Beam wanted to build the next generation of the social safety net to help vulnerable Americans get the support they need without relying on unreliable, outdated benefits systems.
Beam (formerly Edquity) had a leading product for distributing emergency aid to college students. In 2021, they began to pivot their mission to try to fundamentally reshape the larger social safety net by delivering simplified public benefit program administration — ensuring that vulnerable Americans can access the resources to which they are legally entitled with dignity and less administrative friction.
A new product was required to fit this new trajectory. One that would make applications easier from start to finish, reduce the number of applications each individual has to submit over time, and get money out in hours rather than months.
To construct a pilot product around specific real-world requirements, Beam partnered with Southern New Hampshire Services (SNHS), a community action partnership. Their area of focus was preventing vulnerable families from being unnecessarily evicted during the pandemic.
For SNHS (and similar anti-poverty organizations), persistent problems they face include:
• Unreliable mechanisms for determining eligibility for aid, distributing it equitably and preventing fraud
• Time-intensive review processes that stretch staff too thin and cause delays
• Stringent reporting and compliance requirements
• Antiquated systems for distributing money and tracking payments between parties
• Ways to serve citizens online with accessible applications, rather than through paper applications or over the phone
As a contractor, I:
• Managed the design of Beam’s MVP rental assistance product for seven months
• Served as the fractional Head of Design
• Designed MVP of product across prescreener, application and payments
• Formed product trio with dedicated product manager and engineering lead
• Managed and mentored a junior product designer
• Conducted and shared further research on emergency assistance
• Kept detailed documentation for the Head of Design (who I was filling in for while she was on maternity leave)
To start, I researched safety net program fundamentals across rental assistance, utility assistance and child care. I wanted to understand the federal requirements for these programs to make sure my design thinking was in line.
Once I had a grasp of the fundamentals, I reviewed Beam’s existing background research and worked with the product team to develop hypotheses on features that would solve problems for safety net administrators.
To understand the complexities specific to New Hampshire, I audited the existing rental assistance paper application, then traveled to the SNHS offices with Beam’s leadership team for an 8-hour discovery session. There, we walked through their existing processes with various specialists. Over the subsequent weeks, we had follow-up calls to test concepts with their case managers and validate our approach.
From the discovery process, four design priorities came to the forefront:
• Create a foundation of components that lowers the cognitive load on vulnerable Americans applying for assistance
• Design concepts and features that are simple and feasible, and thoroughly vetted with engineers
• Make the product scalable across different partners and different types of aid with minimal modification
• Ensure all elements are accessible and work on as many devices as possible
On the applicant side, since many users are facing the threat of eviction, we established that the product needed to be simple, manageable and accessible. It was imperative that it work well on low bandwidth, and on whatever device users have access to.
On the administrative side, the goal was to help process applications quickly, equitably and without fraud, keeping as much trust in the safety net as possible. If working correctly, the new product would cut into the existing backlog of assistance applications.
The product needed to seamlessly balance a tenant application (including sections for rental and utility assistance), a landlord application, and an administrative dashboard to allow for the quick and accurate review of applications and funding impact metrics.
Beam had a new design system that was in its infancy when I arrived. I refined and expanded the base styles, then oversaw our junior designer incorporating them into larger components and writing guidance for engineers.
Each iteration of the design was done in full fidelity using the design system. If an element was needed that didn’t yet exist, we created one. This made it easy to spin up clickable prototypes for potential partners, and kept the design system from growing unnecessarily bulky.
I spent several months designing what a case management system could look like for administrators. The primary view became a filterable list that covers key high-level data from each application — reviewers can then drill into a specific application to see the full details, add notes, and make a funding decision.
Some of the key elements of the administrative dashboard designs included:
• Prioritized application view that shows the most important criteria like need level
• Simple workflow for moving applications from one stage of review to the next, denying them, or sending them back for edits
• Map showing disbursement of funds versus AMI bands to see how effectively funds are being distributed
• Key program financial data, including funds remaining
• Internal workflow metrics for how many applications are in each phase of review and how many each employee has been assigned
On the applicant side, knowing the product would be used under stress, I wanted to keep friction as low as possible while still hitting the necessary regulatory steps.
Some key features I built into the design of the tenant-facing application included:
• A fully-responsive experience to make it easy to apply from any device
• Easily-readable fonts and interface state changes that exceed compliance standards
• Clear UX writing on which information and documents are required to apply
• A progress tracker that orients users and helps them gauge how long each section will take
• The ability to save progress throughout the application
In the first three months of operation (July - October 2022), Beam’s product saw:
• 7,092 separate applications submitted to SNHS for emergency rental assistance
• 1,419 that met the funding and identity verification requirements for processing
• 2,912 individuals prevented from becoming homeless through these approvals
• $25.6 million in aid dollars disbursed to NH households, landlords, and service providers
At a larger level, this product represents a major step in the update of support resources for the American social safety net.
The proven benefits to compliance, efficiency and constituent experience have helped generate a growing amount of interest. Multiple governments and nonprofits have contacted Beam to use the component library we built out, including the state of California, amplifying the impact of the initial product well beyond New Hampshire. In 2023, Beam’s product will be adopted by at least 39 more partners nationwide.
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