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  • Civic crowdfunding platforms
  • Data visualization tools and platforms
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  • Open government data
  • Organize campaigns
  • Participatory budgeting
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  • Public finance and participatory budgeting
  • Regulation
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  • The Tech
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The Civic Tech Field Guide

Sharing knowledge and productively growing the field

The Civic Tech Field Guide is a crowdsourced, global collection of civic tech tools and projects. It’s an official project of Civic Hall, a one-of-a-kind non-profit collaboration center for the world’s civic innovators.

Thousands of civic tech practitioners from over 100 countries around the world have contributed to this living resource. We catalog not only the tools, but also the social side of our field: the conferences, funders, awards, design principles and playbooks.

We include govtech, civic tech, media tech, and high tech in our definition of “tech for the public good”. It’s a free, and Creative-Commons-licensed collection curated to help you in your work. Whether you want to add your own project(s), learn from others’, or research our field, we invite you to check it out.

How to use the Guide

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Explore the Guide

The Tech

1. Civic products
  1. Participatory democracy
    1. Civic crowdfunding platforms
    2. Participatory budgeting
    3. Open innovation
      1. Crowdsourcing
      2. Challenges
      3. Expert networks
      4. Ideation
      5. Public input and engagement tools
        1. Surveys
        2. Interactive voice response
    4. Crowdlaw
    5. Group decision-making
  2. Govtech
    1. Marketplaces and clearinghouses
    2. Bureaucracy tech
    3. Identity
    4. Service delivery
    5. Behavioral economics programs
    6. Communicating with the people
      1. Service alerts
    7. Communicating with the government
      1. Issue reporting
  3. Voting and elections
    1. Voter registration
    2. Election administration
    3. Voter assistance
    4. Match views to votes
    5. Help more people run for office
  4. Get social benefits
  5. Online forums
    1. Civic forums
    2. Neighborhood forums
  6. Resource matching and sharing
2. Civic data
  1. Open data portals
    1. Open data platforms
  2. Crowdsourced data collection
  3. Data schemas and standards
  4. Data visualization tools and platforms
    1. Dashboards
    2. Network visualizations
  5. Data analysis
  6. Mapping
  7. Archives
3. Advocacy tech
  1. Activism aggregators
  2. Organize campaigns
    1. Canvassing
    2. Direct action
    3. Email campaign tools
      1. Peer to peer email
    4. SMS campaign tools
      1. Peer to peer SMS
    5. Call campaign tools
    6. Petitions
    7. Fundraising
    8. Story-based campaigning
  3. Watchdogging and transparency
    1. Budget explorers
    2. Promise trackers
    3. Whistleblowing
    4. Social and financial connections
    5. Freedom of Information
    6. Report cards
4. Media
  1. Fight disinformation
    1. Factchecking
  2. Solutions journalism
  3. News to action
  4. De-polarization technologies
  5. Opinion matching
  6. Media and social media analysis
  7. Hyperlocal news and citizen media
  8. Games and gamification
5. High-tech civic tech
  1. Sensors
  2. Artificial intelligence
    1. Government AI strategies
    2. Bots
    3. Algorithmic transparency
  3. Virtual and augmented reality
  4. Blockchain
  5. Hardware
    1. Drones
    2. Satellites
    3. Connectivity
    4. ICT4D

See something missing?

Add to the Guide

Don't take our word for it

"Why reinvent the wheel when others have gone and done things before us? The Civic Tech Field Guide has been a fantastic source of inspiration and a great tool to support collaborations. As we set out to build openhluttaw.info in Myanmar, we came across the Sinar Project in Malaysia, who had an existing backend and helped us get up and running in a matter of days. Major win for all of us!"

Victoire Rio

Social Impact Director, Phandeeyar: Myanmar Innovation Lab

"The Civic Tech Field Guide is the best and most up-to-date resource that offers a comprehensive taxonomy of the emerging field of civic tech. When I need a tool, or wonder "Has someone ever done that?", I go to the guide and find something new."

Catherine D'Ignazio

Assistant Professor of Journalism, Emerson University, Emerson Engagement Lab

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