What is Open Government, and how can it work with your community foundation?

What is Open Government

Susan Mernit
Knight Circuit Rider,
Oakland Local Editor/Publisher

And how can it work with your
community foundation?
November 14, 2013

All rights reserved. susanmernit.com

1

WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

What is Open Government and
what opportunities does it
offer for you as a community
foundation?
This webinar will:
•Talk about how partnerships between technologists
and city, county, state and federal governments can
result in greater transparency and accountability,
more access to data for citizens, and even cost-savings
•Share case studies where community foundations
have gotten involved
•Show you resources to use to get started


2

Welcome to Northern California! This region
is a center for open government & open data
projects-•San Francisco has the first Chief Innovation
Officer in the country—who launched SF as
an open data city
•Oakland passed a resolution to support data
transparency in ALL content
•Code for America was founded here,
MapLight is here—and GovFresh was also
started in the Bay
And of course, we like to #hack like
crazy..because there are so many
programmers


3

But open government
projects are happening all
over the country, with some
amazing ones in:
•Chicago, CA
•New Orleans, LA
•New York, New York
•Washington, DC

Questions to check in on before we go farther:
•What is open data and open government exactly?
•What’s the benefit to my organization &
my community to get involved?

4

“Transparency promotes accountability
and provides information for citizens
about what their Government is doing.”
--White House

5

“Open data is data that can be freely used,
reused and redistributed by anyone – subject
only, at most, to the requirement to attribute
and sharealike.”--OpenDefinition.org

We’re talking a

The US Government has more than 40,000
datasets available at data.gov, and just about
every state has a data repository now.
Local counties, big cities and even smaller
cities are also getting involved.

6

Hashtags to watch for:
#opengov, #opendata, #gov2.0
Related: #citycamp #github #tbarcamp

7

Open government projects often pair city
officials with highly skilled volunteers and
other community members to solve problems
in ways government could not on their own.
Example 1:
Open Budget Oakland
Read & understand the
$1B Oakland city budget
http://openbudgetoakland.org/

Created at a hackathon, supported
at a co-working space, built with
City data by volunteers from a
@codeforamerica brigade with info
shared on data.openoakland.org,
data.oaklandnet.com, and GitHub at
github.com/openoakland

Who was involved?
City of Oakland, Code for America,
Open Oakland brigade volunteers,
East Bay Economic Development
Association


8

Example 2: How’s Business Chicago from Open City Apps
http://howsbusinesschicago.org/

This is one of several apps built by a very skilled volunteer team using city data.
OpenCityApps.org hosts a weekly Open Gov hack night and creates free,
Open source projects that others can implement elsewhere.


9

Other projects from Open City Apps include
http://opencityapps.org/
Chicago Councilmatic: Interactive
App showing what legislation the City
Council has been passing
CAPSure: Alerts for community police
Meetings
2nd City Zoning: Guide to your
neighborhood from a planning
perspective
And many more!

IMPACT: HUGE. High usage of some apps, big
press awareness, lots of momentum.

10

Discussion break: What kind of apps would you like to see your community build if
you had access to the data and people with the skills?
What projects is your foundation working on where an open-source app could really
have impact if it was widely used? rights reserved. susanmernit.com
11
All

Community Foundations in some cities
have already gotten involved.
Hawaii Community Foundation and Open
Data Hawaii worked together this fall
To encourage ALL candidates running
For Mayor to sign a pledge to vow to make
Honolulu City Government transparent
and to follow the practices of open
government.

The candidates all signed—and Open Data
Hawaii says they are working with the CF to
“push these initiatives forward, changing
policy and creating opportunities for
tomorrow’s citizens and entrepreneurs.”


12

In Oregon, the Meyer Memorial Trust, Oregon’s largest community foundation,
built a new platform to connect engage citizens with policy & non-profits

For Oregon Unlimited, launched
March 2013, the MMT leased a
platform that allows complete
connectivity, community and
discussion of civic projects.

https://www.oregonunlimited.org

They use it as both an economic
development engine and a
community
connector.


13

Oregon Unlimited is a follow up to Ideas4Oregon, a 2010
contest for a “million dollar” idea that got
more than 200 entries and promised
to spend up to $1MM to bring the
best one to life.
That project was built on top of another
commercial platform called UserVoice; they
open sourced the ideas so everyone could
see them (just like Knight Foundation often
does with their competitions.)

www.ideas4oregon.org/


14

http://www.tribunebuilding.org/

Building a transparent process with local government & community
In South Wood County MI, the local community foundation, IncourageCF,
purchased the now-shuttered newspaper building and is conducting a
community-outreach process around what to do with it.
They’re conducting meetings, and documenting the process online, as part of
a bigger program of creating cultural change in their community to spark
innovation and economic development.


15

“Managing a resident-centered, resident-led design
process entrusts decision-making to the community and
invites everyone to participate. It requires more time,
effort and resources than unilateral decision-making.
We’re asking community members to determine its end
use. “—InCourageCF CEO

So, what’s the takeaway?

16

Discussion
How do civic engagement processes,
open data, open government and your
mission in your city fit together?
Where do you see risks & challenges?
How would you/will you address them?


17

The latest Knight Community
Information Challenge
funded 10 civic
engagement/open
government projects that
eeach involve a CF
(see Foundations strengthen
local journalism, open
government - Knight Foundation
http://kng.ht/1aNPZgS)
Cities include Lexington, KY,
Chattanooga, TN, Gary, IN,
Boston, MA, New Orleans, LA,
and others.
Dreaming of local data……


18

How to get involved (go ahead,
jump in!)
Attend a civic engagement
meet-up, a Bar Camp, or a
Brigade meeting in your town
and meet folks.
Talk to your city’s IT
department and lead officials
about making data available
in usable forms

19

Tech resources:
Github: Open Source Code
Repository

Socrata.com: Commercial

database for local government

Granicus: Software for city
government

Data.gov: 40K

federal data

sets

OpenGov.org: Resource for
open data at state and local
levels


Participatorypolitics.org:

20
Building open source tools for

Resources
NATIONAL
Sunlight Foundation, http://sunlightfoundation.com/
Broadly focused, national non-profit focused on supporting
every aspect of government transparency.
Code for America, http://codeforamerica.org
The “peace core” for open government tech, having a huge
impact through fellows’ programs, support for city
government projects, and volunteer brigades.
City Camp: http://citycamp.govfresh.com/
How to start a City Camp and how to affiliate.

21

Resources
National Network Indicators Project,
http://www.neighborhoodindicators.org/
Long-established network of data-driven non-profits
using local data and analytics for policy planning and
program development.
Open Knowledge Foundation, http://okfn.org/
EU-based global resource for supporting in-country open
data, open source & transparency.
Open Government stories on GitHub,
http://government.github.com/
Space to share and read stories about #opengov and
#open data projects

22

Followup
– Reach Susan: mernit@gmail.com
– See MORE resources on my Pinterest board:
http://www.pinterest.com/susanmernit/opengovernment-and-community-foundations-boardfo/
– Other Mernit
presos:http://slideshare.com/susanmernit
– See this presentation and download at the KDMC
site: http://www.knightdigitalmediacenter.org

23

What is Open Government, and how can it work with your community foundation?

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Mais procurados

Mais procurados (20)

Semelhante a What is Open Government, and how can it work with your community foundation?

Semelhante a What is Open Government, and how can it work with your community foundation? (20)

Mais de KDMC

Mais de KDMC (20)

Último

Último (20)

What is Open Government, and how can it work with your community foundation?

Notas do Editor