The Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity311Search all NYC.gov websites
Reducing Poverty. Advancing Equity.
The Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity 2018-2019 Annual Report
The Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity pursues an important mission: helping New York City use evidence and innovation to reduce poverty and increase equity.
We work across agencies with City leaders on program and policy development, service delivery, and budget decisions.
The office’s 60-person multi-disciplinary team designs and oversees new initiatives, supports agencies, and strengthens City practices, drawing on our expertise in research and evaluation, data integration, digital product and technology, service design, and performance management.
This report, covering 2018 and 2019, highlights initiatives that showcase the breadth of our work, focusing on projects that have the potential to transform elements of the social service landscape, including how the City engages and serves low-income residents.
The nine initiatives shown below represent our cross-cutting work over the last two years. During this period, NYC Opportunity has launched 20 new programs, 3 new digital products, and completed 22 evaluation reports and research studies.
Please visit our website for more comprehensive information, and to learn more about how we work with agencies to apply research, data, and design to poverty-related challenges.
Key Accomplishments
Awards
Service Design
2018 Adobe Creativity in Government Award
Best Employee Facing Campaign
Best Employee Facing Campaign
2018 Fast Company Innovation by Design Award
- Honorable Mention: Space, Places and City
- Honorable Mention: Social Good
- Honorable Mention: General Excellence
Digital Products
Adobe Government Creativity Awards
Best Multilingual Website for ACCESS NYC
Best Multilingual Website for ACCESS NYC
Adobe Government Creativity Awards
Multi-Channel Campaigns - Citizen-facing Campaign for Growing Up NYC and Generation NYC
Multi-Channel Campaigns - Citizen-facing Campaign for Growing Up NYC and Generation NYC
Amazon Web Services City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge
Constituent Services for ACCESS NYC
Constituent Services for ACCESS NYC
Programs
2018 Innovations in American Government Award
Arches Transformative Mentoring
Arches Transformative Mentoring
NYC Employment and Training Coalition’s Workforce Program Innovation Award
Connections to Care (C2C)
Connections to Care (C2C)
Other
Excellence in International Migration Scholarship Award
Awarded to Vicky Virgin
Poverty Research Unit
Awarded to Vicky Virgin
Poverty Research Unit
New Projects
New Projects in conjunction
with the Young Men's Initiative
Research Reports
Evaluations
Calendar Year 2018
- Forging a Path: Final Impacts and Costs of New York City’s Young Adult Internship Program
- Foster Youth Survey (part of the ACS Youth Experience Survey report)
- Evaluation of the Neighborhood Opportunity Network (NeON) Arts Program
- Evaluation Report on New York City’s Advocate, Intervene, Mentor Program (AIM)
- Boosting The Earned Income Tax Credit For Singles: Final Impact Findings from the Paycheck Plus Demonstration in New York City
- Evaluation of YMI Cornerstone Mentoring Program: Role in Supporting Engagement in School and Learning
- Evaluation of the YMI Cornerstone Mentoring Program: Strengthening the Mentoring Experience
- Arches Transformative Mentoring Program: An Implementation and Impact Evaluation in New York City
- Evaluation of the New York City Pre-K for All Initiative, 2015-16: An Assessment of Professional Learning, Coaching, and Supports to Sites
- Evaluation of the New York City Pre-K for All Initiative, 2015-16: Promising Practices of Sites Meeting the Differentiated Needs of Students
- Connections to Care Interim Evaluation Report
Calendar Year 2019
- A Youth Homelessness System Assessment for New York City
- Detecting and Reducing Post-traumatic Stress Among Children Exposed to Domestic Violence: A Multi-agency Early Intervention Program
- Early Implementation of the Cornerstone High School Mentoring Program
- A Qualitative Evaluation of the Early Implementation of and Current Participants' Experiences with the NYC Men Teach Program
- Bridges to Education and Employment for Justice-Involved Youth: Evaluation of the NYC Justice Corps Program
- Change Capital Fund: How Community-Based Organizations Can Use New York State Employment and Wage Data: Learning from the New York City Demonstration (2016-2018)
- Preparing New York City High School Students for the Workforce: Evaluation of the Scholars at Work Program
- Helping Public Housing Residents Find Jobs and Build Careers: Evaluation Findings from the Jobs-Plus Expansion
- Considerations for Justice-Involved Youth Programming: Lessons Learned and Recommendations from the Arches, AIM, and NYC Justice Corps Evaluations
Service Design Studio Office Engagements
NYC Opportunity’s Service Design Studio is an on-call resource for any City agency looking to make services or programs more accessible to the people they serve. The Studio was established in October 2017 in partnership with the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, with support from founding partner Citi Community Development.
| Type of Resource | Details |
| Office Hours | 183 office hours, 329 attendees, representing 29 agencies |
| Workshops | 14 workshops, 154 attendees |
| Civic Design Forums | 11 forums, over 500 attendees |
Behavioral Design Projects
NYC Opportunity partnered with Ideas42, a non-profit design and consulting firm, to increase the use of behavioral science principles to improve social services for New Yorkers at the agency level.
| Type of Resource | Details |
| Office Hours | 61 sessions, 98 attendees, representing 18 entities |
| Workshops | 10 workshops, 190 attendees, 24 city entities |
| Convenings | 2 Convenings, plus presentations at 40 events reaching over 1,000 people |
Projects have included:
| Agency | Project Details |
| FDNY |
|
| ACS |
|
| HRA |
|
| OCJ |
|
| HPD |
|
| DOF |
|
| CUNY |
|
Conference Presentations
2018
- 2018 Annual Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) Membership Meeting
- 2018 Research and Evaluation Conference on Self-Sufficiency (RECS)
- Annual Poverty Research and Policy Forum 2018
- Association for Public Policy and Management (APPAM) 2018 Fall Research Conference
- Better World by Design
- CityLab 2018
- Convening of Chief Innovation Officers
- Code for America 2018
- Emerge Forum 2018
- Gov IT Symposium
- NYC Common Metrics for Workforce Development
- NYU CUSP Applied Urban Science Group (AUSG) Guest
- Migration Policy Institute Small Group Session
- Project on Municipal Innovation Convening
- New York City Employment and Training Coalition (NYCETC) 2018 Conference
- Policy Link Equity Summit 2018
- Stanford University Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) Impact Evaluation Design Lab
- Tech in NY Summit
- UX Week
- Workforce Agenda for New York City hosted by WPTI
- WP Engine Summit
2019
- 100RC Global Exchange
- 2019 Annual GARE Membership Meeting
- 2019 Cities Thrive Mental Health Conference
- Accelerating Cities' Innovation Capacity
- American Public Health Association Annual Meeting
- APPAM 2019 Fall Research Conference
- Beta NYC - BetaBagels
- Building an Inclusive Economy in New York City: Contributions from Higher Education & Research
- Center for Migration Studies’ Annual Academic and Policy Symposium
- Challenges and Opportunities in Managing Social Procurement and Performance Management – Israel Forum 2019
- Code for America 2019
- Feedback+ New York Summit 2019
- Government UX Summit 2019
- International Design in Government Day
- Route Fifty - Roadshow
- National Association for Welfare Research Statistics 2019 Conference
- National Child Support Enforcement Association 2019 Policy Forum
- New York Association of Training & Employment Professionals 2019 Fall Conference
- NYC Mental Health Workforce Summit, Physician Training Learning Group
- Project on Municipal Innovation Convening
- Results for America 2019 Summit
- Smart Cities New York 2019
- The Civic Futures Summit
- The Future of Cities: Connecting Innovation, Equity, and Empowerment
- The Philadelphia Citizen Second Annual Ideas We Should Steal Conference
- Government UX Summit 2019
- Using Evidence for Improvement in the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act
- Workforce Systems Leadership Program hosted by Coro and WPTI
Press Coverage
August 28, 2019
The Community School Comes of AgeJanuary 10, 2019
How to Cut Poverty NowSeptember 25, 2018
June 7, 2019
At CUNY, Spending Money Can Actually Save ItDecember 17, 2018
These Ex-Cons Are Keeping New York SafeMay 2, 2018
October 16, 2018
Getting the Work Done: What Government Innovation Really Looks LikeOctober 16, 2018
June 25, 2019
New York City Unveils Benefits Screening APIApril 16, 2019
September 30, 2019
Can an Extra $333 a Month Improve a Baby’s Brain? A Research Team Wants to KnowApril 29, 2019
May 29, 2018
Change-Makers: Reconnecting Bed-Stuy Men to Good JobsApril 3, 2018
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