Published in The Chronicle Of Philanthropy

By Jenny Toomey

Something remarkable happened earlier this year when millions of people signed up to receive free Covid-19 test kits from the federal government. The process worked. The government website was simple to use. Signing up took seconds. And most people received their test kits within weeks.

Compare that with the problem-plagued rollout of healthcare.gov in 2013 or the tortuous phone queues for vaccination appointments a year ago.

What changed? Experts in the emerging field of public-interest technology had a seat at the table from the start. The result: 18 people from two government agencies — the U.S. Digital Service, formed in the aftermath of the Affordable Care Act website debacle, and the U.S. Postal Service — built an online portal in three weeks that handled 68 million visitors in its first week alone.