Put your data, design, digital, and policy skills to work to improve the lives of millions of New Yorkers.

The initiatives that you will work on are all aimed at helping residents address poverty-related challenges, and all of the work of our office is guided by our commitment to 3 core principles:

Equity. We believe that equal opportunity and the possibility of upward mobility must be genuine— that where you start out in life should not dictate where you end up. But too often poverty, racism, and other structural inequalities and social conditions create barriers for New Yorkers that limit their ability to advance and participate fully in the city's economic and civic life.

Evidence. We believe that the public sector should make decisions based on rigorous attention to data — drawn from research and evaluation, performance measurement, and the voices of those who experience public services as well as the challenges they are meant to address. Policies and programs exist that can effectively reduce poverty and broaden opportunity; government should invest in those that work, and end those that do not.

Innovation. We believe that more solutions are required to address unmet needs and stubborn problems — and are optimistic that new approaches delivered through government can achieve large-scale impact. Innovation is fundamentally about getting better results, and it demands a commitment to assess outcomes rigorously, capture and respond to lessons, and accept the risk that some efforts will fail.

Digital and Data Products

Our digital work focuses on making it easier for New Yorkers to access services by connecting them to clear, actionable information about benefits, programs, services, and employment. We do this through two digital tools, ACCESS NYC and Jobs NYC.

We support open source and scalable technology in the services we develop, such as the NYC Benefits Platform (open source rules engine and plain-language content dataset), so the City and other civic technologists can build upon what works.

Our office also manages the Equity NYC site and the Workforce Data Portal to make the City’s data more accessible, transparent, and actionable.

Service Design

NYC Opportunity launched the Service Design Studio (the Studio) to help spread valuable methodologies that are often underused within government spaces. As a discipline, service design is a vehicle for advancing positive change. Our approach begins by trying to understand the needs of the people who use and oversee public services, and designing the service to meet those needs. With that knowledge, our team works with City agency partners to shape services in a way that are effective, user-friendly, sustainable, and scalable.

Our studio is made up of designers with backgrounds in policy, planning, user experience and technology.

Sitting within the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity, the Studio also draws on staff with expertise in other areas, such as program development, performance management, and evaluation. Our collective team has experience working collaboratively with City agencies to help advance their goals.

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 Unit produces the annual official poverty measure of the New York City government, the NYCgov Measure, 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.

Programs & Evaluation

NYC Opportunity helps City partners to design, pilot, and assess innovative anti-poverty and equity strategies. Drawing on our expertise in implementation, performance management, and evaluation, we have helped to launch over 100 human services programs and systems-change initiatives in partnership with over 30 agencies and Mayoral offices. We work across a diverse array of priority policy areas and populations, including: workforce development and advancement; financial empowerment, asset building, and cash transfers; education; health and mental health; homelessness; opportunity youth; legal system-involved youth and adults, and others. Where strategies show promise, NYC Opportunity works with independent research firms to conduct evaluations of projects within our portfolio, as well as select citywide initiatives. These evaluations inform the City’s program and budget decision-making and contribute to public policy in the social services more generally.

The Service Design Studio (The Studio)

We coined the term “Civic Service Design” which means applying the tools and methods of service design to government- run or -funded programs. In this context, this usually means unraveling complex social service processes with the goal of identifying areas for improved efficiency or results. We’ve tailored tired-and-true design methods to complement and support the expertise of the City employees who develop and deliver New York City’s government programs.

The outcomes of the Studio’s process include:

• Clarification of complicated systems and processes
• Ensuring your team is on the same page around major initiatives and projects
• Solutions rooted in the needs of the people who use your service or program
• Assurance that time and taxpayer dollars can be shifted to the right programs

Learn more about what the Studio has achieved for New York City by reading case studies of our past projects.

Product

The Product Team centers the needs of New Yorkers and works alongside City agencies and partners to use technology to improve service delivery and outcomes. It helps NYC Opportunity and our agency partners to translate anti-poverty programs and policy goals into digital strategies.

The team manages a portfolio of seven digital products and services, leading product strategy, research, design, development, and ongoing success. Team members conduct research and design, build, implement, and evaluate digital tools and services to improve social service delivery for New Yorkers.

Working as part of the team is an opportunity to continue to build a model for in-house product development and serve as a national leader in digital government innovation.

• Current Openings
• Product Specialist

Programs and Evaluation

The Programs and Evaluation team works with agency partners to support the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of new initiatives for low-income New Yorkers. The team currently manages a portfolio of initiatives of its own investments, as well as managing programs that are part of the Young Men’s Initiative. Team members engage in robust program management and performance monitoring for the projects in the NYC Opportunity portfolio and help partners develop appropriate performance monitoring strategies for their programs and initiatives. For each initiative, a distinct evaluation strategy is developed. Evidence is used to inform program funding decisions and to improve service delivery. The team also supports the evaluation of key Mayoral and agency priority initiatives.

• Current Openings:
• Programs and Evaluation Graduate Fellow Fall 2024-Spring 2025

Poverty Research Unit

The Poverty Research Unit applies data analytics to build an accurate description of who is in poverty in the city, identifies some of the leading causes for being in poverty, and measures how citywide programs work to reduce the poverty rate. This data allows NYC Opportunity to better understand the impact of anti-poverty initiatives and design more effective metrics for measuring success. PRU also manages the Workforce Data Portal, an initiative to collect, connect, analyze, and display data across City-funded workforce programs. In addition, PRU works on a variety of data science, analytics, and engineering projects.

• Current Openings:
• Senior Research Associate

Stategy and Operations

The Strategy and Operations team is responsible for human resources, budget and contract management, vendor/partner relations, and performance management and operational support across all NYC Opportunity teams.