Daniel X. O’Neil is executive director of the Smart Chicago Collaborative, a winner of the Knight Community Information Challenge and recipient of a grant from the Knight Prototype Fund. Below, he writes about the Civic Works Project, which is funded through the challenge and the Chicago Community Trust.

Open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act began in October 2013. Across the country, hundreds of agencies worked  to get everyone eligible enrolled. Smart Chicago and our longtime partner LISC Chicago, saw that there was an opportunity to make the outreach, enrollment and follow-up processes as smooth as possible and to use it as a springboard for sustained resident engagement for years to come. Through the use of the ACA SMS Outreach app, LISC Chicago was able to contact 27,000 residents leading to the enrollment of over 2,900 Chicagoans.

LISC and its partners received a grant from the State of Illinois to perform outreach and enrollment for the Affordable Healthcare Act in 20 Chicago community areas. Field organizers went door to door and canvassed public events to achieve their outreach goals. These field organizers then directed residents to Centers for Working Families in each community area to become enrolled.

Using a combination of tools such as Wufoo and Twilio, Smart Chicago aided LISC with its outreach by building a tool that enables organizers to send text reminders to sign up for health insurance to residents. We also open sourced this tool to help other organizations with similar needs.

To build it, we contracted with civic technologist Josh Kalov. Kalov’s previous civic app work includes schoolcuts.org, Child Care Options during the CTU Strike and the CTA Poverty Map. He has now set up a new consultancy to work on civic data projects. This role of incubating civic startups is central to our mission at Smart Chicago.

Through a Twilio SMS App, LISC Chicago sent hundreds of text message reminders to residents to remind them to sign up for the Affordable Health Care app before the deadline. Thanks to the nimbleness of the app, LISC Chicago was able to contact hundreds residents to let them know that the Affordable Care Act deadline had been extended and that there was still time to sign up. During the enrollment period, LISC’s Health Care Navigators collectively enrolled 2,975 Chicagoans.

Thanks to the Wufoo platform, LISC Chicago was able to track how their navigators did. Since using the tool, navigators have:

Held over 375 educational events to inform residents about the health care law.  These events have been diverse in format and location, demonstrating navigators’ unique knowledge of the communities they serve.  This outreach has taken place during parent-teacher conferences at schools, church services, flu shot events, career fair days and meetings held by local elected officials, to name a few.  During these outreach events or one-on-one appointments, navigators have made meaningful contact with nearly 27,000 residents.

Continued building upon existing relationships with organizations and people in the community who have the potential to reach large groups of residents with Affordable Care Act information. Navigators have enlisted support from diverse stakeholders, 400 to date, including but school principals, church leaders, business owners and social service providers.

Smart Chicago continues to partner with community nonprofits such as LISC Chicago, the Southwest Organizing Project, Mikva Challenge and the Legal Aid Foundation of Chicago to find ways that technology can support the great work being done by these groups.