.S. in which Open Referral’s standards, tools, and strategies are enabling cooperation among organizations that previously struggled to work together in pursuit of their common goals.
We also include an update about our third major upgrade of the Human Service Data Specifications – exchange standards for resource directory information systems in the U.S., Canada, U.K., and beyond – which will make it easier for communities to enable real-time access to more granular information about human services and the accessibility thereof. (This process is still underway. Stay tuned for more updates soon.)
We’ve also included a set of diagrams that present a family of institutional models for the sustainable production of resource directory information as a public good. (These models we first described in an academic paper that I published in 2021; last year, with support from the Ostrom Workshop on the Commons at Indiana University, we assembled a set of infographics to depict these ideas at a glance as part of a practical whitepaper. Once again, stay tuned for more!) Across our network, we’re helping communities test these hypothetical strategies, and adapt them in ways that reflect their unique needs and cultures.
Would you like to get involved in designing such a strategic approach to systems change in your community and/or service sector? Do you have a story to share about how Open Referral’s standards, tools, and practices have helped you achieve your objectives? Please reach out! We’d love to be able to feature your story in the 2023 Year in Review 😉 )
As we enter into the 10th year of this journey, I want to express my gratitude for the many people in this community who have brought time, energy, and compassion to the difficult task of enabling collective actions that can make these systems more accessible, transparent, responsive, and humane. Together, we can transform our safety net for the 21st century.
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