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An open approach to civic Innovation
The Open Civic Innovation Framework is a design methodology that supports the coordination of open civic innovation.
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As a minimum viable coordination infrastructure, the framework is designed to maximize the interoperability of civic utilities as well as to foreground a participatory, pluralistic and polycentric approach to creating civic systems. As such, the framework is intended as an infrastructural foundation upon which open civic systems are built to meet adaptive local needs.
About Framework
Open Civic Innovation Framework
This framework (or meta-framework) a collaborative method for participatory design and engagement that empowers civic innovators, organizers, and patrons to coordinate collective action towards adapting civic systems and renewing civic culture.
It is encapsulated in a mindset and composed of a core philosophy – described by three values and defined by four principles – and set and pluralistic practices – embodied in six activities, assembled through unlimited frameworks and templates.
Why a framework?
The Open Civic Innovation Framework exists to reimagine governance, stewardship, and civic action for a world that requires more dynamic, adaptable, and community-centered solutions.
The framework seeks to address the increasing complexity and fragmentation in how societies coordinate to solve public challenges. As centralized institutions struggle to respond effectively to diverse and evolving needs, this framework provides a pluralistic and decentralized approach to civic problem-solving.
The framework's core purpose is to empower communities and civic innovation by creating a structure that supports self-organization and collaborative civic action. It does this by offering a blueprint for designing, coordinating, and deploying interoperable civic utilities—tools, protocols, and systems that enable more effective local governance, social care, and commons stewardship.
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It helps individuals and groups who are working on public goods to align their efforts across diverse sectors and contexts. By supporting the development of a network of networks, it ensures that resources, tools, and knowledge can be shared across civic domains.
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Instead of relying on top-down directives, the framework emphasizes bottom-up coordination, where local actors take responsibility for organizing solutions tailored to their unique environments. It promotes community autonomy while providing the shared scaffolding necessary for effective coordination.
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The framework creates space for a plurality of approaches, allowing various civic organizations, innovators, and funders to work together without the need for standardization or a single authority. This ensures diversity of thought and adaptability in the face of changing civic needs.
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A central focus of the framework is moving from extracted commons (resources that have been depleted by exploitative systems) to thriving commons, where stewardship, regeneration, and community care are prioritized. It supports the cultural capacities needed to sustain this shift.
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By using interoperable civic utilities—protocols, playbooks, and tools—the framework aims to build sustainable, adaptable civic systems. These utilities can be modular and tailored to meet specific civic needs, but they are designed to interconnect in a way that reinforces larger systemic resilience.
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Drawing on cosmolocal principles, the framework envisions a world where solutions to civic challenges are developed locally but shared globally, building resilience by allowing communities to adapt strategies that have been proven elsewhere, thus amplifying collective impact.
How To use the Framework
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Need ignites action
A citizen is unable to meet a need and decides to take action towards creating something they care about.
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Find the Others
They seek to better understand what actions they can take by learning from the experiences of others.
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Build on what works
They decide to contribute to an existing effort or start something new, building on the learnings of the others.
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Share what you learn
As they progress, they share what they learn and create with the ecosystem of others that supported them.
How it works : “ I want to create a POLLINATOR GARDEN ”
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Tracy has noticed a decline of pollinators in her area and is concerned about the cascading loss of biodiversity that arises out of poor land use policy and management.
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Tracey searches the network to learn about the topic, find resources, and connect with a community involved in creating distributed local pollinator gardens.
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She adapts an existing playbook from the library to create a new project. It guides her how to form a local civic group, first with friends, and eventually her wider community.
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As the project matures, Tracy shares the project's model and ongoing learnings with the wider ecosystem of fellow gardeners that originally helped her bring the project to life.
Design
PHILOSOPHY
Beginning with a set of values and principles, the framework offers a set of theoretical foundations as a fundamental design philosophy for open civic innovation.
Theory of Change
The design philosophy of the Open Civic Innovation Framework is best understood through its Theory of Change (ToC).
This ToC serves as a foundational meta-model that outlines the framework's logic, methodology, and activities.
At its core, OpenCivics’ ToC defines a long-term vision of a vital, resilient, and participatory civilization and then maps our work backward to identify the necessary preconditions that would give rise to that future systemic equilibrium.
Values
As innovators working towards new systems, it is critical for us to hold shared ethical principles with regards to the desired output of our work. These system design ethics form a rubric for the collective evaluation of any civic system.
Vitality
The embodied state of thriving that emerges from the interconnected levels of well-being and quality of life for individuals, communities, and ecologies.
Resilience
The state and the capacity for adaptive self-organization sufficient to provide core life support function across changing world circumstances.
Choice
The state of respect for the sovereign agency of all beings and the capacity of individual agents to participate and influence their circumstances.
principles
The qualities of the third attractor that guide the innovation process, these design principles are essential for building robust, adaptable, scalable and equitable civic systems that can effectively serve diverse communities.
modular
Modular refers to the design principle where a system is divided into separate, self-contained units or modules. Each module can function independently but can also be combined with other modules to create a more complex system. This approach allows for flexibility, scalability, and ease of maintenance, as individual modules can be updated or replaced without affecting the entire system.
composable
Composable refers to the capability of a system to be assembled from various components or modules in different configurations to meet specific needs. In the context of open civic systems, composability allows for the creation of tailored solutions by combining different modules, enabling adaptability and customization based on the unique requirements of different communities or projects.
interoperable
Interoperable describes the ability of different systems, organizations, or components to work together seamlessly. In open civic systems, interoperability ensures that various modules or platforms can exchange information and function together effectively, regardless of their underlying technologies or architectures. This is crucial for creating cohesive and efficient civic solutions.
inclusive
Inclusive means ensuring that the system is accessible and usable by all individuals, regardless of their background, abilities, or circumstances. In open civic systems, inclusivity involves designing with diverse user needs in mind, promoting equity, and ensuring that everyone can participate and benefit from the system. This includes considerations for accessibility, language, and cultural relevance.
Design
Practice
The framework contextualizes and coordinates the application of a diverse and pluralistic array of frameworks, mechanisms, templates and tools. These practices for self-organization are then shared through our template library
Participatory Design Process
The participatory design process, as represented in the diagram, exists to guide and support the open civic innovation lifecycle through six essential activities: align, coordinate, collaborate, resource, convene, and learn. Each of these activities serves a critical function within the framework to ensure that innovation can be sustained, adapted, and optimized for community needs.
The process creates a cyclical and interconnected common approach to open civic innovation, allowing for collective ongoing improvement and responsiveness to emerging challenges.
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Practice Ethics
As we engage in this participatory process, a strong ethical foundation is needed to ensure peer accountability and the integrity of our actions in right relationship to the communities we serve and within which we are embedded. Akin to Elinor Ostrom's commons governance principles, these ethics are enforced through a dynamic process of collective monitoring, calling in, and graduated sanctions if practitioners are found to be behaving outside of these foundational ethical principles.
Open protocols
Open protocols can be generally understood as recipes, templates, or DNA packets for social organisms. By describing the formal and informal processes for different types of social organisms, these protocols support the propagation and experimentation of new civic utilities that operate according to living systems principles. Open protocols allow for coherent self-organization by making the parameters of governance, contribution, and attribution transparent, co-stewarded, and clear by formalizing relationships of flow without the need for centralized control.
Assembly Protocol
Assembly Protocol is a method for assembling open civic systems. The protocol provides a critical link between the participatory design process described above and the knowledge commons where the outputs of others can be stored and referenced.
Practice Infrastructure
The practice infrastructure required to harness the Open Civic Innovation Framework focuses on two core elements: a robust protocol library and protocol builder to operationalize civic innovation effectively. This approach aligns with the principles of working in and working on the practices to create dynamic feedback loops of iteration and group learning.