Ensuring access to public benefits for low-income families

Community Catalyst developed RealBenefits® to combat the lack of information, complex procedures, and confusing rules that keep millions of people from enrolling in public programs for which they qualify.  RealBenefits advocates policy change to streamline benefit enrollment nationwide.

Its web-based service allows organizations to easily connect people with health insurance, food stamps and other services.  The MacArthur Foundation honored RealBenefits for its innovative combination of technology and community outreach.

Our goals for RealBenefits remain to simplify access to public benefits for people who need them, to effect policy change, and to increase the capacity of the nonprofit sector to leverage technology to assist low-income people.

Connecting Families to Assistance Using Technology

RealBenefits was originally conceived and incubated as a program of Community Catalyst. In the late 1990s, Community Catalyst was the pioneer developer of a PC-based software system that applied government rules to calculate household eligibility for a range of critical public benefit programs. This unique software was used broadly in Massachusetts and Rhode Island by more than 400 nonprofit and government-contracting agencies to improve enrollment in over 60 programs.

Community Catalyst’s early experience demonstrated the merit of using technology to deliver highly complex information in usable formats to nonprofit agencies that had no other access to such information.

Since its inception, more than 150 organizations have used RealBenefits to screen over 96,000 families for public benefits. In total, RealBenefits has helped deliver an estimated $371 million in public benefits to needy families.  Most important is the difference these programs make in people’s lives.

RealBenefits improves the lives of low-income people by:

• Increasing economic resources to households
• Improving public health from a higher utilization of preventative care and fewer emergency room visits
• Simplifying benefits application procedures and transparency
• Increasing pressure on governments to execute on their benefit programs