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Would you and your organization (or campaign) benefit from:

• Guidance in selecting tech tools, open data, or participation platforms to better engage your constituents, community, or movement?
• Assistance identifying other partners and peers doing similar work in other parts of the world?
• Help considering how to best apply emerging technologies like AI to advance your mission?
• Informed, creative brainstorming around other challenges you face in your work?

If so, we would like to invite you to apply to receive a pro bono engagement with a Civic Tech Field Guide Democracy Tech Consultation.

Participants

Consultant

Matt Stempeck is Curator of the Civic Tech Field Guide. He has sixteen years of experience leveraging tech for social good and civic engagement across electoral and issue campaigns, social impact startups, newsrooms, government, multilateral institutions, and academia. 

Since 2016, Matt has developed the Civic Tech Field Guide into the world’s largest, most comprehensive catalog of democracy tech. With over 7,000 products, data sets, and related resources, the Field Guide’s database is an incredibly rich source of knowledge for practitioners, tech developers, funders, and researchers. Tens of thousands of people use it each month to find tools, data, design resources, and partners to advance their work.

We want to equip the individuals and groups working for democracy around the world with the open resources in the Field Guide (or elsewhere). We are offering this pro bono advisory consultation to strategic organizations whose work may benefit from connecting to these resources.

Matt will leverage his – and the Field Guide’s – global network of democracy tech projects and activists to contribute to your work and your mission.

Participant(s)

You are actively engaged in defending, improving, reforming or promoting democracy through a non-violent project or campaign. Any geographic scope of work is welcome: local, regional, national, or global.

You are an individual, group, organization, non-profit / charity, social impact business, or group of individuals.

You agree to the project terms of this pro bono offering.

You will nominate a single point of contact who will own the project on your side (Lead). The Lead will be responsible for participating in the clinic, including the pre- and post-clinic research stages, and providing timely responses. Other team members may join the clinic as well, but we require the designation of a single project Lead who can follow up on any solutions or recommendations once the clinic has concluded.

The Lead should be proficient in English (or be willing to use translation services).

This program is provided by the Civic Tech Field Guide, a project of Superbloom Design, a US 501(c) non-profit organization. It is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy. By participating, you are confirming that you are legally allowed to receive pro bono support from an organization using funds provided by the United States government (National Endowment for Democracy).

Additional participants

As possible and needed, the Civic Tech Field Guide team will bring in additional advisors and partners if they can assist in you in your work.

Program timeline

Here is a rough timeline to demonstrate the arc of the Democracy Clinic pro bono engagement.

Activity	When
Apply to participate in the Democracy Clinic program by filling out this short form.	Application deadline: 31 March 2023
Applicants are notified if they have been selected for this round.	Within 15 days following deadline
Participant receives and fills out short pre-call informational survey.	Before introductory kick-off call
Introductory kick-off call with Participant to share your work, the challenges you face, and what you’d like to get out of the clinic.	Within 30 days of being selected.
The Civic Tech Field Guide team researches resources and identifies opportunities that might help advance your mission, and delivers their findings in a short project brief.	One month after the kick-off call.
Follow-up emails to discuss the project brief, implementation troubleshooting and timeline, and any additional ways to help your work.	One week after delivery of the project brief.
Participant explores implementing the proposal.	Within one month of follow-up conversation.
Participant reports back on results, if any, on your work. Completing this step is vital, even if you determine there were no benefits to your participation, or weren’t able to implement  proposed solution(s).	Within six weeks of follow-up conversation.

This timeline may be adjusted if participants feel that doing so would benefit outcome(s) for the beneficiary, if Consultant has capacity.

Selection criteria

Participants will be selected by their ability to fulfill the terms outlined here, and Consultant’s understanding of the expected impact of a consultation. We will prioritize under-resourced and global areas of democracy activism. Selection will also depend on the Consultant’s own expertise and capacity to contribute to Participants’ work.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email them to [email protected].