335forNC Connected North Carolina Families to Extra Credit Grants

335forNC was an effort co-created by the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy (CCLA) and Legal Aid of North Carolina to help low-income families in North Carolina learn about and apply for Extra Credit Grants. Coforma created a website to facilitate and improve the application process in just three days, allowing nearly 25,000 families to access funds.

Project Background

North Carolina’s Extra Credit Grants provided checks for $335 to eligible North Carolina families to help with remote learning and childcare expenses incurred due to the pandemic. When a group of legal advocates discovered there were thousands of families in need who missed out on the grants unfairly, they pursued a legal remedy that would give families who were excluded a chance to receive assistance.

“Coforma was a great partner to work with under extreme time constraints to quickly develop a usable, plain language, secure website that could accept applications for a specific pandemic relief program. They were technically competent and highly responsive. In a period of just a few weeks before the deadline, we processed over 13,000 incoming and outgoing calls and produced 24,946 applications on the website from low income families for the education grants.”

— Kenneth Schorr, Executive Director, Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy

Legal Background

In September, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a statute to use federal coronavirus relief funds to send $335 checks to North Carolina families with children to help with remote learning and childcare costs during the pandemic. The law allowed higher-income families who had filed taxes in 2019 to automatically receive the relief funds. However, families who didn’t file taxes in 2019 because they didn’t meet the state income tax filing threshold would not receive the automatic grant. Instead, these families needed to submit an application for their share of the funds.

Many of these low-income families never learned of the program. The law also gave this group of North Carolinians less than a month to submit an application. As a result, an estimated 200,000 families with incomes under $10,000 or $20,000 — the families most in need of help with remote learning and childcare expenses — were set to receive nothing.

On October 20, 2020, Robinson Bradshaw filed a complaint challenging the exclusion of low-income families from coronavirus relief payments by the state of North Carolina. The firm represents Legal Aid of North Carolina, the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy and several low-income residents pro bono in the suit.

As a result of this litigation, a court entered an order on November 5, 2020, that reopened and extended the application period for eligible North Carolina individuals to apply for the $335 Extra Credit Grant.

Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy and Legal Aid of North Carolina advocated for low-income people who were excluded from the Extra Credit Grant program and applied their expertise to help implement the program statewide through the application form on the 335forNC site. The Extra Credit Grant application process was opened to all North Carolina residents, not just those in Mecklenburg County.

Project Goals

335forNC sought to guarantee every family who qualifies for the North Carolina Extra Credit Grants received the opportunity to receive assistance, despite being left out of the original grant funds distribution due to their tax filing status.

Coforma supported the goal by making the process as straightforward as possible, using plain language where possible, and creating a form that was intuitive and easy for people to complete. We also wanted to create both English and Spanish language versions of the website and form, making the application more accessible to a wider audience. We committed to a process that was iterative, collaborative, and open.

Our Solution

335forNC came to Coforma to build a web application for this purpose. We stood up a dual-language MVP web application for processing that met the needs of the legal team, applicants, and call center support in just three days. We created the site in both English and Spanish, with nearly 25,000 claims submitted to the North Carolina Department of Revenue in its three-week lifecycle.

Methodology & Features

Our small team started by designing the application form to be more direct, more accessible, and use plain language. We noticed key issues with the original version, including:

1. Item order: The original form asked for the filer’s information first, then asked program eligibility questions. This caused frustration because some people would find out they were ineligible partway through filling out the application. We moved the eligibility questions to the start of the form and built it so that if the filer doesn’t qualify, they don’t move on to the rest of the application.
2. Data storage: We recognized eligibility information didn’t have to be stored; it could just be used to access the form. By paring down on the data we captured, we promoted more focused and secure data management.
3. Legal compliance: There was no legal requirement for a household to provide information for all the children in their household because grant eligibility was determined by having at least one eligible child. We asked the Department of Revenue to review their statute and amended the form to ask for the information of just one child. With less information to put in, the form was easier to fill out.

Once we designed the form and its requirements, we created a plugin to support the form in WordPress, which constitutes the frontend and backend of the site we built. We hosted our content using AWS, being prudent about utilizing end-to-end encryption on everything.

Our first focus was building an MVP that would just get the form online so the CCLA could onboard a call center that could work with it. We also created a second password-protected form for the call center team to use with applicants who were filing over the phone.

After releasing the first iteration of the site in just three days, we added functionality as needs arose, while taking care to reduce risks. We added tools to improve the site administration interface, including the ability to securely export sensitive data while keeping identity hidden and weekly counts of applications, and adhered to requirements from the Department of Revenue to decide what was necessary for data management.

Security

Part of our work involved being conscious of regulations as we built the site. We were surprised to find an absence of rules around the management of SSNs. We decided to approach website design with care and focus on our own commitment to data security, so we made sure to store only what was necessary on our end.

We wanted to create a robust process for checking application data and catching issues with content submitted through the form before each final submission file was securely exported and delivered to the North Carolina Department of Revenue (DOR). To achieve this, we created several steps to catch errors during entry, beginning with form validation. We then masked Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and reviewed entry exports to identify unexpected errors, invalid entries, and duplicate entries while respecting privacy and ensuring security. Lastly, we generated and applied programmatic rules to the data before they were exported for delivery to DOR which allowed us to keep the data clean and untouched, but to export data that could be accurately read by the DOR’s systems. When invalid records were found, they were earmarked, securely exported, and then sent to the call center, who assisted applicants in submitting new, valid applications. Using this method, hundreds of invalid applications were cured before being sent to the Department of Revenue.

While the site we built was functionally simple, that was part of the secure design process. Fewer variables mean there is less to keep track of and less that could potentially be forgotten or mismanaged.

Agile

Every day the webform wasn’t up and running, people would potentially lose access to the program, so we knew we had to be nimble and focused in our approach. That meant simplifying our processes to be efficient and comprehensive, from implementing a thin tech stack to direct communication chains.

Our developer mostly interacted with the project lead, who then relayed pertinent information between client and team to emphasize project priorities. Issues were tracked on GitHub over the speedy development period so our team could document and address points of concern as they arose.

Across our iterative development process, we shared solutions that the team collaborated on with the client, making decisions that worked for their goals.

Dual Language

To make the application accessible to as many people as possible, we created the site in both English and Spanish. We tested both versions in a simple development environment to ensure they would be clear and readable for users in both languages.

Outcomes

The number of people filing for the $335 Extra Credit Grant rocketed with the implementation of the new website and a strategic communications plan. The site processed twice as many applications in two weeks as in the six weeks before we created it.

As of December 9, 2020, there were nearly 25,000 total applications processed, saving $335 per household — totaling over $8 million that went to families in need.

Legal Advocacy for Inclusive Policies

Policy needs to be designed to reach the people who it intends to support. Part of remedying the problem in the 335 for North Carolina project is addressing the underlying issues in policy design that resulted in the exclusion of low income families from the program.

Inclusive policy making needs to be transparent, accessible, responsive, and evidence-driven. It requires research into constituents and measures of impact tied to metrics beyond the most visible or most heavily skewed, such as cash flow. Accessible policy necessarily incorporates diverse voices and views in the policy-making process at all stages of design and delivery.

Read more about approaches to inclusive policy from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

About Coforma

Coforma works with the government and private sector to craft creative digital solutions and build technology products people can rely on. Our modern, agile, user-centered approach elevates human needs through thoughtfully-designed systems and products. Learn more about us at coforma.io.