Participation

Central to our work is the belief that the challenges our communities face will only be met by enlisting the contributions of people and organizations from across society in pursuit of our common interests. In the United States, we live a paradox of low levels of political participation combined with high levels of public service and philanthropy. The usual ways to participate, like voting and attending public meetings, are seen by most as poor means to change their communities for the better. But people are still very interested in improving the quality of life where they live.

By harnessing the strong desire of people to contribute their time and expertise toward improving their communities, and to have a meaningful way to be involved in decisions that effect their lives, we think that a new relationship can be forged between people and their governments. Technology is enabling us to go beyond the typical ways of engaging with government, and become much more collaborative and inclusive. Code for America is helping drive this change by working with governments to establish platforms where participation can happen, and to bring more citizen-centered practices to how public institutions operate.

Innovative Strategies

Building and Deploying Web-based Tools for Civic Engagement: The power of the Web to connect people around politics, and then facilitate their engagement, came into clear focus in the last two presidential election cycles. Now there is a growing crop of web applications that are harnessing that power to directly engage residents in pursuing the public interest on a local level. Some provide opportunities for deliberation about civic issues, such as Localocracy and the E-democracy.org local forums. And others are providing a means for residents to flag local problems, literally on an online map, bringing them to the attention of both neighbors and local officials (SeeClickFix and CitySourced.)

Linking People in the Community Together: Local communities are built by connecting neighbors who want to share information, time, and resources. Initiatives like Front Porch Forum and Groundcrew are thinking in new ways about how the web can be leveraged to do just that. Front Porch Forum’s hyper-local web portals have been deployed in over 50 towns and cities in Vermont and half of the households in Burlington are currently members. Groundcrew is using social networks, communication tools, and mapping technology to create a real-time organizing platform that community members and groups can use to plan and manage activities.

Crowd-sourcing Ideas to Improve a City: The typical model for getting input from citizens on government policies -- once a month hearings or formal comment procedures -- is changing to a more dynamic, active, and real-time system. For example, the City of Chicago, in partnership with CEOs for Cities and interaction design firm Local Projects, has launched a campaign called Give a Minute that reaches out into the community to ask residents the question “what would encourage you to walk, bike and use more public transit?” And private, cloud-based crowd-sourcing services have been used by the federal government to gather collective intelligence from the public (IdeaScale and spigit.)

Resources