Mary Hodge

Deputy Chief of Staff, Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti, City of Los Angeles, In partnership with the Housing + Community Investment Department (HCID) and the Mayor’s Fund of Los Angeles.

Supernova Award Category: 

Next-Generation Customer Experience

The Organization: 

The Office of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City of LA’s Housing + Community Investment Department (HCID) partnered with the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles, Accelerator for America and Mastercard City Possible to create the Angeleno Card program. HCID is a city department that focuses on promoting livable and prosperous communities through the development and preservation of decent, safe, and affordable housing, neighborhood investment and social services. The Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles is a non-profit uniquely positioned at the diverse crossroads of local government, business, philanthropy, and the non-profit sector, to facilitate the communication and collaboration vital to solving Los Angeles’ most complex challenges.

The Problem: 

The Angeleno Card program was a public-private initiative funded by private donations to the Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles’s COVID-19 Crisis Fund and managed by the City of LA. Angeleno Cards provided direct financial assistance via no-fee debit cards powered by Mastercard’s City Possible network to people who live under the poverty line and whose livelihoods were hardest-hit by the pandemic. When the google application form and hotline that residents used to apply for the Angeleno Card went live, the City of LA received over 450k applications over the course of just 3 days. 150K applicants met initial eligibility requirements and were put on the list to move onto the verification process. As more and more donations came in, the City quickly realized the initial system of using a call center to schedule appointments and google sheets to track the outcome of those appointments was not going to be able to match the scope or pace the program needed to reach. Relying on selected applicants to answer their phones from an unknown number to schedule appointments and having staff manually inputting information into google sheets were not efficient enough practices to rapidly distribute funds on a larger scale. Facing the logistical challenge of not only having to schedule over 50K appointments at 21 locations across the city, but accurately report the outcome of each of those appointments every day the City of LA needed a system to keep track and keep things moving.

The Solution: 

In April, the City of LA partnered with Oracle, Mastercard and TimeTrade to help address challenges serving an influx of applicants for the Angeleno Card. COVID-19 made the situation urgent, if not dire. Knowing this, the team worked to stand up the solution quickly, in just 2-weeks. Oracle CX Service & Intelligent Advisor (IA) replaced Google Docs with custom solutions allowing the City of LA to email applicants, a link to login to a secure portal to complete an intake form. Enabled by IA and TimeTrade, which guides them through the process of what documentation to bring, applicants then schedule an appointment online where they will verify documents and receive a card if eligible at one of the 21 locations across LA. Auto-created case records allowed staff to manage and track the whole process and also prevented fraud. The integrated online solution went live by May 12, 2020.

The Results: 

The City of LA streamlined and automated several manual processes to more efficiently schedule appointments, advise residents what documentation they needed to provide, track applications and distribute funds — all to make better use of limited resources.

Intelligent Advisor provides highly personalized and explicit guidance and information for applicants to prepare for appointments by assembling all required documentation and helping to avoid delays. Importantly, addressing one of the City’s most significant concerns in the first week and using the validation process in CX Service, The City of LA was able to stop fraudulent attempts made on the program.

The distribution of funds across the 21 distribution centers was very orderly. As of June 30, 2020, almost $36.7M has been distributed to approximately 30,000 families (104,000 individuals when including family members).

By automating the appointment flow, the City was able to not only avoid crowds but also better enable social distancing, keeping residents and staff safe. Also due to the rapid rate of money distribution, the Mayor’s Fund saw increases in donations to The COVID-19 Crisis Fund directly related to the news reports on how fast the Angeleno cards were being put in people’s hands. The initial program was projected to give out around 11M, but once word got out on the success of the program, increased donations led the program to end with 36.7M distributed.

Metrics: 

Upon initial CX Service go live, the City of LA sent emails to 10,000 qualifying residents and, as a result, booked over 5,000 appointments in the first week resulting in a distribution of approximately $5M to residents in need. 

By May 20, multiple waves of emails, over 20K in total, were sent to qualified applicants, resulting in more than 14K appointments and almost $14M in funds distributed to needy residents. By June 24, volunteers scheduled over 20K appointments, which resulted in the distribution of $25M to 20K families. By June 30, almost $36.7M had been distributed to approximately 30,000 families (104,000 individuals when including family members). 

By using Oracle CX Service to automatically schedule appointments, the Mayor’s Fund has realized a 30% cost savings and was able to lessen the use of a third-party call center that it had stood up to manually handle the initial appointment scheduling process to the introduction of CX Service. The call center moved to working on those who did not have internet access or had language barriers. Compared to the daily call center average, 35% more appointments were booked online in the first 24 hours after going live, reassuring the City that the solution could meet the need.

An often-overlooked benefit, but because the system is so easy to use, volunteers serving as caseworkers could be trained in just 30 minutes.

The Technology: 

Oracle and partners TimeTrade and Apex IT recommended solution set that included Oracle CX Service, Oracle Intelligent Advisor, Oracle Public Sector, Oracle Government Cloud.

Disruptive Factor: 

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, its impacts will linger the longest for the poorest among us. As such, the City of LA and the Mayor’s Fund continues working to improve access to its program information and resources because the distribution of money is paramount to assisting those in need.

 Fueled by the pandemic, The city reimagined its service delivery model to adhere to social distancing requirements and lessen the risk of exposure. In a further effort to automate the application process, for any future programs, The city will deploy Intelligent Advisor earlier in the application process, eliminating manual reviews of applications and criteria, further reimagining its service model to meet the needs of citizens quickly.

Shining Moment: 

The City of LA in partnership with the Mayor’s Fund distributed critically-needed donations to help residents living below the poverty line during the COVID crisis. By incorporating technology, the city scheduled over 55K appointments over 3 months and distributed $36.7M to needy residents. The success of the Angeleno Card sparked the Open Society Foundations to provide a grant to Accelerator for America to adapt and expand the program into 10 additional communities across the country.

About In partnership with the Housing + Community Investment Department (HCID) and the Mayor’s Fund of Los Angeles.

The Office of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City of LA’s Housing + Community Investment Department (HCID) partnered with the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles, Accelerator for America and Mastercard City Possible to create the Angeleno Card program.