What We Do - NYC Opportunity

The Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity

The Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity


What We Do


What We Do

NYC Opportunity helps the City use evidence and innovation to reduce poverty and increase equity. Our work includes a portfolio of initiatives that we have developed with our partners and oversee directly, as well as a set of services that we offer to agencies to support evidence-based policymaking. We pursue our work through five inter-related disciplines: *Research, Service Design, Digital Products, Data Integration, and Programs & Evaluation.*

Research

Research of various forms is inherent in all of NYC Opportunity's work. Understanding client perspectives, programmatic best practices and demographic conditions are all central to initiatives, digital products, and policies that are evidence driven and responsive to the needs of low-income New Yorkers. Our poverty research team also produces the annual official poverty measure of the New York City government (the NYCgov measure), one that provides a more nuanced understanding of poverty in New York City than the federal rate allows. Our poverty research also informs the City's understanding of inequality and the effectiveness of policies in addressing disparities among local residents and communities.

Service Design

The Service Design Studio launched in October 2017 with the ambitious mission to make public services more accessible to New Yorkers. The Studio follows a design process to analyze, test, and build out effective program and product solutions that have been deeply informed by the people who use or administer public services. The Studio is managed by the Design Team within the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity.

Read more about how you can work with the Service Design Studio.

Digital Products

NYC Opportunity develops and manages a portfolio of citywide digital products that help the City address poverty-related challenges. These include public-facing services as well as tools for City staff to better serve clients. The digital product team conducts user research, creates user experiences, and works closely with internal and outside technology teams to prototype, develop, and set ongoing strategy for these digital services.

Data Integration

Our data integration work helps City agencies deliver more effective, holistic services to the right people at the right time, targeting support to those who can most benefit. By facilitating cross-agency data sharing, NYC Opportunity helps policy leaders, case workers and others better coordinate the delivery of resources and support to individuals and families across bureaucratic silos.

Programs & Evaluation

NYC Opportunity helps agencies and partners design programs and implement them using all of the tools at our disposal from research to data integration. We engage in program management and performance monitoring for the programs within our portfolio, and help partners develop appropriate performance monitoring metrics for their programs and initiatives. Additionally, NYC Opportunity works with independent evaluation firms to assess the effectiveness of programs within our portfolio and select citywide initiatives. For each initiative, a distinct evaluation strategy is developed, reflecting the availability of extant data, implementation status, the timing of expected program outcomes, and general knowledge about a particular intervention. These evaluations inform New York City’s program and budget decision-making, and contribute to public policy in the social services more generally.

We Are Hiring

Interested in joining our team? Visit out our jobs page to learn more about open positions on our team.