Five Years of CivicMakers — The Metrics

(This post is a companion piece to “From Spark to Community to Civic Design Firm–Reflections on Five Years of CivicMakers.”)

As an impact-focused innovation and engagement firm, CivicMakers thinks big and broad about how we determine and measure the value of our work aside from the number of contracts we win and clients served. We have always focussed on the “human side of technology” and, as such, we’ve developed ways of evaluating the impact of our projects by sourcing the metrics that matter directly from clients, our community and each other.

Some of the ways we embed this into our work is to determine shared goals for projects with our clients at the outset, then measure our progress toward those goals along the way. In our short tenure, we’ve served 50 clients. We strive to ensure that the goals of particular projects are representative of what the individuals within an agency, department or municipality deem important — not just decision-makers.

At the early start of our consulting work (in 2016) we involved our civic innovation community in our strategic planning process to better understand their needs and how we could serve them. Events have always been high on our strategic priorities for folks, particularly seeing as how we’ve hosted 58 events in the last 5 years for more than 2,500 people. These have ranged from social mixers and salons to official trainings, hackathons/design challenges and unconferences. We still survey our LINKS newsletter subscribers (3,564 as of today) to understand what they think is most important — for themselves, their organizations and/or the space as a whole.

Speaking of our newsletter, we see storytelling and, more specifically, the ability to use our network to share the stories of others doing work in the space as an impact metric. With 70 volumes and 59 people profiled, we strive to celebrate the successes of our peers and mentors. Since our very first meetup, we have created a venue for 109 speakers to share their perspectives.

In terms of people and impact, we’d be remiss not to mention our 5 full-time staff we’ve employed, along with 4 part-time contractors and over 15 former collaborators. Lately, we’ve been incorporated our values and project management norms into how we review each other’s work. This helps us understand how we individually are engaging in the work, and where there might be gaps.

We have created impact evaluation frameworks for our clients that map to Guiding Principles for how innovation work is done at the municipal or government agency level. We’ve had conversations with our friends at IDEO and their public sector practice for how they measure things like culture change. One interesting insight was around the number of inside jokes that occur among teams. We like that metric, and when we run workshops or trainings, we look for things like clever team names or camaraderie between teams that shows up in their presentations. Our Chief Impact Officer Judi Brown often jokes that hugs and high-fives are indicators of impact :)

At this point in the field of civic innovation and civic design, our ability to thoughtfully measure our impact is becoming more and more important. How are you measuring impact? How do you evaluate the success of projects? How do you balance customization with standardization? We want to hear about it! We’ll have more stories of measuring impact as we work to operationalize our Culture Stack model of public sector culture change.

PS — If you’re interested in our work, please consider subscribing to LINKS, our twice-monthly missive of all things civic innovation for the Bay Area and beyond.

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If you are curious, here is the full look back of the data that we pulled from the last 5 years to get a handle on our impact metrics. Enjoy!

Staff

• 5 full-time
• 4 part-time contractors
• 15 former contractors, employees & collaborators

Clients

50 clients, many of whom are return clients with multi-year engagements. We can’t thank these organizations enough!

• CA Office of Statewide Health Planning & Development (OSHPD)
• California Department of Public Health
• California Department of Social Services
• California Department of Technology (CDT)
• California Health & Human Services Agency
• California Health Care Foundation
• California State Library
• California Teacher Development Collaborative
• California Victim Compensation Board (CalVCB)
• City & County of San Francisco — Digital Services
• City & County of San Francisco — Municipal Transit Authority
• City & County of San Francisco — Office of Civic Innovation
• City & County of San Francisco — Office of Economic & Workforce Development
• City of Berkeley
• City of Fremont
• City of Hayward
• City of Richmond
• City of San Jose
• City of San Jose — Environmental Services Department
• City of San Rafael
• City of Santa Rosa
• City of Stockton
• City of Thousand Oaks
• Code for America
• Code for San Francisco
• Democracy Labs
• DKS Associates
• FIRSTMED Health + Wellness Center
• FUSE Corps
• Michael Baker Intl
• Microsoft
• Mission Hub LLC
• Moran Consulting
• Napa County
• Napa Valley Transporation Authority
• Neighborland
• NorCal American Public Works Association
• Nutter Consulting
• Purchia Communications LLC
• Rocky Mountain Public Media
• Rokketmed
• San Francisco Parks Alliance
• SF Tech Council
• SFMOCI / STIR
• Solano County
• SPUR
• The Pew Charitable Trusts
• Voter Participation Center
• Wallace Roberts & Todd, LLC
• Water.org

Newsletters

70 volumes of LINKS for 3,564 subscribers (as of June 24th, 2019) featuring 59 profiles for a 63% F to M ratio.

• Adam Dondro — CIO, California Health and Human Services Agency
• Alex Banh — Digital Equity Manager, City and County of San Francisco
• Alex Holm — Detective Corporal, San Rafael Police Department
• Ana Lugo — Director of Communications and Community Relations, Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County (CAP Sonoma)
• Andy Krackov — Vice President, Data Strategy, Velir
• Anna Sergeeva — Artist
• Anne Neville-Bonilla — Director, California Research Bureau, California State Library
• Antionette D. Carroll — President and CEO (Founder), Creative Reaction Lab
• Ashara Ekundayo — CEO, AECreative Consulting
• Ashley Meyers — Product Manager, Digital Services City & County of San Francisco”
• Bill Eggers — Managing Director, Deloitte
• Brooke Staton — Co-Founder, Reflex Design Collective
• Caroline Barlerin — Head of Community Outreach & Philanthropy , Twitter
• Caroline Fairchild — New Economy Editor , LinkedIn
• Carrie Bishop — Chief Digital Services Officer, City and County of San Francisco
• Chaeny Emanavin — Director, Office of Innovation CA Health & Human Services
• Chelsea Robinson — Collaboration & Facilitation , Enspiral
• Clair Farley — Executive Director, Office of Transgender Initiatives, City and County of San Francisco
• Cristelle Blackford — Chief Engagement Officer, CivicMakers
• Dale McGrew — Co-Founder & CTO, We Vote
• Debbie Acosta — Chief Innovation Officer, City of San Leandro
• Deborah Cullinan — CEO, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
• Durell Coleman — Founder & CEO, DC Design
• Eduardo Ortiz — Partner, Product , &Partners
• Ellen LaPointe — CEO, Northern California Grantmakers
• Erika Pinheiro — Director, Policy & Technology , Al Otro Lado
• Felicia Curcuru — Co-Founder & CEO, Binti
• James Sanders — Founder, Breakout EDU
• Jaryn Miller — Service Designer, The Lab @ OPM, U.S. Office of Personnel Management
• Jasmine Leek — Founder, Third City Coalition
• Jenny Hoang — Research & Design Manager, iLab — San Francisco Unified School District
• Jessica Cole — Head of Innovation and Economic Development, City of Walnut Creek
• Jim Rettew — VP of Strategy, CivicMakers
• Julie Menter — Principal, New Media Ventures
• Kami Griffiths — Executive Director/Co-Founder, Community Technology Network
• Kelsey Foster — Campaign Manager, People’s Budget
• Krista Canellakis — Deputy Innovation Officer, San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation
• Leah Tremblay-Adams — Project Associate, CivicMakers
• Leyla Acaroglu — Founder, Unschool
• Lindley Mease — Co-Founder, Blue Heart
• Lisa Abeyta — Founder and CEO, AppCityLife
• Mai-Ling Garcia — Online Engagement Manager, City of Oakland
• Marc O’Brien — Co-Founder, The Determined
• Masha Chernyak — VP Programs & Policy, Latino Community Foundation
• Michael McCarthy — Community Broadband Manager , SF Community Broadband Network
• Michelle Glauser — Founder and CEO, Techtonica
• Mischa Byruck — Founder, Evolve.Men
• Molly McLeod — Civic Designer, Freelance Designer & Artist
• Neal Gorenflo — Executive Director, Shareable
• Perla Ni — Founder & CEO, CommunityConnect Labs
• Peter Shanley — Head of Partnerships and Business Development, Civic Hall
• Rodrigo Davies — Product Manager, Strava Metro
• Ryan Scott — Founder and CEO , Causecast
• Scott Warren — CEO, Generation Citizen
• Sergio Medina — Founder & CEO, RISE
• Shakirah Simley — Legislative Aide for SF District 5 Supervisor Vallie Brown, SF Board of Supervisors
• Shari Davis — Director of Strategic Initiatives, Participatory Budgeting Project
• Sujatha Jesudason — Executive Director, CoreAlign
• Tania Anaissie — Founder and CEO , Beytna Design
• William Tyner — Design Researcher & Strategist, SF Municipal Transportation Agency

Events

58 public events with 5500+ RSVPs attended by over 2500 people! Here’s a breakdown of the types of events we’ve hosted, and you can see a list of most of our events on our website.

• Trainings (15)
• Civic Mixers (9)
• Salons (8)
• Civic Mornings (8)
• Holiday Parties (3)
• Community Circle (3)
• Collaboration Cafe (3)
• Unconference (2)
• SFDW (2)
• Prop Party (2)
• Hackathon (2)
• Jeffersonian Dinner (1)
• Design Challenge (1)

Speakers

109 amazing humans have spoken at our events (that we can count) for a 48% F to M ratio. The titles and organizations listed below are not necessarily current, but reflect the affiliations of the speakers and their relationship to the event at the time of the event. Let us know if we forgot anyone!

• Abby Maldonado — Diversity Programs Specialist, Pinterest
• Alex Pandel — Lead Design & Product Strategist, 18F
• Amanda Damewood — Service Design Coach,
• Amy Johnson — Executive Director, US Federation of Worker Cooperatives
• Amy Ngai — Partnership and Training Director, Sunlight Foundation
• Andy Krackov — Vice President, Data Strategy, Velir
• Angelica Quirarte — Founder, NxtGov
• Autumn McDonald — Senior Advisor, San Francisco Mayor’s Office
• Ben Kallos — Councilmember, New York City
• Bill Eggers — Public Sector Research at Deloitte, Director
• Brooke Staton — Co-founder, Reflex Design Collective
• Caroline Whistler — Co-Founder & Co-President, Third Sector Capital
• Carrie Bishop — Chief Digital Services Officer, City and County of San Francisco
• Catherine Sandoval — , California Public Utilities Commission
• Charles Belle — Founder, Startup Policy Lab
• Chris Tittle — Director of Organizational Resilience, Sustainable Economies Law Center
• Christina Gagnier — Candidate for California’s 35th Congressional District,
• Dale McGrew — Founder, We Vote USA
• Dan Parham — Founder, Neighborland
• David Chiu — President, CCSF Board of Supervisors
• David Martin — Principle, Retail, Orange
• Deborah Acosta — Chief Innovation Officer, City of San Leandro
• Debra Cleaver — Founder, Long Distance Voter
• Derick Brown — Director, San Francisco Mayor’s Office Neighborhood Services
• Drew Foxman — Founder, Giant Steps
• Ellyn Parker — Senior Community Development Specialist, OEWD
• Eric McDonnell — EVP and COO, United Way
• Francis Zamora — External Affairs Manager, SF Department of Emergency Management
• Gené Teare — Head of Content, CrunchBase
• Greg Ligon
• Heidi Sieck — COO, Civic Hall
• Hillary Hartley — Deputy Executive Director, 18F
• Ilana Lipsett — Community Events Manager, The Hall
• Jarrett O’Brien — Founder, Think Thank
• Jay Costa — Director, CounterPAC
• Jay Nath — Chief Innovation Officer, City & County of San Francisco
• Jefferey Warren — Founder, Public Lab
• Jen Johnson
• Jen Pahlka — Founder & Executive Director, Code for America
• Jeremy Brown — Founder, Startups Give Back
• Jeremy Goldberg — Director Civic Innovation Partnerships, San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation
• Jesse Martinez — Founder, CareerForce
• Jessica Friesen — Senior Growth Strategist, B Lab
• Jim Pugh — Founder, The Universal Income Project
• Joaquín Torres — Deputy Director, SF Office of Economic and Workforce Development
• Jocelyn Alive
• John Paul Farmer — Civic Innovation Lead, Microsoft
• Joy Bonaguro — , Chief Data Officer for the City and County of San Francisco
• Julie Menter — Managing Director, New Media Ventures
• Kamran Saddique — — President & CEO, City Innovate Foundation
• Katharine Bierce — Organizer, SFTech4Good
• Kevin Bayuk — Founder, LIFT Economy
• Kiran Jain — City of Oakland, Chief Resiliency Officer
• Kristen Wyatt — Founder, ELGL
• Kristin Hayden — Chief Partnership Officer, Ignite
• Kristin Hogan — External Affairs Manager, SF Department of Emergency Management
• Lauren Massa-Lochridge — Member, Voting Systems Standards Committee
• Leila Pederson — Associate Director, New America CA
• Leslie Keil — Partner, Hanson Bridgett LLP
• Lily Russell — Founder, Explain the Chain
• Luke Fretwell — Founder, Govfresh
• Magenta Ceiba — Executive Director, Evolver Network
• Malia Cohen — Supervisor, CCSF Board of Supervisors
• Marcia Kadanof — Board member, City Innovate Foundation
• Mark Farrell — Supervisor, CCSF Board of Supervisors
• Mark Headd — Technical Evangelist, Accela
• Mary O’Mara — Executive Director, MarinLink
• Matt Mahan — Founder & CEO, Brigade
• Melinda Epler — Founder, Change Catalyst
• Micah Sifry — Founder, Civic Hall
• Michael Canning — Voter Information Director, MapLight
• Michael Rolph — Founder, New Sincerity
• Michael Wilkening — Undersecretary, California Health and Human Services Agency
• Michelle Glauser — Founder, TechTonica
• Milicent Johnson — Managing Director, Peers
• Mindy Romero — Director, California Civic Engagement Project
• Nicole Sanchez — VP of Social Impact, GitHub
• Noah Thorp — Founder, Citizen Code
• Nolan Love — Founder, PollVault
• Pantera Arzhintar — Founder & CTO, Countable
• Patrick Otellini — Chief Resiliency Officer, City and County of San Francisco
• Peter Hirshberg — Chairman, City Innovate Foundation
• Peter Jackson — Public Sector Portfolio Director, IDEO
• Rani Langer-Croager — Founder, Uptima Business Bootcamp
• Rebecca Woodbury — Senior Management Analyst, City of San Rafael
• Regina Walton — Founder, SFTech4Good
• Rey Faustino — Founder & CEO, One Degree
• Richard Mathera — Product Designer, Common Cents Lab
• Rob Joyce — Consultant, Full Circle Fund
• Ross Stackhouse — Vice President, Tidewater Capital
• Ryan Bright — Founder, Think Thank
• Sandhya Anantharaman — Founder, The Universal Income Project
• Sarah Noyes — Recruiter, Protege Talent
• Serena Sonderegger — Consultant, Spring Impact
• Seth Familian — Founder, Familian&1
• Seth Flaxman — Co-founder & ED, Democracy Works / Turbovote
• Shaniece Alexander — Executive Director, Oakland Food Policy Council
• Shannon Spanhake — Founder & CEO, Instacare
• Shari Davis — Co-Executive Director, Participatory Budget Project
• Stéphane Richard — Chairman and CEO , Orange
• Stephen Rye Switzer — Founder, Rye Financial
• Stu Drown — Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Accountability, Government Operations Agency
• Sue Steinfield — Founder, Sue Steinfield Coaching
• Tim Bonnemann — Member of the Board, International Association for Public Participation
• Tim O’Reilly — Founder & CEO, O’Reilly Media
• Travis Moore — Founder and Director, TechCongress
• Wayne Sutton — Founder, Change Catalyst
• Will Barkis — Principal, Smart Cities, Orange
• Will Tyner — Design Researcher & Strategist, SFMTA