Community Engagement Center

Gamifying Civic Engagement to Rebuild Community Wealth

Active

Since 2023

Sacramento, California, USA

Open source: No

Started: Conceptualized in 2019 | Active development and pilot preparation began in 2023 Who it’s for The Civic App and Community Engagement Center (CEC) are designed for everyday residents, particularly those historically underrepresented in civic participation. This includes younger generations, working-class and low-income communities, digital natives, and residents who care about their city but feel disconnected from traditional civic systems. The platform is intentionally built to complement public-sector efforts by increasing participation, visibility, and follow-through at the community level. What is the Civic App The Civic App is a civic engagement platform that uses gamification to encourage and track real-world participation. Residents earn points for actions such as voting, volunteering, attending local events, and supporting small businesses, while collectively visualizing their impact over time. The app is designed to reduce friction between residents and civic activity by making participation simple, measurable, and rewarding. It also supports mutual aid through a refillable card and vending machine program that allows community members to contribute toward food access for unhoused individuals. What is the Community Engagement Center (CEC) The Community Engagement Center is the physical counterpart to the app. It functions as a public-facing hub and coordination space that connects residents with civic initiatives, local organizations, and community programs. CEC is designed to support pilots, community onboarding, and digital access through walk-up kiosks, structured programming, and human-centered touchpoints. It serves as an interface layer between residents and institutions, helping translate civic opportunities into accessible, actionable experiences. Current stage and readiness CEC is currently in active pilot preparation. The project now operates with structured teams across technology, UX/UI, grant writing, and community coordination, supported by dedicated project management. The initiative has attracted ongoing interest from Sacramento’s civic, technology, preservation, and public-sector ecosystems. The platform is being developed with flexibility in mind, allowing it to support informal proof-of-concepts, data-light pilots, and early partnerships without requiring heavy system integrations. Public-sector collaboration CEC is designed to operate independently while partnering with public agencies, local governments, and community institutions through pilots and collaborative programs. Potential collaboration areas include: Increasing community participation and awareness Supporting outreach and engagement initiatives Testing new civic participation models at a small scale Collecting anonymized, high-level engagement signals to inform program design The project prioritizes low-risk, opt-in collaboration that respects existing public-sector workflows while offering a modern, resident-centered layer of engagement. Why this matters Many civic systems struggle not because of a lack of programs, but because participation remains low and difficult to sustain. CEC addresses this gap by meeting residents where they already are and making civic action visible, rewarding, and repeatable. Built by a Sacramento-born founder, the project reflects years of lived experience navigating civic systems and designing an alternative that is accessible, scalable, and ready to support public-sector innovation through collaboration rather than replacement.