August 25, 2016 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Getting a sense of the many services Action for Boston Community Development offers can be tough for people who need assistance.
There are Head Start classes for young children, fuel assistance for low-income families, English classes for immigrants. There are senior centers, free tax preparation, and myriad other programs. The giant family- and social-service charity known locally as ABCD serves 100,000 people a year at more than 80 locations in the Boston metropolitan area.
To make the sprawling network easier to navigate for the communities it serves — and for staff members, too — ABCD created Front Door, a computer platform that integrates information about all its programs, eligibility requirements, and client data in a single system. Users provide their information once, and the system shows all the programs for which they’re eligible.
People often come to the organization because of a short-term crisis. But the charity can have a bigger impact helping clients improve their lives by connecting them to assistance for all the challenges they face, ABCD officials says.
“We know from all of the available research on interventions to reduce poverty that dosage matters, continuity matters, and multiple interventions matter,” says Christina Sieber, a vice president at the charity. “One of the big things that Front Door is doing is allowing us to focus on maximizing our chances of really changing the life trajectory of the person who walks in our door.”
Increasing Dignity
The nonprofit also hopes the system makes asking for help less onerous. Clients spend long hours traveling to charities and government offices, often using public transportation, to apply for services and then follow up on their applications.
“That’s a huge amount of time to be asking poor families to jump through hoops and drag their children and frequently not be treated too well,” says Ms. Sieber.
Front Door has cost roughly $225,000 so far, not counting hardware purchases and cloud expenses that were planned before the project’s start.
ABCD has started to roll out the second phase of the Front Door system, in which membership cards will be used to record program attendance. In time, the charity hopes to open the system to other local nonprofits.
John Drew has worked at the charity for more than 40 years, the last seven as chief executive. His biggest frustration during that time was seeing people fall through the cracks, something he hopes Front Door will eliminate.
Says Mr. Drew: “The bottom line is nobody should leave us not getting every possible service they can get.“
