Gov Innovator Podcast

Too often, contracting is seen as a back-office function, even though many government programs are actually implemented with contracted service providers. In reality, contracting — and contracting reforms — can be a key driver of better results in human services, including for the most vulnerable families and individuals. We discuss specific steps in results-driven contracting […] The post How results-driven contracting improved outcomes for Chicago’s most vulnerable: An interview with Lisa Morrison Butler, former Commissioner, Chicago Department of Family and Support Services – Episode #202 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

When we think about what skills leaders need to be successful — such as making good decisions, regulating their emotions and stress, and forming strong and healthy relationships with others — an important foundation for those skills is mindfulness. Our guest today has deep expertise in helping people cultivate self-awareness and mindfulness in order to […] The post Using mindfulness practices for greater self-awareness and self-improvement: Rabbi Marc Margolius, Senior Program Director, Institute for Jewish Spirituality – Episode #201 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

To celebrate our 200th interview, we are joined by one of the most respected people within the evidence and evaluation field, Dr. Naomi Goldstein, to share reflections on her 21-year career at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Human Services. Dr. Goldstein (@NaomiGoldstein1) is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, […] The post Career reflections from an evidence leader: An interview with Naomi Goldstein, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Episode #200 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Colorado is a leader in the U.S. in terms of using evidence to guide state budget decisions, so that dollars flow to programs that are effective. It’s also a leader in terms of building evidence to better learn what works in key program areas. For example: State agencies are required by the governor’s budget office […] The post Colorado’s nation-leading practices in using evidence to guide budget decisions: An interview with Sara Dube, Director, Results First Initiative, The Pew Charitable Trusts – Episode #199 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

An important area of innovation within higher-education policy in recent years has been tuition-free college policies — also known as Promise Programs — designed to make college more affordable and accessible. Our previous podcast interview with Professor Elizabeth Bell of Florida State University provided an overview of the topic. In this new interview, we focus […] The post How state tuition-free college programs are spanning political divides: An interview with Michelle Miller-Adams, Senior Researcher, Upjohn Institute – Episode #198 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Tuition-free college policies have become a cornerstone of policymakers’ efforts to expand college access, affordability, and degree attainment. The movement began at the local level with initiatives such as the Kalamazoo Promise, but has since been taken to the state level, with 21 states currently operating Promise Programs. To learn more about these important policies […] The post How Promise Programs are expanding college access, affordability, and degree attainment: An interview with Elizabeth Bell, Florida State University – Episode #197 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Arnold Ventures launched its evidence-based policy initiative in 2015 in large part to increase the number of social programs with strong evidence behind them. To do that, the team funds randomized controlled trials of programs in social policy whose prior evidence has shown the potential for sizable effects on educational achievement, earnings, and other important outcomes. […] The post Insights about building credible evidence in social policy: An interview with David Anderson, Vice President of Evidence-Based Policy, Arnold Ventures – Episode #196 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Minnesota has been identified by several good-government organizations as one of the leaders in the nation on evidence-based policymaking. The Pew Charitable Trusts, for example, has noted that “Using evidence-based policymaking has enabled Minnesota…to provide better outcomes for residents, [and] improve the way research and evidence inform the budget and policymaking processes….” One important piece of […] The post How Minnesota’s impact evaluation unit supports evidence-based budgeting: An interview with Weston Merrick, Minnesota Management and Budget – Episode #195 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Ohio’s Department of Education is one of the leading state agencies in the U.S. in terms of its focus on helping and encouraging school leaders to use evidence-based educational strategies and supports. For the past almost four years, Dr. Heather Boughton (@hrosemaryb) helped lead those efforts. She’s the former director of the Office of Research, […] The post Insights on evidence use from Ohio’s Department of Education: An interview with Heather Boughton, Results for America – Episode #194 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Anne Arundel County, Maryland, has a population of just under 600,000 and is south of Baltimore and East of Washington D.C., with the county seat being Annapolis. In 2018, under County Executive Steuart Pittman, the county launched a performance-focused office called ArundelStat. One of the key initiatives of the office so far has been developing […] The post Developing and using agency performance plans: An interview with Elizabeth Funsch, ArundelStat Manager, Anne Arundel County in Maryland – Episode #193 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

What does it take to be a successful evaluation office within a public agency? Three things that are important are being trustworthy, being engaging, and being relentless, explains Dr. Susan Jenkins. Since 2016, Dr. Jenkins has been the Director of the Office of Performance and Evaluation at the Administration for Community Living (ACL) at the […] The post Three keys to a successful agency evaluation office: An interview with Susan Jenkins, Director of the Office of Performance and Evaluation, Administration for Community Living, HHS – Episode #192 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

The New Hope Project was an anti-poverty program in the 1990s in Milwaukee that offered a simple but powerful pledge: If participants were willing to work full-time, they would not be poor. The program used a wage subsidy, support for child care and health insurance, and (if participants needed it) short-term subsidized employment to achieve […] The post Lessons from New Hope for reducing poverty today: An interview with Kali Grant, Georgetown University, and Julie Kirksick, former New Hope Executive Director – Episode #191 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

New Mexico state government is a leader in the use of evidence, lead by its Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) that has been a catalyst for evidence-based budgeting, including through its participation in the Pew MacArthur Results First Initiative. In this part 2 of our interview with Charles Sallee, the Deputy Director of the Legislative Finance […] The post Evidence-based budgeting in New Mexico: Part 2 interview with Charles Sallee, Deputy Director, Legislative Finance Committee, New Mexico – Episode #190 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Last month, New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) did something that that possibly no other legislative committee in the U.S. has done to date: It launched a “PerformanceStat” initiative. As listeners to this podcast will know, the PerformanceStat process was pioneered in New York City for policing and then expanded to other government settings, as […] The post Launching LegisSTAT in New Mexico: Part 1 interview with Charles Sallee, Deputy Director, Legislative Finance Committee, New Mexico – Episode #189 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

John Kotter (@JohnPKotter) is one of the most respected thinkers on the topics of leadership and change. He is professor emeritus at the Harvard Business School, a widely-read author, and the founder of Kotter International, a management consulting firm. Alexander Eaton, director of Retina Health Centers, said of its final approval. STP is believed to […] The post Leading successful change initiatives: An interview with John Kotter, professor emeritus at the Harvard Business School and founder of Kotter International – Episode #188 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Idaho’s Office of Performance Evaluations (OPE) was created in 1994 and is a nonpartisan, independent office that serves the Idaho legislature by conducting evaluations of state agencies and programs, as well as studies of key policy issues. With its staff of seven evaluators, plus its director, OPE’s mission is to promote confidence and accountability in […] The post Insights from Idaho’s Office of Performance Evaluations: An interview with Rakesh Mohan, Director – Episode #187 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

A logic model is a detailed visual representation of an organization or program that expresses the organization’s theory of change. It’s useful for getting a clear and shared understanding of how an office, division, program or initiative works. But what important questions should an organization ask once its created a logic model? To find out, […] The post Five questions public agencies should ask to put their logic models to work: An interview with Cynthia Phillips, former Acting Chief Evaluation Officer, National Science Foundation – Episode #186 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

What leads decision makers to decide to implement or scale up a program? Research evidence may be one factor, but, as we know, lots of other factors can play in as well. Three of those factors are what are called cognitive biases, including: confirmation bias status quo bias bandwagon bias Understanding those biases — which […] The post Three cognitive biases that can influence decision makers’ use of evidence about what works: An interview with Ariel Kalil, University of Chicago – Episode #185 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Tennessee’s Office of Evidence and Impact was created in 2019 by Governor Bill Lee. The office works with the Governor’s office and with Tennessee’s executive agencies to use data and evidence to help decision makers invest in programs that work for Tennesseans. To learn more about the office’s work and what lessons it provides for […] The post Insights from Tennessee’s Office of Evidence and Impact: An interview with Christin Lotz, Director – Episode #184 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

A new policy brief examines the research evidence behind tutoring and what design principles for tutoring have shown to be important for boosting K-12 student achievement. The report is titled Accelerating Student Learning with High-Dosage Tutoring. It’s coauthored by Dr. Carly Robinson, Dr. Matthew Kraft and Dr. Susanna Loeb of the Annenberg Institute at Brown […] The post Boosting student achievement with high-dosage tutoring: An interview with Carly Robinson and Matthew Kraft, Brown University – Episode #183 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Governments at all levels are increasingly using research findings from behavioral economics and other behavioral sciences to improve program and agency outcomes. These interventions and program changes draw on how people process information and make decisions and can often be implemented quickly and at little cost. One way to help support the use of behavioral […] The post Launching a behavioral insights community of practice within a public agency: An interview with Melissa Leal, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment – Episode #182 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

What evidence-based strategies can you use to more effectively craft communications with practical purposes, so that busy people respond and take needed action? We get insights from Dr. Todd Rogers (@Todd_Rogers_), a behavioral scientist and professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. His work applies behavioral science insights and methods to understand important […] The post How to communicate so that busy people respond and take action: An interview with Todd Rogers, behavioral scientist and professor, Harvard Kennedy School – Episode #181 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

The California Policy Lab (@CAPolicyLab) was launched in January 2017 with a mission to create partnerships between researchers at two of California’s leading universities — UCLA and UC Berkeley — and California’s state and local government agencies. The goal: to generate scientific evidence that solves California’s most urgent problems, including the issues of homelessness, poverty, […] The post How the California Policy Lab is helping state and local agencies tackle homelessness, poverty and other key policy challenges: An interview with Janey Rountree and Evan White, Executive Directors – Episode #180 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

How can public agencies build credible evidence about what works to help move the needle on important social policy challenges? It’s often a multi-step, iterative process. A good example is the efforts across the past two administrations by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – in particular, their efforts to help support […] The post Lessons from HUD about building evidence on important social policy issues: An interview with Calvin Johnson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Evaluation and Monitoring at HUD – Episode #179 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (Evidence Act) was enacted in early 2019 and has led a wide range of federal agencies to take new steps in building and using evidence, including developing learning agendas. The Act, however, didn’t come with new funding, so resources are likely a constraint in many agencies in doing this […] The post How federal agencies can use IPAs to bolster evidence capacity and help implement the Evidence Act: An interview with Dayanand Manoli, Professor, Georgetown University – Episode #178 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

North Carolina’s Office of Strategic Partnerships was launched at the end of 2018 under Governor Roy Cooper with a mission to enhance partnerships between state government and North Carolina’s research and philanthropic sectors. As its website notes, “This includes elevating the State’s internal capacity to use and generate evidence in its policy and programmatic functions.” […] The post The role of North Carolina’s Office of Strategic Partnerships: An interview with Jenni Owen, Director of Strategic Partnerships, North Carolina – Episode #177 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

The State of Colorado under the previous Governor, John Hickenlooper, had a multifaceted performance-improvement strategy that included performance management, operational improvements and talent development, among other elements. That work continues today under current Governor Jared Polis. We look back at the previous administration to draw lessons for other states. We’re joined by David Padrino. He served […] The post Colorado’s performance management strategy under Gov. Hickenlooper: An interview with David Padrino, former Chief Performance Officer, Colorado – Episode #176 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

In King County, Washington, under Executive Dow Constantine and the County Council, equity and social justice has been an important focus of the county’s work. That includes the launch in 2015 of an Office of Equity and Social Justice and the creation of its strategic plan, designed to help the county become a place where […] The post King County, Washington’s Equity and Social Justice Strategic Plan: An interview with Arun Sambataro, King County – Episode #175 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

The nonprofit Results for America has been an important advocate of — and catalyst for — evidence-based policy and decision making over the last decade. It recently released two new resources: The 2020 Invest in What Works Federal Standard of Excellence (click to see the federal standard and the press release), as well as a […] The post Investing in what works at the federal level: An interview with Jed Herrmann, Vice President for State and Federal Policy Implementation, Results for America – Episode #174 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Montgomery County, located just north of Washington D.C. is a leader in the use of performance management, including through its CountyStat initiative, drawing on the model of other PerformanceStat efforts. Its reputation for results-focused government continues today under County Executive Marc Elrich, who has been in that role since 2018. To learn more about the […] The post Insights from nearly a decade of CountyStat: An interview with Dave Gottesman, CountyStat Manager, Montgomery County, Maryland – Episode #173 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Administrative data – in other words, big data produced by public agencies and programs – is a valuable tool for program evaluation, research and analysis that can help improve government performance and tackle our nation’s pressing challenges. How can we enable more qualified researchers and government program managers to security and more easily access those […] The post Unlocking the power of big data to catalyze evidence-based policy: An interview with Amy O’Hara, Georgetown University – Episode #172 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

What insights can public leaders gain from leading companies about building a culture of experimentation? To find out, we’re joined by Stefan Thomke, the author of the new book Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments. Dr. Thomke is the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and has published […] The post Creating a culture of experimentation within organizations: An interview with Stefan Thomke, Harvard Business School – Episode #171 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Attracting a police force from diverse backgrounds is one important step in ensuring that citizens are well served by their police departments and have trust in the police. But what steps can police departments take that are effective in achieving that goal? The Behavioral Insights Team, in conjunction with the What Works Cities Initiative, set […] The post Using behavioral insights to help recruit diverse police candidates: An interview with Elizabeth Linos, University of California, Berkeley – Episode #170 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Over the last two years, the Small Business Administration has made laudable progress in building and using evidence in order to learn what works and help programs improve. That includes launching an evaluation office and a chief data officer role within the CFO’s office, as well as creating a learning agenda to identify priority research […] The post How the Small Business Administration became a leader in evidence-based decision making: An interview with Jason Bossie, Director, Office of Performance Management, SBA – Episode #169 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

It has been estimated that more than half of Americans are saving too little to support an adequate lifestyle if they plan to retire at age 65. It was economist and recent Nobel prize winner Richard Thaler who suggested a fix: Make payroll retirement savings plans available to everyone and then by add design features […] The post How Oregon’s auto-enrollment IRA program, OregonSaves, helps state residents save for retirement: An interview with Lisa Massena, Executive Director, OregonSaves – Episode #168 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Low-income and first-generation students enroll in and complete college at much lower rates than their more advantaged peers. This is particularly problematic because of the strong link between educational attainment and subsequent earnings, underscoring the need to find effective strategies that promote persistence and degree attainment. We profile two such programs that are making an important […] The post Two promising strategies to promote college success for disadvantaged students: An interview with Lindsay Page, University of Pittsburgh, and Michael Weiss, MDRC – Episode #167 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently launched a pilot version of a new initiative called the Data Science CoLab, an eight-week-long data science training program. The first class, which kicked off in October 2017, included 25 employees from different agencies within HHS and with different levels of knowledge about using data. Participants applied […] The post How HHS’s Data Science CoLab catalyzes employee innovation: An interview with Will Yang, CoLab Director, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Episode #166 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, passed by Congress and signed by the President on February 9th, 2018, contains several noteworthy bright spots in the use of data and evidence-based policy. Those wins suggest there is continuing bipartisan support in Washington for using evidence, data and innovation to improve the results and cost-effectiveness of Federal […] The post Wins for data and evidence-based policy in the bipartisan budget deal: An interview with Nick Hart, Bipartisan Policy Center – Episode #165 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

A small but growing number of federal departments and agencies have created evaluation policies that describe the principles that those agencies seek to promote when they conduct program evaluations. Those principles can include rigor, relevance, transparency, independence, and ethics. To learn more about evaluation policies and why they are useful to federal agencies, we are […] The post Why evaluation policies are useful to results-focused federal agencies: An interview with Naomi Goldstein, HHS, and Molly Irwin, DOL – Episode #164 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

How can program managers within public agencies — whether local, state or federal — use random assignment (in other words, a lottery) within programs to build evidence that can strengthen results and improve customer service? A good example comes from South Carolina. Its Medicaid program is administered through Managed Care Organizations, which offer different health care […] The post How program managers can use random assignment (i.e., a lottery) to build evidence that can improve customer service: An interview with Matthew Notowidigdo, Northwestern University – Episode #163 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

As the new report “Putting the Experiment Back in the Experimental Sites Initiative” discusses, the U.S. Department of Education’s “Ex Sites” initiative — in place in one form or another since the mid-1980s — is designed to allow the Department to grant flexibility to institutions of higher education to test and evaluate potential federal policy changes, […] The post Reforming the federal Experimental Sites initiative to better learn what works in higher ed: An interview with Amy Laitinen and Clare McCann, New America – Episode #162 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

The partnership between Stanford University and the San Francisco Unified School District is one of the best examples of a partnership between a university and a school district. Launched in 2009, the partnership matches researchers from Stanford’s Graduate School of Education with district leaders to create research projects to directly inform the school district’s work […] The post Insights from a leading researcher-practitioner partnership, between Stanford University and San Francisco’s school district: An interview with Laura Wentworth, California Education Partners – Episode #161 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

While Democrats and Republicans can’t seem to agree on much these days, there was a bright spot for bipartisanship recently: Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray joined together to praise the recommendations of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking (CEP), which Ryan and Murray launched last year. The Commission was […] The post A primer on the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking’s recommendations: An interview with Nick Hart, Bipartisan Policy Center – Episode #160 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Many interventions that aim to increase the cognitive or socioemotional skills of children and adolescents have shown positive results, but far too often their impacts quickly disappear as children get older. Some programs, in contrast, have shown longer-lasting effects. In a new study published in the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, Greg Duncan and […] The post Strategies to sustain program impacts for children and adolescents: An interview with Greg Duncan, Professor, University of California, Irvine – Episode #159 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Social Impact Bonds, also called Pay for Success projects in the U.S., draw on private sources of capital to fund preventive services, with governments acting as the outcome funders, paying back the money with a profit if specific targets are met. The approach started in the U.K. and is now being used in many different […] The post The use of impact bonds around the world: An interview with Emily Gustafsson-Wright, Fellow, Center for Universal Education, The Brookings Institution – Episode #158 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

The bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was enacted in December 2015. ESSA gives states more opportunities to design their own educational systems, while also encouraging and sometimes requiring them to use evidence-based approaches that can help improve student outcomes. Our guest today, Thomas Kane, joins us for part two of our conversation about how states […] The post How states can use ESSA to focus education spending on what works: An interview with Tom Kane, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education – Episode #157 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

Project Evident (@project_evident) launched earlier this year to help nonprofit leaders and their funders develop and implement multi-year evidence-building plans – plans that can help those nonprofits to provide evidence-based programs. The effort is lead by Kelly Fitzsimmons, formerly of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, and Scott Cody, formerly of Mathematica. One of the underlying motivations […] The post Helping nonprofits build and use evidence through Project Evident: An interview with Kelly Fitzsimmons, Founder and Managing Director, Project Evident – Episode #156 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

The Connecticut Green Bank (@CTGreenBank) is designed to help mobilize more private investment and accelerate the growth of green energy, such as solar power, in order to create jobs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and lower energy bills. It is the nation’s first state-sponsored bank to promote lower cost financing for clean energy. Since 2011, for […] The post How the Connecticut Green Bank is catalyzing green energy infrastructure: An interview with Bryan Garcia, President and CEO, CT Green Bank – Episode #155 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

The Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) recently celebrated five years of C-Stat, its performance management and leadership strategy and one of the leading examples in the U.S. of data-informed decision making in human services. Through C-Stat, CDHS reviews about 100 measures each month. Two-thirds of those measures have maintained or beat their goals set in […] The post Insights from C-Stat in Colorado at year 5: An interview with Reggie Bicha, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Human Services – Episode #154 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.

In 2016, the District of Columbia launched The Lab @ DC, based in the Office of the City Administrator within the Office of Mayor Muriel Bowser. Its mission: To embed the scientific method into the heart of day-to-day governance of the city to provide decision makers with high-quality evidence in order to improve results for the city. […] The post Launching an applied research team within city government: An interview with David Yokum, Director, The Lab @ DC – Interview #153 appeared first on Gov Innovator Podcast.