Building on Summer EBT’s Promise for Human-Centered Food Assistance

This summer, millions of American families had new help to keep food on the table, thanks to Summer EBT—the first new, permanent federal food assistance program in almost 50 years. Now, with USDA announcing an additional $100 million available to support technology upgrades for program administration, states, territories, and Tribes have an important opportunity to invest in solutions that can make access to summer food benefits more seamless, simple, and human-centered for years to come.

Summer EBT builds on years of rigorous research demonstrating what works to reduce childhood hunger during the summer months, when kids miss out on the breakfasts and lunches they get at school. The program is designed to reduce administrative burden on families by automatically issuing benefits to as many eligible children as possible. For most kids, getting grocery help through Summer EBT doesn’t require a separate application: the states, Indian Tribal Organizations (ITOs), and territories administering the program can provide benefits directly based on information they already know.

But that level of automation isn’t easy, especially for agencies moving quickly  to stand up their programs to meet the need. Agencies need strong, human-centered solutions for making sure every family can easily use benefits once they’re issued, for serving those families who do need to apply, and for resolving problems when they arise.

Code for America and No Kid Hungry have been working closely with Summer EBT agencies and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) to understand the technology and data challenges and opportunities states and tribal nations are facing. We are proud to partner with No Kid Hungry to provide technical assistance to states as they stand up new systems for administering the program, and to publish the Summer EBT Playbook to guide states in client-centered implementation. 

Based on our experience working with FNS, states, and Tribes on Summer EBT technical challenges, here are some of the top opportunities we see for agencies to leverage the additional funds USDA has made available for human-centered tech and data solutions:

Build a cost-effective statewide database that gets the job done for 2025

In order to coordinate eligibility data from different agencies and sources, each state must create a statewide database of student eligibility information for Summer EBT starting in the 2025 program year. In the Summer EBT Playbook, we share Best Practices for Data Aggregation that can help states approach this challenge.

These databases don’t have to be fancy or expensive! With a strong supporting process of validation, security, and reproducibility, something as simple as a large Excel spreadsheet can get the job done. Alternatively, an open-source database connected to a modern data stack can be implemented using off-the-shelf components and would yield additional flexibility and resilience.

Invest in human-centered self-service customer support tools

While state and ITO agencies issue most Summer EBT benefits automatically, easy pathways for households to find information about their benefits and to take action when needed can make Summer EBT more seamless. Effective self-service portals can also reduce the burden on an agency’s one-to-one customer service resources.

For example, families may commonly want to access information about whether they’ve been approved for benefits and when and where their benefits will arrive, and they may need to change their address or request replacement cards. Without a strong self-service option, families may have to wait in long phone queues, or may need to to contact a school that has limited staffing during the summer months.

Using these funds to invest in easy-to-use, human-centered self-service portals can help keep parents informed and allow state staff to focus on resolving challenging issues for families rather than providing basic information about their benefits status.

Refine your data matching and deduplication strategy 

In 2024, every state that implemented Summer EBT found some way to take data from multiple sources, including school rosters, SNAP participation rolls, and other benefit programs, to issue benefits automatically to qualifying kids. In many cases, however, those processes involved labor-intensive workarounds and time-consuming manual processes for resolving unclear or conflicting information.

Now, states have the opportunity to iterate on the processes they built for the first program year, with a focus on automating more of the data aggregation and deduplication process and improving existing processes to cover more records in their system. Our best practice guide for Record Linkage in Summer EBT offers suggestions on strategies Summer EBT agencies can invest in to make their data matching processes more efficient and comprehensive.

States can also invest in systems and processes that help schools submit data in a more uniform way, making it easier to match school records with records from other programs to ensure that eligible kids get the benefits they should receive.

Set up systems that communicate clearly with families

Summer EBT is issued to most families automatically, without their needing to take action to opt in. This removes a key barrier—the application process—for millions of eligible children, but also creates unique communication challenges. Without effective communication about when and how benefits are distributed and how to use them, families may fail to redeem benefits loaded onto a card that they already have or may throw out new EBT cards, thinking they’re junk mail. Families that do need to apply for benefits also need clear communication to understand whether or not they’re likely to be eligible, and to know how to successfully complete the application process.

Investments in technologies and strategies for communicating effectively with families can help fill these gaps. Summer EBT agencies can use new technology funding to support text messaging, chatbots, and other forms of digital outreach that can support families through proactive outreach and by opening clear channels for answering families’ questions.