Bring it! A new form of civic participation
Participation in democracy and community used to mean lobbying government and applying for grants. You can still do this and it works sometimes, but there are new arguably more constructive ways to contribute and smart governments are enabling them.
Instead of waiting for government to do something engaged citizens and socially responsible organisations are doing it for themselves. Self-organising to address social issues directly and collectively. Driven by concerns about their community, the environment and democracy they are innovating, developing tools, services and programs to self-serve and serve others. And in doing so, these civic innovators are effectively reforming democracy, social service and the role of government in the 21st Century.
‘Civic Innovators’ build technologies and organisations that enable participation in community, democratic processes and social contribution. If they’re building ‘technologies for social good’ it’s called CivicTech. If they are building an organisation it might be a social enterprise which redirects profits back into the business to continue ‘doing good’, or it could be a not-for-profit association or cooperative. Some of these ‘do-gooders’ are even operating for-profit organisations who also serve the community and social impact investors love them!
The people DOing this type of work start these civic initiatives themselves, investing their own time, resources and skills (and sometimes staff) to deliver social change. Then when their concept or ‘prototype’ is developed they crowdsource ideas, funds and skills from others to develop it further. Funding for civic innovations usually comes from crowdfunding, philanthropic investment, social impact investment funds and grant funding. And there are some wonderful community developed platforms that are enabling this kind of investment and crowdfunding.
Like most genuine innovations, some these initiatives have emerged out of need. A great example is the Ushahidi which was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election violence in 2008. Since then, thousands have used the crowdsourcing tool, including after the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which demonstrated the power of online volunteer networks.
This work is no longer happening in response to crisis on the fringe of our societies. Civic innovation is a now a global social movement. A movement that is making a difference in cities, communities and countries across the world. This data visualisation by the Knight Foundation shows just some of the CivicTech initiatives that have been developed in the United States and the amount of investment that was made into them between 2011 and 2013. This Forbes article from 2015 also highlighted the opportunity for investors and governments and Forbes continues to provide reports on CivicTech. There’s even two annual international conferences about CivicTech — one in Europe and one in East Asia, attended by public servants inside and outside of governments from across the globe. My Society runs TicTec, The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference, which happens and the CivicTech Fest is held in Taiwan as part the 21st World Congress on Information Technology. These events are also frequented by the World Bank and their sponsors include organisations like Google and Facebook.
This self-service and self-organised model of community service side steps traditional models of social services, challenging the role of government and affecting the way it works. For example, CivicTech like Fix-My-Street are being used by community members to identify and alert governments to issues in their communities, which governments then need to respond to.
It would be remiss of me to write about CivicTech without covering the tools being built with the intention to disrupt and improve representative democracy as we know it. Voting online securely with blockchain now makes it possible to participate in ‘direct democracy’ rather than endorsing representatives to vote on your behalf. There is also a range of products that support online collaboration like Loomio that lets you propose, discuss and then vote on issues. There are even products that let you make sure that the people you are vote for represent your views when like Theyvoteforyou which monitors how elected officials are making decisions between elections. Those who would like to get elected can also use Flux or crowdsource their policy platform or manifesto using a wiki or google-doc like the Mayor who was elected in Barcelona in 2014. Or you could simply campaign government using something like Change.org and if get enough signatures you might get the attention of your representative. Many of these initiatives are being share and discussed at the annual European Commission’s World Forum for Democracy.
Personally I am much more interested in helping governments to use these tools between elections, but there are many people around who would like to see them replace government as we know it. Democracy is being disrupted and government’s need to get smarter about how they use these tools and the techniques now available to engage people and business and enable their social and democratic participation.
Government’s with smart city, smart community and open government programs are ahead of the game. Many of them, using CivicTech built for government consultation and engagement, to make decision making and sometimes even budgeting processes more open, transparent and participatory between elections. I call these tools EngageTech because they are designed to meet government requirements. Which means they have considered the security, and the data and privacy management needs of government agencies and the people they serve. These technologies make it easy for governments to conduct research, to consult community and to collect input during policy and planning processes, and to work with stakeholders to deliver services or programs. Making it possible to understand and address social impacts, to co-design and co-deliver social outcomes. Some of the more commonly used EngageTech in Australia includes Bang-the-Table, The Hive, Our Say, Social PinPoint, CrowdMap which can be paired with relationship management tools like Consultation Manager and Darzin which are used to track communications and retain the corporate knowledge generated.
Really smart governments are treating community or ‘civic’ engagement as a service, an opportunity to identify social capital, and way to invest into and measure their social impact. Using technology, open data and data analytics to understand and maximise their investment into engagement, and services and programs designed to serve the community. They use these tools to listen, respond and leverage the opportunities engagement unearths, encouraging those who want to contribute.
EngageTech is used to collect data online and offline at various points in their policy development, planning and program design and decision making processes. Information management and data analytics processes are then used to collate, analyse and report this invited data so that it can be considered. Post consultation, if these tools are integrated with relationship management systems these governments are able to continue and progress conversations with stakeholders, retain corporate knowledge and amplify the social capital they discover while engaging.
If you’re a big picture thinker like me you are probably already connecting the dots to government innovation programs, social and economic development programs, and targeting the allocation of grants and social impact investment strategies and bonds. Imagine what Civil Society and governments could create together if initiatives and resources were coordinated and efficiently directed so that we might maximise each others social impact.
I hope to see more government’s supporting civic innovation, and organisations like Code For All who connect civic innovators to governments and others delivering similar initiatives around the world.
If you have skills, time, resources you would like to contribute to your community, get in touch with Code for All or contact The Centre for Civic Innovation to discuss your ideas or support local social innovation in Australia.
We can’t wait to see what you create!
