our-manifesto2.md

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Our Manifesto	default	/manifesto2/

The following docunent details both the operating principles of our parent organization, Code for America, but also breaks down additional beliefs of Open Savannah.

Our vision, mission, values, and operating principles

Government can work for the people, by the people, in the digital age.

Services can be simple, accessible, and easy to use.

Outcomes can be measurably better.

Better can cost less.

We can serve everyone with respect and dignity.

It would be the biggest source of societal good for a generation. Let's all build it together.

Move away from finite digital projects Civic-tech organizations can often view their mission in much the same way they would a building project. It is a one off, finite cost, followed by a small amount of maintenance. We believe organisations should view digital as more like a garden. It is something that needs to be nurtured, developed and grown on a continual basis. It needs a continuous improvement model. The metrics must be focused on outcomes, not inputs. Forget about the technology or the content. Focus on the user and measure success on an ongoing basis based on whether the user is successful or not in doing what they came to do.

Real change happens outside the command line. If we spend all our time building projects behind the glare of a screen, how will we ever expect to affect meaningful change in the community? Yes, we believe technology, open (and linked) data, design and locality knowledge are modes for civic empowerment and change, but no single app alone is going to lead to catalytic change of the status quo.

The big thing about small things is that they add up. The usability, accessibility, and efficiency of government services is more than the sum of its parts. Wonky pagination on a webform to apply for a business license may seem like a trivial matter, but it very well could prevent the creation of hundreds of new local jobs by being just a high enough barrier to entry for a would-be entrepreneur to build the next great local business.

Focus on the strength of our Core Team. Sustainability requires more than one or two key leaders. It requires an ecocsytem of

Process before Product.

Listen to users, then engage in dialogue with them.

Only worry about security for open data apps if and when it has been shown to be an issue.

Blame the system, not the person.

We are the change we've been waiting for.

Teaching technology is easy. Teaching empathy is not.

Locality knowledge is the most important and valuable type of data The knowledge that everyday residents have about their neighborhoods is the sort of interpersonal data that not even 'big data' companies have a way to tap into often.

Information + invitation = participation. Arming residents with information that affects their daily lives and inviting them to take part in discussions around that information is the only way to create true public participation.

Open data is valuable, but open, linked data is more valuable. While we advocate for open data, we also advocate for data standards.

What we ultimately want to see local government become

For our government to truly serve the people in the 21st century, we must do three things:

1. **Be good at digital.**Digital skills must be embedded at all levels of government, and owned by the people responsible for delivering programs and services to the public.
2. **Ensure policy and implementation work together, and are centered around the needs of the people.**Linear processes, moving from policy, to implementation to stasis, must transform into iterative cycles where policy and implementation are informed by each other and are focused on people's needs.
3. **Be a platform for civic engagement and participation.**Government must learn to incorporate productive contributions from the public, so that everyone can help make government work.

We use these practices to build technology with and for governments.

1. Start with people's needs

Begin projects by conducting research with real people to understand who they are, what they need, and how they behave. Design programs and services around those needs, continuously test with users, and refine policy and processes accordingly.

Learn more about User Centered Design, including how to:

• Develop your research plan
• Conduct interviews to understand user needs
• Recruit for and facilitate user testing

2. Ensure everyone can participate

Create ways for every community member to productively participate in decisions about issues that affect them. Proactively reach out to a cross section of your community, communicate using language that’s easy to understand, and engage people through diverse channels that meet people where they are.

Learn more about Community Engagement, including how to:

• Ensure you are reaching a cross section of your community
• Make information easy to find and understand
• Collect community input through a variety of channels
• Create feedback loops that demonstrate the impact of community input

3. Start small and continuously improve

When you are building or buying government technology, start small and get a working minimum viable product (MVP) into people's hands as early as possible, test with users frequently, and make continuous improvements based on feedback.

Learn more about Iterative Development, including how to:

• Align around concrete goals
• Set up your project sprints, including planning, standups and retrospectives
• Show regular, visible progress through defined product stages

4. Use real-time data to inform decisions

Set key metrics to determine if programs and services are regularly meeting objectives and analyze the data to gain insights and drive actions that help improve community outcomes.

Learn more about Data-driven Decision Making, including how to:

• Conduct a baseline analysis
• Set clear metrics for success
• Monitor your data to see how you are doing
• Implement incremental changes and check for improvements
• Share your analytics with the public

5. Default to open

Work in the open, proactively publish public data online, and collaborate with the community to help make programs and services better for everyone.

Learn more about Open Government, including how to:

• Open data in standardized and digital formats
• Get started using free and open source software
• Do your work in the open, while preserving privacy and security
• Invite the community to help

6. Build the right team

Invest in people who value the role of digital at all levels of the organization. Increase tech skills and literacy among staff, hire new tech talent where it’s needed, and build multidisciplinary teams focused on delivery.

Learn more about Team Building, including how to:

• Build digital skills and literacy within your workforce
• Understand the difference between IT and digital
• Hire tech talent
• Build multidisciplinary teams focused on delivery
• Bring in the right partners across agencies and community groups

7. Make informed technology choices

Understand where, when, and how to build, buy, or use existing technology in order to run efficient and effective operations, and deliver services online that meet the needs of the people using them.

Learn how to improve your Procurement processes, including how to:

• Write RFPs that allow for iterative development
• Simplify the process for procuring technology
• Make working with the city more accessible to local businesses and entrepreneurs
• Effectively evaluate government technology

2. Change starts at the local level. Starting with Savannah and Chatham County lets us connect directly with users and allows us to impact people’s lives faster. 
3. We envision local government as transcending municipal borders. The City of Savannah and Chatham County exist as interconnected, interdependent and merely abstract places whose borders lead to tribalism, infighting and inefficiency. To us, 'Savannah' doesn't just refer to the area within the city limits; it refers to the broader sense of place with which all 540,000 Coastal Georgians identify as a region. Likewise, we think that unity, collaboration, and city-county consolidation are necessary for the future of Savannah.
4. **We believe that economic development happens from the bottom-up first.No amount of recruitment of major companies to the region and no amount of jobs created alone can create broad-based prosperity. To fix poverty, we must start with the source, **which means confronting thorny issues such as the digital divide, the continued effects of racial segregation on community stratification and how new development projects impact the incumbents of our community.
5. We strive for impact at scale. The two biggest levers for improving people’s lives at scale are technology and government–we put them together, to solve some of America’s biggest challenges.
6. We first create incremental change by doing. We make the change we want to see real as fast as possible, building visible product, and building trust and buy-in as we deliver results. (The strategy is delivery? Show the thing?)
7. We then create catalytic change through advocacy and collective action. We aim to make civics sexy again. Civic illiteracy is a byproduct of cynicism, and is self-defeating in nature. We believe that by educating the public better as to how they can influence power as citizens in a democracy through their actions and their votes, we can change with the machinery of politics.
8. We show up. All of civics is about 'who decides.' We believe that decisions are made by those show up. So, to bring the change we want locally, we show up – at council meetings, neighborhood associations, public forums and more. We reject the idea that we can change systemic cultural norms by sitting behind the glow of a computer screen.
9. We believe in listening before building.. Too often, civic innovation builds solutions for problems that aren't actually problems. We believe that to achieve change at scale and foster broad-based collective action, we must first listen to the needs of all citizens.
10. We put process before product. We use technology, design, open data, art and locality knowledge merely as modes for our end goal: civic empowerment. It is about the process of civic empowerment, not the product of civic-technology. If the application of civic-tech fails to empower citizens in a way that spurs action, it might as well fail to work altogether.
11. We believe that government is bigger than politics. Politics and hyperpartisanship has perverted much of our collective view of government. But government is not the same as politics.
12. We meet user needs. We must also take care of government needs, like various forms of compliance, in order to do our work, but we privilege user needs, articulated through research with real people to understand their experiences, and ensure that services are designed to work for them.
13. We are continuously improving. We start small and get a working product into people's hands as early as possible, test with users frequently, and make continuous improvements based on feedback. (this could fall in with meet user needs). Every product remains perpetually in beta.
14. We work in the open. We build open source technology, we invite participation and feedback, and we share what we are learning along the way. While we always lean towards open, we are pragmatic enough to adopt a proprietary approach when it supports the safety of our users, or the outcomes that we seek.
15. We support public servants to serve the public. The choice to work in government is often a selfless one. We honor and those who work hard help people in their communities through government. Our job is to help them do that better, not here to replace them. We don't view bureaucracy ipso facto as a bad thing.
16. Government should work for all Coastal Georgia residents, not just those with access to power and resources. We define “citizen” as someone who shows up for their community, not by legal status.
17. Our organization and our community should reflect the diversity of the country. The problems we face cannot be solved unless a greater number and diversity of people become involved in civic life and have input into critical community issues.
18. Government as a platform means working with a diverse ecosystem of partners and contributors – We partner with community based organizations and government institutions that have the expertise in the challenges that we are trying to solve, we know that we can't do this alone, and that we are stronger together.
19. **We believe in the strength of our local democratic institutions, and reject the notion that 'things will never change.'**The moment we begin to give in to the status quo is the moment we lose collective agency. We can't fix government without first fixing citizenship.
20. **We believe in the power of open data not only to make government more efficient, but to democratize our democracy. **Open, linked data holds a range of benefits to everyone if used properly and made accessible to residents. Access to truth through data is knowledge. Knowledge is power.
21. **We offer up our hands, not just our voices.**It's easy to complain about our local officials on Facebook. It's harder, however, to offer up our skills and seek to create the change we wish to see. 
22. **We meet people where they are. **To engage in meaningful dialogue with the entire Savannah community, we must consciously seek to communicate on the platforms and in the physical spaces citizens know and frequent most. We don't believe putting code on GitHub can, in itself, have broad-based impact

We help local government work for the people who need it most – We focus on improving services for the most vulnerable in our society and in restoring civic trust in an era of record cynicism.

We are Open Savannah.