The Future of Civic Tech: Open Data and Open Gov’ts

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Roshan Bliss

We recently saw a fascinating interview that NCDD supporting member Della Rucker recently published on her website EngagingCities that we wanted to share. Della interviewed the head of a key civic tech company, Accela, on the results of a recent paper on trends in civic technology, and the conversation is quite educational. We encourage you to read the interview below or find the original here.

How big is Civic Tech and where is it going? One on one with Mark Headd of Accela

In late 2014, Accela released a white paper with the International Data Corporation that quantifies the potential scope, value, and growth potential of the Civic Technology field. Accela’s Developer Evangelist, Mark Headd, appears frequently at EngagingCities through his thought-provoking personal blog, civic.io.

I caught up with Mark a couple of weeks ago to talk about the present and future of civic technology. We touched on the message that open data sends about a city, the unique challenges that smaller cities face in opening data, and the role of technology vendors in helping make that happen.

My thanks to Mark for the great conversation and to Accela for the white paper, which you can access here.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Della Rucker, Managing Editor, EngagingCities: First of all, tell me a little bit, in your own words, about Accela and why it is that Accela commissioned the study that IDC did?

Mark Headd, Developer Evangelists, Accela: Well, Accela is a company that provides software to governments in support of their business licensing, land management, permitting, food safety inspection, service requests, and so on, so we have a whole suite of software that helps government do the job of governing,

Our flagship product is the Accela Civic Platform. It’s used by hundreds of governments around the world. Several years ago, the decision was made to engineer it so that there was an API that would provide access to the platform so you could connect third party applications to it.

I think Accela very rightly could be described as a company that saw the potential of civic technology before it was cool. Before it was widely accepted as being cool.

We very much bet our hand on the fact that third parties, that civic software developers, civic startups, and others would want to build things on top of our platform. Because of the things that governments use Accela’s platform for, our platform is chock full of really valuable information. The transactions that our platform supports – business licensing, permitting, all of these things – are critical functions of government.

One of the things that attracted me to Accela was that the fact that we can open up this kind of data and support transactional interactions on our platform through an API and through publishing open data. It’s been really exciting.

The report is a complement to that earlier investment in the platform around civic technology. It looks at, where are we going? What does the future of civic technology look like?

We’re not the only ones who do this. The Knight Foundation did recently, too. The reason we did it was because we wanted to articulate one of the reasons why, several years ago, we started to position ourselves to be ready for this trend in civic technology. I think universally, the outlook for the development of civic technology is pretty bright.

Della: Was there anything in there that surprised you, that confirmed something that you were already sort of aware of but hadn’t fully seen documented? Was there anything in there that particularly was revelatory for you?

Mark: Well, certainly the size of the impact, which is in the billions, to quantify that impact, I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a really good outcome of the report.

Like anything else, predicting the future is difficult. To me, that’s the primary takeaway, that this is something we’re going to continue to see. Governments are going to start investing heavily in this area. It’s an area that’s going to start to mature. To me, that’s something that I think will resonate with the people, that I think most of them innately had this sense that it was going to mature and going to really start to solidify.

Even to folks that aren’t in the civic technology field, I think this would probably wake some folks up and really help to shine a light on what civic technology is and how it’s changing what governments do and the potential future benefit for that.

Della: The report does a good job at a high level of identifying a lot of the broad factors that are driving governments’ need, their impetus to be investing in civic technology. That ranges all the way from demands on their own budgets and the need to increase internal efficiency, to how citizens increasingly prefer, and assume that they should be able, to interact with a government of any kind, whether local or state or larger.

What do you see as the current and near future barriers? What’s keeping this from being a full‑blown thing already, for lack of a better word?

Mark: Well, I talked about this a little bit at the Code for America Summit last year. Open data is a really critical part of all this because it’s usually one of the core ingredients that we see in civic technology solutions. But, even where it’s not directly used, when governments publish even simple open data, the government is essentially saying, “We’re ready. We’re ready to collaborate.”

That kind of an expression is critical, because what’s unique about civil technology is that it’s something that’s not wholly in a government. It requires people outside of a government. It requires citizen engagement. It requires a new way of partnering.

Governments are able to articulate that they are ready to collaborate and willing to collaborate through opening data. Open data is sort of the expression of that intent; without that you have a big impediment to the technology. The ability of government to collaborate in a new way, that’s what makes civic technology special.

If we look at who’s doing open data right now, it tends to be larger cities. More and more of the larger cities are doing it and fewer of the small‑to‑mid‑sized cities are doing it.

If you just look at the city level, there’s a stark contrast between big cities, the biggest cities in the country. If you look at the 20 biggest cities in the country, the 10 biggest cities in the country, I think nine out of 10 are doing open data.

If you look at the cities that have populations between 100,000 and 500,000, and there are a lot more of those cities in this country than big cities, the minority of them are doing any sort of work on open data. We need more governments, particularly municipal and local governments, to embrace open data, even if they’re not releasing vast troves of data because they may not have them.

If you’re a city of 75,000, you may not have a vast trove of data. But by starting down the road of open data, you have expressed a willingness to work with people. You’ve expressed a willingness to collaborate in a new way and that’s an essential ingredient to civic technology. In my mind, that’s one of the biggest impediments.

Della: That’s intriguing because there’s a technical component or maybe a functional component to that. First of all, a smaller city typically has relatively minimal internal staff. And often they’ve got less exposure to broader trends in the world because they’re trying to manage the issues of their community with a very shoestring budget.

But there’s also the issue of, do they have the technology? Can they find the technologists or the technology‑savvy people within their communities, or that they can access in one form or another, to help make that happen? Do you have any thoughts on how these smaller communities where this need is so prevalent may be able to start overcoming some of those barriers?

Mark: I think one of the things these smaller governments can and should do is they need to start insisting that their vendors are building open data – or the ability to support civic technology, if you want to think about it more generically – into their products. One of the things we do at Accela, we try and educate our customers on civic technology, what it is, and how they can publish data, how they can leverage our platform to support civic technology.

I think that’s critical that the vendor community start to do this more, but to some extent they’re not willing to do it unless their customers demand it. I think that’s something we’ll start to see.

Whether they’ll work with groups like ICMA and National League of Cities and others who pool their influence, I think we’ll probably start to see that as well. But, that’s something they need to do.

Smaller governments, more than others perhaps, rely on outside vendors for technology expertise. It’s critical that vendors, and we’re one of them, start to walk the walk on civic technology.

Della: But it’s not in the vendor’s self‑interest typically to push the clients to take on something that the client doesn’t have any clue how to do yet, and I’m overstating that obviously.

Mark: Well, if we’re right that the market for government civic technology is north of $6 billion in spending, then even self‑interested vendors are going to see the benefit of that. They’re going to want to get with the program because it is in their interest to do it. I don’t think vendors who do that are acting in a particularly self‑interested way.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing, right? Companies have shareholders and their responsibility is to maximize the return for their shareholders. Also the government is getting the benefit. I don’t think those two things need to be at odds.

I think we’re approaching the place where vendors are acting in a predictable self‑interested way, also providing a benefit to their customers. It’s in vendors’ interest to make their customers look good and be successful.

Certainly it’s in our interest to do that. I don’t think that’s at cross purposes with governments wanting to make their jobs easier by being able to leverage civic technology more efficiently.

I think we’re coming to a point here, where it is beneficial for governments to get involved with civic technology and support it more. I think it will actually be profitable for companies to do as well.

Della: I appreciate you articulating that so clearly. Let me ask one more question and that is, we have here in this report a pretty concise picture of the existing and near‑term state of the broader market.

When we’re having a conversation like this two years from now, whether it’s at a Code for America summit, whether it’s a conversation like this, if you try to put on your prognosticator hat here, what do you think we might be talking about at that point, a couple of years from now?

Mark: Well, I don’t know if I can give you an accurate prediction two years from now. I think we’ll still be talking about open data. I think we’ll be talking more and more about open standards, standards for data. I’m optimistic that we’ll have many more of them in two years because they actually make it easier for governments to adopt civic technology.

I don’t know all of the things we’ll be talking about, but I guarantee you in two years we’re still talking about open data and, increasingly, we’re talking about standards for open data that make it easier for vendors, civic start‑ups, and even civic hackers to build things for one government that can be easily ported to another government without a lot of difficulties.

Della: That’s such a critical component. First of all, with the multi‑pronged ecosystem around this issue, there has to be a common language amongst them. Certainly, that’s starting to develop, but that’s something that, I think, is going to become more and more crucial.

That’s also, I suspect, going to take away some of the fear. Essentially, there’s a little bit of a fear of the unknown for a lot of governments and, probably, vendors for whom this is new territory.

I think that’s so insightful of you to put your finger on standards, which sounds boring, but that’s such a crucial piece for making this something that people from wherever within this system can transition into and make it effective. There’s a functional side, but there’s also a cultural side that

Mark: I don’t know that I can emphasize it more strongly than to say that the standards are what are going to take civic technology to the next level. The recognition that open data is more than just this raw material, even though it’s that, it’s more than that.

It’s a way for a government to advertise that they are ready to collaborate in new ways. To me, that’s one of those foundational agreements for civic technology. You can’t do this without governments making that articulation. Especially smaller governments.

Cities like New York and Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston – they’re big cities, so the data that they release, all on its own, is compelling because it involves so many people. Smaller governments don’t have that same kind of data. It’s more than just the data itself.

It’s a government’s way of advertising to the world that they’re ready to collaborate in a new way. If you don’t have that, I don’t think you can do civic technology correctly.

Della: At some point, it would be interesting to have a follow‑on conversation with you, maybe we can pull in some other folks, to talk about what is starting to emerge in the smaller markets. We’ve all heard a lot about Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, et cetera. That might be a really interesting follow‑up conversation.

Mark: Sure. Absolutely.

Della: Thank you so much, Mark, for taking the time to talk.

Mark: I look forward to chatting with you again soon.

You can find the original version of this EngagingCities interview at www.engagingcities.com/article/how-big-civic-tech-and-where-it-going-one-one-mark-headd-accela.

Register for Frontiers of Democracy 2015, June 25-27!

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Roshan Bliss

It’s time to start gearing up again for this year’s Frontiers of Democracy conference in Boston, MA this June 25th-27th! This anual conference has become a key civic infrastructure where leaders in the D&D field and democratic thought to gather to explore ideas at the forefront of advancing democracy, and we highly recommend you join us there!

Frontiers of Democracy is sponsored by Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University, the Democracy Imperative, and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, all of which have NCDD members in their leadership.

The organizers describe the conference this way:

While powerful forces work against justice and civil society around the world, committed and innovative people strive to understand and improve citizens’ engagement with government, with community, and with each other. Every year, Frontiers of Democracy convenes some of these practitioners and scholars for organized discussions and informal interactions.

Topics include deliberative democracy, civil and human rights, social justice, community organizing and development, civic learning and political engagement, the role of higher education in democracy, Civic Studies, media reform and citizen media production, civic technology, civic environmentalism, and common pool resource management. Devoted to new issues and innovative solutions, this conference is truly at the frontiers of democracy.

You can learn more by visiting the conference website at http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/civic-studies/frontiers and register here.

We know this conference will be a great space for NCDD members to be, and we hope to see you there!

Ten Pointers for More Inclusive Public Engagement

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Roshan Bliss

Our friends at the Orton Family Foundation recently shared a list of 10 great tips for inclusive engagement that we wanted to share with our members. Orton’s tips come from lessons learned through their engagement work, especially with their Community Heart & Soul program – which is detailed in the full post. But the list was so good, we wanted to make sure our network saw it. Check it out below or read Orton’s full post here.

Top 10 Tips for Inclusive Engagement

1. There’s no such thing as the “general public”

Learn who your community is (its demographics, stakeholders, and networks) and how residents get their information. This knowledge is vital to designing effective community engagement and communication activities about your effort. Identify the key connectors who can help you reach these groups. At the same time, remember that no one person speaks for an entire group. See our Community Network Analysis Tool.

2. Keep your “promise” to community members

Be clear about how resident input will be used in your project (i.e. how much influence they will actually have). Be transparent about how residents’ input is used and what actions will result.

3. Go to the people

Change up how you gather community input. Go where people hang out, whether it’s physical gathering spaces, like a coffee shop or a brew pub, the senior center or a little league game, even online spaces.

Examples – In Damariscotta, Maine local organizers went to the town’s hugely popular annual Pumpkin Fest & Regatta, set up a booth, and used candy corn voting in jars to help with early priority setting. In the North Fork Valley, Colorado the Heart & Soul team held an event at the local brew pub and gathered people’s input on coasters—and from those coasters folks were lifting pints of Love It or Leave it Ale, brewed specially for the event!

4. Spread the word

Create a communications plan that includes project branding, messaging, and tactics for persuasively talking about your project. Use communication channels and messengers that have connections with who you are trying to reach.

Example – Victor, Idaho had a community wide Heart & Soul logo contest to help shape the brand and give it local flavor. The result: “Victor: What’s It to You?”

5. Ask for people’s personal stories

To draw in new voices, the Foundation begins Heart & Soul projects by gathering people’s stories about their town. Stories allow folks to express their experiences and opinions in their own words, without needing to understand planning or technical jargon. You’ll hear from people you wouldn’t have otherwise, and build new bridges and relationships through the process.

Example – In Biddeford, Maine story gatherers went to the local boxing ring and cigar shop, fishing areas and local diners to collect people’s stories of Biddeford. And they shared them in a public event with hundreds of folks as part of rebuilding pride in their town.

6. Understand the power dynamics

Be sensitive to parts of your population who may be uncomfortable participating (e.g. newcomers who come from a culture where participation was unsafe, people whose views have been marginalized in past community efforts). Find a safe way to talk with those groups about their concerns regarding participation and let them tell you how best to engage them.

Example – In Cortez, Colorado Heart & Soul project leaders communicated directly with the Ute Mountain Ute leadership to understand how to successfully bring information to the reservation and to listen to their concerns and advice. Through this listening and trust building, the tribe members became engaged in designing public art for the City’s southern gateway.

7. Engage in their interests

For some groups you may have to participate in something that matters to them first to make a connection.

Example – In Starksboro, Vermont our project began with cleanup activities because the first thing on peoples’ minds was to clean up the neighborhood. They weren’t talking about the future. After working together – accomplishing something – we were ready to engage in a broader conversation.

8. Think about the details

When hosting a community event, think through how you can make it more inclusive. Carefully consider the most convenient timing and location depending on whom you’re looking to engage. Provide childcare so young families can attend. Make sure to offer food. And consider transportation needs and whether a translator or facilitator could make a difference.

9. Use technology…if it’s a fit

There are many great new ways to engage people, such as online forums, cell phone voting, and social media. These tools can help make your efforts more inclusive if they are a fit with the crowd you are trying to reach. While not everyone has computer access, many more people have smart phones. But remember, good, old word of mouth and personal connections are still the best ways to get people to participate.

10. Make it fun!

When bringing people together for any meaningful discussion you are also creating the potential for a community building moment. Include lots of activities that make yours a real community event (e.g. local music and food, potlucks, poetry slams, and art exhibits).

Example – Golden, Colorado held a series of neighborhood block parties where you could have your pet checked out by a vet; get a bike tune up and a BBQ lunch while also getting project information, sharing stories and participating in a visual preference survey.

And don’t forget to celebrate your achievements with the community! It’s invaluable to mark your progress and honor your volunteers publicly.

You can find the original version of this Orton Family Foundation blog post by visiting www.orton.org/blog/top-ten-tips-inclusive-engagem.

See How PB Works Behind the Scenes on Apr. 18 in NYC

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Roshan Bliss

There is a unique opportunity that the Participatory Budgeting Project – an NCDD member organization – is offering to folks in NYC this week. PBP is running yet another participatory budgeting voting process in NYC this week, and is inviting folks to catch a behind-the-scenes look at the actual process. The next chance is on April 18th, so if you’re in the city, check it out! Learn more in the PBP announcement below or find the original one here.

We would like to invite you to join us at voting sites across NYC between April 11 – 19 to see PB in action!

As part of this year-long process, residents of the 24 Council Districts participating in this year’s PB cycle have gotten together to discuss local needs, brainstorm ideas, and develop proposals to help meet those needs. Now it’s time to decide through a public vote which of those projects should get funded with our tax dollars!

Find out where to vote on the Council’s website!

Regardless of whether you live in a participating district, please join our staff at the following vote sites, to get a behind the scenes look at democracy in action:

Saturday, April 11
- 11a-1p – District 8: Harlem RBI, 1960 1st Avenue at 101st Street, Harlem

Saturday, April 18
- 11a-1p – District 39: Windsor Terrace Library, 160 East 5th St at Ft. Hamilton Pkwy, Brooklyn
- 12-2p – District 3: LGBT Community Center, 208 W 13th St at 7th Avenue, Manhattan
- 3-5p – District 38, Sunset Park Library Saturday, 5108 4th Ave at 51st Street, Brooklyn

Please RSVP to – info[at]participatorybudgeting[dot]org

APRIL 11-19 PBNYC 2015 GET OUT THE VOTE! from PBP on Vimeo.

Even if you can’t join us you can find out if your district is participating and where to vote on the Council’s website!

You’ll also find out what’s on the ballot, see a map of proposed projects, pledge to vote, and volunteer to help with the Participatory Budgeting vote.

Love and democracy,
PBP

You can find the original version of this PBP blog post at www.participatorybudgeting.org/blog/join-us-for-voting-in-pbnyc.

Missed Our Loomio Tech Tuesday Event? Watch it Now!

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Roshan Bliss

We had a great Tech Tuesday on April 7th where about 65 NCDD members participated in a call with Alanna Krause and Chelsea Robinson of the Loomio cooperative. Loomio is an independent and neutral online space for complex discussion used by people from around the world to start a discussions, build agreement, and make decisions together for a course of action. We learned a lot and had a great conversation!

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of the call by clicking here, and Alanna and Chelsea’s power point presentation can be found here.

We also encourage you to learn more about Loomio from this snazzy video they’ve made explaining how it works.

Thanks again to Alanna and Chelsea for joining us!

We hope to see even more of you join us for our next Tech Tuesday talk. Keep an eye on our NCDD news blog for updates coming soon.

Experiment Shows Public Engagement Can Increase Tax Revenues

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Roshan Bliss

As public engagement practitioners, many of us have talked with public officials who want to know how engagement will improve a municipality’s bottom line. That’s why we appreciated NCDD member Tiago Peixoto‘s recent blog post on the first experimental – not just observational – evidence that our work can help cities collect more taxes. We encourage you to read Tiago’s post below or find the original here.

You can find the paper on the experiment by clicking here. There are caveats in the findings, but we hope this new evidence will help you strengthen your case with hesitant officials the next time you’re pushing for engagement.

New Evidence that Citizen Engagement Increases Tax Revenues

Quite a while ago, drawing mainly from the literature on tax morale, I posted about the evidence on the relationship between citizen engagement and tax revenues, in which participatory processes lead to increased tax compliance (as a side note, I’m still surprised how those working with citizen engagement are unaware of this evidence).

Until very recently this evidence was based on observational studies, both qualitative and quantitative. Now we have – to my knowledge – the first experimental evidence that links citizen participation and tax compliance. A new working paper published by Diether Beuermann and Maria Amelina present the results of a randomized experiment in Russia, described in the abstract below:

This paper provides the first experimental evaluation of the participatory budgeting model showing that it increased public participation in the process of public decision making, increased local tax revenues collection, channeled larger fractions of public budgets to services stated as top priorities by citizens, and increased satisfaction levels with public services. These effects, however, were found only when the model was implemented in already-mature administratively and politically decentralized local governments. The findings highlight the importance of initial conditions with respect to the decentralization context for the success of participatory governance.

In my opinion, this paper is important for a number of reasons, some of which are worth highlighting here. First, it adds substantive support to the evidence on the positive relationship between citizen engagement and tax revenues. Second, in contrast to studies suggesting that participatory innovations are most likely to work when they are “organic”, or “bottom-up”, this paper shows how external actors can induce the implementation of successful participatory experiences. Third, I could not help but notice that two commonplace explanations for the success of citizen engagement initiatives, “strong civil society” and “political will”, do not feature in the study as prominent success factors. Last, but not least, the paper draws attention to how institutional settings matter (i.e. decentralization). Here, the jack-of-all-trades (yet not very useful) “context matters”, could easily be replaced by “institutions matter”.

You can read the full paper here [PDF].

You can find the original version of this DemocracySpot blog post at http://democracyspot.net/2015/01/07/new-evidence-that-citizen-engagement-increases-tax-revenues.

5 Great Democratic Innovations from Around the Globe

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Roshan Bliss

Our friends at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation recently shared a great post on their Challenges to Democracy blog highlighting five examples of democratic innovation from Participedia that we found quite interesting (one even involves an NCDD member organization!). It’s invigorating to see concrete reminders that our work is making real changes, so we encourage you to check out the list below or find the original post here.

Looking for Inspiration? Five Noteworthy Innovations in Public Participation

Participedia is an effort that hopes to become a key resource for scholars, activists, policy makers, and citizens who are interested in new democratic practices and institutions. And it is always worth looking back to some of the most interesting cases recently added to Participedia for some inspiration. This selection from the frontlines of participatory innovation reflects both the diverse nature and the global span of Participedia.

1) Argentina – DEMOS

The purpose of the DEMOS project was to enable civic participation in the debate about high-profile law proposals in the Buenos Aires Legislature in Argentina, using the DemocracyOS software of the Democracia en Red foundation. The web app used was demos.legislatura.gov.ar and the initiative was open to civic participation for 35 days in November and December 2014.

In the project’s first phase, citizens were invited to rank their interests about 16 bills that had been introduced in DEMOS screenshot the legislature, corresponding to 12 political parties. The goal was for citizens to chose which were the 3 most important bills that should be debated online. And in the second phase, the top 3 bills were submitted for online discussion, both at an overall level and broken down into the sections of each bill.

Over 13,000 citizens visited the app and almost half of them signed up to participate. The online debate phase produced several interesting outcomes: there was one bill (about nurses’ working conditions) which received overwhelming support mostly because of the mobilization of activists from the party sponsoring that bill, and there was another very controversial bill (about informal parking guards) that led to high levels of polarization and disagreement among participants.

The DEMOS pilot was an unprecedented participatory initiative in Argentina’s history using online tools, and was relatively successful in terms of citizen turnout. The project was very innovative in enabling civic engagement in real-world bills that are important to the day-to-day life of citizens. One of the most interesting characteristics of DEMOS was that it was a success story of partnership with a government institution and with politicians from the whole political spectrum.

Should the Public Rate & Review Engagement Projects?

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Roshan Bliss

We recently saw a post on NCDD organizational member the Davenport Institute‘s Gov 2.0 Watch blog featuring a piece penned by Matt Leighninger – a long-time NCDD supporting member. Matt’s article asks the question “What would happen if the public could rate and review public engagement projects like it can restaurants and stores?” We encourage you to check out the article below or find the original Davenport post here.

A Yelp for Public Engagement?

Over at Tech President, Matt Leighninger discusses why just having public engagement options available isn’t enough – we also need a way for people to give feedback about how these processes are working.

What if your residents could “Yelp” your latest engagement process? How would it rate?

Unfortunately, we have trouble separating productive from ineffective opportunities for civic engagement, in part because of the way we try to measure it. We focus almost entirely on assessing the impacts of discrete projects and tools, when we should also be giving citizens the chance to evaluate their civic environments. People now have the power to rate all kinds of products and services: if they had similar opportunities to rate their opportunities to participate in public life, democracy would improve.

You can read more here.

NW Initiative Creates Exemplary Civic Infrastructure

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Roshan Bliss

Recently, NCDD Board member John Backman wrote a guest piece on the CommunityMatters blog highlighting a great civic infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest called the Thriving Communities Initiative. TCI is an interesting case study of successful civic infrastructure, and John’s article pulls out some key lessons we can learn from it. You can read his piece below or find the original here.

Civic Infrastructure You Can See

Sometimes the raw materials of civic infrastructure are there but the connections are missing. Sometimes the connections are there but nobody sees them.

South Whidbey falls in the latter category. The residents of this Washington State community – about 20,000 people on the southern portion of Whidbey Island in Puget Sound – know one another well. Local organizations often work on similar issues. If any community would know its civic infrastructure, South Whidbey would.

And still the videos, highlighting unique and compelling community projects around the theme of food, surprised everyone.

One way to think of civic infrastructure is as “the underlying social structure – activities, meetings, community groups, etc. – that brings people together to address their challenges.” Despite all that activity, even the most robust civic infrastructures can go unnoticed… until a group arises to bring them to light.

“We all get so involved in our work that we sometimes don’t even acknowledge the wonderful overlaps,” said Jerry Millhon, executive director of the Whidbey Institute. “Video can showcase these connections and how powerful they could be.”

The videos were the first project of the institute’s Thriving Communities Initiative, whose mission is to connect and support grassroots leaders within and across communities in the Cascadian bioregion (which includes parts of Washington, Oregon, and northern California). Thriving Communities was born amid the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis, when a question emerged for Millhon and his Whidbey colleagues: how could communities thrive and be resilient in such difficult times?

The first seven videos, produced in 2012, depicted unique and compelling community projects happening in South Whidbey. Since the theme of that year revolved around food, so did the video stories.

“The stories answered the question ‘How is food connecting people in a way that allows the community to thrive?’” said Millhon. “We saw many stories around dignity and respect and a sense of belonging – stories of food banks and community gardens. Food is a connective material.”

The project ended up connecting people far beyond South Whidbey. Thriving Communities used the videos as a launch point for its first conference, which more than 100 people attended – including Jeff Vander Clute, the co-founder of Thrive Napa Valley, who has been participating in Thriving Communities since its inception.

“The gathering promoted the kind of conversation and connection that inspired people to go home and do great things in their communities,” Vander Clute said.

The annual conferences have continued to inspire great things. At one gathering, grassroots leaders learned about Supportland, a rewards program that encourages consumers to shop local and local businesses to share customers; three communities have started Supportland-type programs as a result. An innovative model for food banks, presented at a Thriving Communities conference, is now the norm in a number of Northwest locations.

As effective as they are, the videos and conferences are not the only ways in which Thriving Communities fosters connections and makes them visible. The initiative is building an online library with a range of resources, including profiles of organizations engaged in effective projects. A new website and social media presence enable even far-flung communities to connect with one another. Whidbey Institute leaders are seeking out ways for Thriving Communities to collaborate with other community organizations.

The initiative continues to focus its efforts on a specific theme each year. From food in 2012, the team shifted to “living local economy” in 2013 and to health in 2014. This year’s videos tell the story of how different aspects of health create a thriving community.

As for the future of Thriving Communities, Millhon envisions many years, and many themes, to come.

“There is a hunger and energy around this work from communities, and it isn’t going away,” he said. “So much is going on within 100 miles of the institute. Even so, we don’t want to get too far out over our skis; for this to work, it must preserve a regional focus and the grassroots feeling it brings.”

You can find the original version of this CommunityMatters blog piece at www.communitymatters.org/blog/civic-infrastructure-you-can-see.

Host a Text, Talk, Act Mental Health Conversation this April 14th & May 7th!

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Roshan Bliss

In case you missed our previous post, we want to remind you again that Text, Talk, Act is back! This April and May, thousands of people, especially young people, will have a nationwide conversation on mental health and how to help a friend in need, and you should join!

Here’s how it works: Through text messaging, small groups will receive discussion questions to lead them through a conversation about mental health – how to take care of their own and how to help a friend in need. The conversation will last for about 45 minutes and all that’s needed is a smart phone and few people to participate.

The next two conversations for Text, Talk, Act will take place on Tuesday, April 14th (in collaboration with Active Minds’ Stress Less Week) and on Thursday, May 7th (in partnership with SAMHSA’s National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day). We strongly encourage our NCDD members to consider signing up to organize a Text, Talk, Act event in your communities. We know these events are helping make a difference in the lives of young people across the country, and we want to support this innovative way to engage young people in dialogue!

Also don’t forget about the great contest where TTA participants can win $1,000 for their schools or organizations!

If you want to participate but can’t make either date, you can still take part anytime between now and the end of May by following the same instructions. We encourage you to learn more about Text, Talk, Act by visiting www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org/texttalkact.

Looking for more opportunities to dialogue about mental health in you community? Everyday Democracy, one of our key NCDD organizational members, has a number of resources that can help you organize a community conversation around mental health as part of the National Dialogue on Mental Health. If you are interested, please visit www.everyday-democracy.org/national-dialogue-mental-health.

You can also learn more about the process for organizing a mental health community conversation, as well as access some free resources, here: www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org/resources.

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