Designing the Pipeline for Future Public Service
Our Civic Design Equity fellows are an integral part of the work that happens in our lab. A couple of times a year, we open our application for Civic Design Equity fellowship to young professionals and current college students who are interested in exploring a career in public service. Oakland’s Civic Design Lab is gearing up to be a regional pipeline for today’s young generation who are drawn to mission-driven organizations as their employer of choice, eager to apply their skills for the betterment of society at large. Since our public launch in January, we’ve been fielding a lot of questions about how our lab works, and we’d like to begin with what matters to us most: the people.
In many ways, Civic Design Lab operates a lot like a startup. We took immediate notice when FutureGov and UNDP published this Medium post last fall on Growing Government Innovation Labs — an insider’s guide (here is the link to their report), and the team did a stellar job of explaining how government innovation labs actually operate.
We are certainly not alone nor can similar government innovation labs be the only ones building the pipeline for developing future leaders of our cities. The New York Times’ recent article on how Public Servants Are Losing Their Foothold in the Middle Class, has given us some pause on whether young people ought to be cajoled into careers in public service, given that we seem to be at the peak of economic boom and especially for those within close proximity to Silicon Valley similar set of skills can land one a great job with benefits in the private sector. But for those of us in civic design and civic tech community, there has been no shortage of talent. One fundamental skill that we think that government innovation labs like ours can teach young professionals today better than any private sector company, is empathy.
Gabija, who has recently graduated out of our student fellowship program, first joined Civic Design Lab to practice her design thinking training she received during her senior year at UC Berkeley, now considers herself a public servant at heart:
As a first-generation American, born and raised in a family that is still learning to navigate American culture, civic engagement has always been a priority of interest. So when I came to start my undergrad studies at UC Berkeley four years ago, I had a singular mindset to work in public service and community development. What I found was that making an impactful difference was not going to be so easy. Through job, internship, and volunteer experiences I found myself frustrated with opportunities that didn’t really seem to do anything, that involved navigating a great deal of infrastructure — which I found inefficient and frustrating. I graduated with double degrees in Social Welfare and Interdisciplinary Field Studies (a focus on Science, Technology, and Society) and with a newfound passion for efficiency and creativity of human-centered design and systems thinking.
I started my work with Civic Design Lab in October of 2017, midway through my last semester at Cal. As a young professional transitioning from full-time studying to full-time employment — the six months that I spent with CDL were incredibly influential. With CDL, I was given the opportunity to develop communities within the city of Oakland (and Alameda county) through thoughtful, efficient, and impactful contributions. CDL further privileged me with a unique insight into government and city infrastructure, while also helping me develop into a competent and confident designer. From helping facilitate workshops to co-designing CDL’s website, I found the thoughtful foundations principles of the Fellowship to be empowering and inspiring. Working with CDL was truly formative experience, that taught me skills and practice in empathy.
Gabija, Service Design Fellow, Fall 2017 — Spring 2018
Governments are society’s first institutions but they are also society’s last. Not only are governments the first architects of the very fabric on which our diverse constituents make their mark, they are also providers of society’s last mile services.
Sam, who came to Civic Design Lab by way of an AmeriCorps fellowship last summer, has plans to replicate the lab’s model in his hometown in Florida when he enters a graduate program in Urban Planning.
The reason I’m so excited about the innovation coming from the Civic Design Lab and the Resilient Oakland Playbook is that it signals a major shift, a shift in Oakland’s local government to start building resilience through user experience design and equipping Oaklanders with the necessary tools to design policy based on their unique needs and desires. Whether it’s making where we live safer with the help of the Healthy Housing Initiative, or developing financial empowerment through the Wealth Impact Table, this initiative is a great opportunity to give the community the chance to breed empowerment within itself. The Civic Design Lab reinforces the principle that cities designed by the people and for the people will create equitable opportunities for all its residents. I believe in the impact of CDL because it’s part of the movement to actively build spaces for POC and disenfranchised groups to positively affect the design of policies by putting the racial equity lens at the forefront of the work. One of the first questions I asked myself when I started working in Oakland was, “How do Oaklanders use and interact with public policy, and how can they impact the quality and livability of the city they reside in?”. After joining this initiative, I truly believe Civic Design Lab is the answer to that question and the future of how local government engages with the community its serving.
The next step in my journey is attending University of South Florida in Tampa to work towards a Masters Degree in Urban and Regional Planning, and continue to spread the principles of the Civic Design Lab to my everyday work. Specifically, I will be working to bring human centered design practices and establishing a racial equity lens to neighborhood planning and community design projects. Neighborhood planning in the past hasn’t always taken into consideration the very people these changes and policies affect. In response to the failures of top down approaches to revitalizing urban neighborhoods, neighborhood planning is evolving into bottom up, user experience focused planning that puts local community organizations and residents at the forefront of the planning process. I plan on being part of this positive trend towards space designed by the people and for the people.
Sam, AmeriCorps VISTA Fellow, Summer 2017 — Spring 2018
Mainstreaming Civic Design Lab’s toolkit of strategies and tactics, be that through human centered design, process design, or systems thinking, is being carried out through our ongoing training of public servants already on the ground. We believe that the strongest case for policy change and service upgrades need to be made at the lowest level of influence as possible, and made with those whom are in fact the most marginalized in society, rather than by those with most privilege. Being an effective conduit for communication means to share in taking turns expressing our values as well as our responsibilities. Ultimately, this requires the courage from those who have the means to relegate such power to share them both upstream and downstream, because our stories lose the capacity to move others when they become diluted and misrepresented.
Kori, an Oakland native and former community organizer who has turned to local government for ideas on how formerly incarcerated Oaklanders can more effectively work with policymakers and service providers, is leading the lab’s efforts to facilitate conversations on effective implementation of Re-Entry services across the City departments:
As a Design Fellow with the Oakland Civic Design Lab, I am primarily working on the Financial Justice and Re-entry Project that is focused on service design for the formerly incarcerated to ensure inclusive economic growth. In my previous role at Red Bay Coffee, a mission-driven specialty coffee roasting business in Oakland, I led efforts to hire and train formerly incarcerated community members. It has also been my privilege to serve on the Oakland Workforce Development Board and contribute to the city’s strategy to build inclusive workforce training and employment opportunities.
Having been on the employer side of re-entry work, I am excited to work with the Oakland Civic Design Lab and learn more about human centered service design and ensuring that community voice stays at the heart of city services and decision-making. This opportunity to experience working within city government is very helpful for me as I move forward in my career, as I believe that we need to foster more collaboration across the private and public sectors to create a more equitable and inclusive economy for all. Oakland has always been an innovative city committed to social justice. I encourage everyone to get involved with the Civic Design Lab and your local community as we continue that spirit to face 21st century challenges and opportunities!
Kori, Financial Justice and ReEntry Services Fellow, Spring 2018
We are indeed very fortunate to be working with some of the most talented young people in our town, who are on their way to to make some incredible contributions to society.
If you resonated with this story, you probably have a future in public service, either with us or the hundreds and thousands of other government innovation labs rising up around the world.
