Building a great Civic Data Challenge entry
by: Lisa Williams |
"The Art Of Civic Health," one winning entry in last year's Civic Data Challenge. To see more examples of winning projects, click here.
The Civic Data Challenge, a project of the National Conference on Citizenship, opened on April 11. The Challenge will bring together community organizations and tech teams to build projects that illustrate the importance of civic health.
Sounds cool, right?
So if you're interested, how do you build a good application for the Challenge? I spoke to representatives of the National Conference on Citizenship today and came away with plenty of useful tips to help you build a competitive, compelling entry to the Challenge.
If you work with or for a community organization:
- Now's the time for you to enter! The Challenge is a great opportunity for community organizations who don't have their own tech team to collaborate with people with technical skills. Even if you don't have a particular tech person in mind to work with, if your idea is compelling enough to make it to Round 2, the team behind the Challenge will work to pair you with volunteer tech talent.
- Make sure you meet the criteria. Entries need to be informed by data about 'civic health.' Here's how the creators of the challenge describe the data they provide for entrants: All entries must use some portion of Civic Health data provided here. The data below is collected through the Current Population Survey (CPS) Supplements on Voting, Volunteering and Civic Engagement, which are administered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau." The data includes issues such as voting, volunteering, and how engaged residents are in their local governments and neighborhoods. So browse the data -- provided here -- and start brainstorming on how this data could connect with issues that your organization focuses on.
- Start your social media engines. Colleagues and supporters of your work can "upvote" and comment on your proposal, so once you've entered, spread links to your entry far and wide to start the discussion.
If you're someone with technical skill and interest in civic hacking:
- Understand how phase 1 -- the "brainstorming phase" -- of the challenge works. During the current phase of the challenge, anyone can volunteer an idea -- and anyone can take that idea and run with it. You don't necessarily have to be the person who has to implement it, and you might not be. We've all had ideas that we thought, "Man, that's such a cool idea...if only I had the time to do it!" Now might be a chance to get those ideas some traction.
- Find a community partner. In phase 2, each project that makes the cut MUST have a community partner -- a local community organization who wants to pilot the work with you. It can be difficult to find a partner at the last minute, so if you want a shot at being the one to implement your idea, it's a good idea to start thinking about who you can approach to team with now.
- Browse the datasets. There are about a dozen downloadable datasets provided by the creators of the Challenge -- you can check them out here. While it's probably a good idea to work from those, there is some wiggle room; projects that are "thoughtfully informed" by the civic health measures will be considered.
Want to hear more about the Civic Data Challenge? Read this entry by Jeff Coates of the Knight Foundation, one of the Challenge's funders, and this one on Knight's blog.
RELATED POST: National Day of Civic Hacking, June 1-2. How community foundations and organizations can get involved to build bridges with their local tech community.
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