The Problem
According to a recent report by the Annette Straus Institute for Civic Life, only 12% of voting-age Texans have contacted an elected official, only 29% regularly discuss politics with their friends and family, and only 39% participate in public affairs-related activities or non-profit organizations.  Thus, the vast majority of Texas citizens- especially those under 30 years of age- fail to contribute their opinions, experiences and time to decisions and initiatives that will affect their community.

An engaged citizen in today’s world is educated about political and community processes, and actively seeks out opportunities to participate.  However, vehicles for participation are often incomplete, inaccessible or unknown to those whose immediate networks may also be disengaged, or to those who do not believe their voices can make a difference. To reverse this culture of disengagement in key sectors of the community, a platform should exist that provides an engaging, accessible way for citizens to express their views and opinions, collaborate with other community members to catalyze civic action, and most importantly see that their collective actions can significantly improve their community.

Our Solution
CivicSourcing aims to improve the civic health of our nation, one community at a time.  Through an online platform, CivicSourcing’s solution combines crowdsourcing innovations and gamification to create an empowering pipeline for civic action and engagement. Tens of millions of people spend hundreds of millions of combined hours each year engaging with social media and online games.  By including core components from each of these, CivicSourcing harnesses the time and effort young adults spend interacting online.  By conjoining the strengths of these social tools, CivicSourcing aims to create a platform that is familiar, attractive and engaging to encourage young adults to become active participants in their communities. 

CivicSourcing is a pipeline for civic action and engagement.  It provides a portal for individuals to plug in to their community and work collaboratively to find solutions to problems, generate ideas, realize opportunities to improve their own community, and affect change using a toolkit of civic actions including petitioning, pledging, volunteering and donating.  Through CivicSourcing, any individual can find ways to contribute and work together with his or her community.

What is CivicSourcing?

CivicSourcing, an offshoot of Crowdsourcing, is an idea built upon the premise that:

“Innovative solutions to problems [can] be found within diverse, decentralized and independent crowds, which include acknowledged experts as well as those with no formal expertise.” (Seltzer & Mahmoudi, 2012)

CivicSourcing differs from crowdsourcing because it focuses primarily on civic engagement within a community. By introducing CivicSourcing as a tool and defined methodology, the idea of community co-production is now possible and scalable. Public organizations and non-profits will be encouraged to utilize CivicSourcing as a way to better serve their constituents and clients.

Combining the CivicSourcing framework with gamification, the platform becomes a fun and engaging atmosphere, encouraging citizens to participate and measure the impact of their contributions. With CivicSourcing, we hope to double the number of people who are actively engaged with their community.