Our most recent application, which closed on March 15 2017, is available for reference here. For more information about our TA application process, please contact govlab@hks.harvard.edu.

We offer four types of technical assistance:

Our Assistance Model

The Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab provides pro bono government-side technical assistance to state and local partners. This assistance includes an average of 12-15 months of technical services to help guide government partners through the programmatic, budgetary, regulatory and procurement processes of project development and is comprised of five core components:

• Government Innovation Fellow: Government partners receive assistance from a GPL Government Innovation Fellow. Fellows are recruited from the top public policy, law, and business schools from around the country, and have received training in benefit-cost analysis, evaluation design, management strategies, and negotiation techniques. Each fellow is employed by the GPL and works with the government office or agency that is spearheading the program. Fellows provide assistance both in coordinating the policy process and in performing technical analysis. Fellows report directly to each government’s designated project policy lead and receive additional supervision from an experienced Assistant Director and Professor Jeffrey Liebman.

• Access to Senior Technical Advisors: Government partners receive additional support from the broader GPL team, including senior technical assistance and support from content area and methodological experts such as GPL Director Jeffrey Liebman, as well as direct assistance from an experienced Assistant Director who has already overseen one or more projects. The GPL’s Cambridge-based Executive Assistant Director, data analyst, statistician, and other staff provide additional support as needed with data analysis, evaluation design, and implementation planning.

• Knowledge Sharing, Government Partner Network, and Capacity Building: Government partners participate in GPL training sessions and receive assistance designed to build internal capacity to undertake projects and sustain pay-for-success work once formal engagement with the GPL concludes. The GPL also organizes a network of government partners so that officials can learn from one another’s experiences.

• Assistance with Data Analysis: Resources for data matching and analysis are also made available to government agencies requiring this type of assistance. Extensive matching of data sets across agencies is often required to establish historic performance trends, analyze the amount of variability in these trends, and target individuals to be served by the government performance programs. Up to six months of programmer/data analyst time is made available to state and local governments, as needed.

• Additional Services: For each government partner, the GPL provides additional resources that can be used to help overcome any implementation barriers that might arise during project development.

GPL technical assistance is made possible by grants from the Corporation for National and Community Service Social Innovation Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative, the Dunham Fund, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the Pritzker Children’s Initiative.