civic.garden is a community for people building public interest technology of all kinds, including projects for governments, nonprofits, activist efforts, and other independent projects, where the goal is to empower people rather than capturing attention and extracting rent
We aim to create a community that is complementary to many other kinds of communities of practice in the space. We are attempting to fill a perceived gap that many of us have felt, that while there are good local meetups and communities for one sub-field or another, there is not a place for a cross-disciplinary mingling of minds in our space. One of the primary goals of the community is to connect people that would not have otherwise met, which requires a community that is not constrained by proximity of field or geography. Our primary means of communication is a forum for discussion of projects, sharing relevant blog posts and readings, asking technical questions/sharing experience, and other topics.
Another goal of our community is to create a space where people feel comfortable sharing their work-in-progress and discussing things in the open. Unfortunately this is somewhat at odds with having a fully-public community. We are instead focused on slow, sustainable growth and ask potential members to fill out this form as a means of expressing interest.
That said, we'd love to meet you! Whether public interest tech is your day job, a side project, or just an area of interest--we welcome people of all skill levels & backgrounds looking to interact with others in the space. We ask people to take this additional step because we think it is important to know who is joining us and ensure that we are growing a healthy and sustainable community.
We also aim to provide modest material support for projects: shared hosting and other resources, microgrants to support public interest projects, and other experimental options under consideration. These initiatives are in the early planning stage--join and tell us what would help your project!
(if you know an existing member please mention them here so they can vouch for you! )
(Optional: If you'd like to chat with an existing member of the community for a sort of 'orientation', indicate a few times in a typical week that might work for you.)
(who are you? what do you do? what are you interested in? why do you want to join? feel free to list relevant profiles on other sites)
(ideas you're looking for feedback on, projects in need of collaborators or testers, or anything else of interest?)
