colift verification methodology

Who we are

colift is a operating a civic-volunteer platform. Volunteers contribute to public-benefit tasks, food-access mapping, translation review, sidewalk-hazard documentation, archive transcription, and accessibility audits. All task output is published free to the public, partner agencies, and libraries. colift does not sell volunteer output and is funded entirely by grants and donations.501(c)(3) public charity operating a civic-volunteer platform. Volunteers contribute to public-benefit tasks, food-access mapping, translation review, sidewalk-hazard documentation, archive transcription, and accessibility audits. All task output is published free to the public, partner agencies, and libraries. colift does not sell volunteer output and is funded entirely by grants and donations.

For volunteers subject to the SNAP/ABAWD work requirement, colift signs Section 2 of the CF 888 as the authorized representative of the organization where the volunteering occurred. Our IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter is the qualifying credential, there is no state pre-approval list for qualifying nonprofits.

We want to be direct: no published FNS, CDSS, or OTDA guidance specifically addresses remote or online volunteer hours. None of it requires in-person work either. Our position is that remote volunteering is unaddressed, not prohibited.

This position is supported by:

• The text of 7 CFR §273.24(a)(2)(iii) it does not distinguish in-person from remote work. The operative requirement is that the state have a verification standard.
• Established remote nonprofit volunteer programs Smithsonian Transcription Center, Library of Congress "By the People," Zooniverse, and Tarjimly have run large-scale remote volunteer programs for years, accepted as legitimate nonprofit service.
• Federal endorsement of remote citizen-science contribution the Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2016, EPA Participatory Science, USDA Forest Service, and the National Park Service treat remote volunteer data contribution as a recognized volunteer activity.

Because this area is unaddressed, we have designed the platform conservatively (measured engagement, verifiable deliverables, public methodology) and pursue pre-clearance conversations with state and county welfare departments rather than waiting to be discovered in an audit.

Every dataset produced by volunteer work on colift ships as a free public download. This is what makes the work qualify as community service, the output must be a public good, not a colift-internal asset.

We publish an open methodology ledger that includes:

• The current verification methodology in plain language
• Per-task hour caps and the calibration changelog
• Validation criteria applied to each submission type
• Submission-level records (de-identified) available to county staff upon request

If you're considering rejecting a form

We welcome direct contact from caseworkers and county staff before a rejection decision. If a form looks questionable, we can pull the submission records that support the certification and share them with you directly.

If hours are rejected and the recipient believes the rejection was in error, they are entitled to a CDSS state fair hearing before an administrative law judge (7 CFR §273.15; Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code §10950 et seq.). colift's session records and methodology documentation serve as the evidentiary basis for that hearing. We encourage recipients with disputed hours to contact a SNAP legal-aid organization.

Note: colift does not guarantee that any county will accept a CF 888 we sign. We record and verify hours; the county determines eligibility. We state this clearly to every volunteer.