OpenCivics is a network of civic stewards and a civic innovation consortium DAO for decentralized collaboration in service of a vital, resilient, and participatory civilization.

OpenCivics convenes and facilitates a civic innovation network of leaders, innovators, change agents, and public servants in service to the public good. Together we form a research and development consortium by connecting projects and organizations in an open collaborative ecosystem. This decentralized institution utilizes collaborative design and governance processes to generate actionable solutions to outstanding public needs and critical civilizational challenges.

Through synchronizing independent actors in their shared purposes and creating synergy through frameworks of agreement that promote trust and transparency, OpenCivics empowers a return to the origin of civics as the sacred and shared responsibility to engage the public in co-creating a world that truly works for all from the bottom up.

Established in late 2022, OpenCivics has grown from a conceptual framework into an applied theory of change, core infrastructure, and an emerging community of civic-oriented builders and change makers from web3 and beyond.

Funds from Gitcoin will be utilized to support the formal launch of the network, supporting network stewards to coordinate core activities related to serving network members, and the establishment of collaborative initiatives designed to support the development of interoperable public goods in a unified theory of change.

Specifically, funds will be allocated to Collaborative Initiative 00, a collaborative process for further development of off-chain and on-chain collaborative processes, strategic alignment processes, and application of on-chain collaborative infrastructure to better serve consortium members.

Why it matters: Civic utilities are the core public goods needed for a thriving civilization. As a subset of public goods, these projects are strategically oriented to deep systemic impact. Because civic utilities are complex and must be designed for both local and global scales, interoperability and coordination between builders of civic utilities is essential. As an innovative consortium DAO of innovators, OpenCivics creates a community of practice for those working on these essential public goods to work together and achieve through synergistic collaboration what none can achieve on their own. Funding OpenCivics is a force multiplier for social impact because funds are used to incentivize collaboration and to provide scaffolding for a system of influence made up of public goods innovators that can create impact at scale using a theory of change specifically designed for systemic impact.