- Introduction
- The Civic Data Alliance
- Getting Started
- How You Can Expect to Benefit
- Growing the Civic Data Alliance
- Embracing Strengths and Recognizing Weaknesses
- What Next
First and foremost, thank you for joining the Civic Data Alliance (CDA) in our mission to put technology and data to work for good! You probably have some questions, and most of them will be answered here. If they are not, you will most likely be able to find the answers in the rest of our documentation, listed here.
The Civic Data Alliance is a volunteer organization working to put technology to work for the public good. We host hackathons, provide technology tools, and offer collaborative spaces to create and facilitate innovative projects that utilize technology to assist in solving public problems.
CDA is a not-for-profit organization, with registered 501(c)3 status through Code for America (CfA).
- The Civic Tech landscape
- Your First Month
- What to Work On
- Why do I need to pick my own projects?
We often have many ongoing projects with different teams of volunteers, so you will need to find some project(s) that have ways for you to contribute. Finding out what projects are underway is as simple as checking out the Civic Data Alliance Organization on Github and checking the "Good First Issues" board. Each repository is an individual project that you may be able to contribute to!
Every project should include documentation with, at a minimum, these included:
- A high-level project description that is not jargon-heavy. This should include some combination of the purpose of the project, the problem it solves, and data sets it utilizes.
- A list of technologies being used in the project.
- At least one point of contact for the project.
- A list of public partners working on the project.
- Contribute guidelines that outline the workflow used and permissions needed to work on a project. Our default recommendation is the [Atlassian Gitflow Workflow], a simple but powerful workflow that helps ensure a stable version while other work is being done.
This information will help you either decide whether you can contribute to the project, or give you a way to find out more.
If you want to know more (or if you've already decided to work on a project) you should go to the Issues page of a project. There you will find open issues with descriptive labels like feature request, bug, content, help wanted, design, and even good first issue! These should you help you scan the list and find individual items you can work on.
Different types of issues will require different work and files, but most of them can be housed in the project repository, and you can likely contribute through adding or changing files with a Pull Request.
If you need any help with git or Github, we recommend this video tutorial series from XYZ, and you can always reach out to project team members or CDA Leadership.
Every project has a Slack channel in our shared workspace, with a naming convention of #p-project-name. If you are in the Slack app, click on Channels in the menu and search for p- to return a list of all active project channels. Click into the channel and press Join Channel to add it to your list of channels.
These project channels are the meeting rooms and shared spaces every team needs to quickly exchange information, ask questions, pitch ideas, include non-CDA volunteer collaborators, and more. It is important to use Github and the Slack project channels to centralize as much information about a project as possible for others to reference, and to keep our processes transparent and history robust.
First, take a deep breath. It is okay. This is why we use version control and a workflow system. If you know how to fix it, create an issue that describes the problem, then create a hotfix branch, fix the issue, and submit a new pull request documenting the problem and how you solved it. Another team member will review it, and either approve the changes or describe why more work needs to be done.
If you do not know how to fix it, that is also okay. You will need to create an issue on the project repository and assign it a label as well as a Reviewer, and contact the relevant team members - or CDA Leadership if you need to.
We recommend you work as a contributing member on an existing project first, in order to become familiar with our workflows and technologies, but there may be cases where this is not possible or necessary.
If you don't see a project that interests you or that you can contribute to, you have the opportunity to start a new project! You will need to provide a description and recruit a team to get the project off the ground - and you must keep in mind that heading a project is a responsibility. Taking lead on a project is a commitment to finishing it and delivering it in a way that is accessible and usable by others.
There are a few other ways to contribute to CDA other than projects. For instance, actively engaging in the topic channels in the Slack workspace is a contribution! We love when members ask questions and share their knowledge - we strive to be a resource for everyone to access and understand technology to the best of our ability.
You can also become a Core Member and get more involved in the decisions making process at different levels. Take a look at our Membership documentation to see the eligibility requirements for Core Members, as well as the elected Leadership roles you could fill.
We know from experience that contributing to open source projects is benefit in career advancement, and can also increase the size of your skillset as you use new and different technologies, or find new applications for existing technologies.
We also know that the projects we work on have a positive impact on our city, our communities, and our citizens. There is much reward in serving the public good and using technology to give back. Take pride in the work you do with CDA!
However, keep in mind that work you do with CDA is not for your personal advancement - we want our members to grow, but we do not want the solutions we create to solve problem in our city to be limited by self-interest or personal ambitions.
Perhaps your most important role in the organization will be as an advocate for the work we and our partners do, and the good it has done and will do. Remember that you represent CDA when you promote your membership and the projects CDA sponsors! And more importantly, remember that other people are listening - perhaps others who want to get involved and help affect positive change in our city!
Let people know how to sign up by providing the Introductory documentation and the Civic Data Alliance website! Answer their questions, and it's okay if you don't the answer - you or they can always reach out to CDA Leadership
Our strength lies in our collective expertise and energy to create accessible solutions to public problems. We have municipal and other partners that allow us to work with our city in a nonpartisan way, provide space for events and working on projects, offer technology tools for volunteer use, and access vast amounts of data that can be tapped for our projects.
Our weaknesses lie in our nature as a volunteer organization - we rely on your honest commitment and use an honor system for contributions and collaboration. We do not have massive amounts of resources to throw at a problem, so our solutions must be creative and create as small an amount of technical debt as possible.
By recognizing our weaknesses and embracing our strengths, the solutions we build are inclusive and forward-thinking.
Join us in our Slack workspace by completing the membership signup and we will get to work! We are so happy to have you with us, and we hope you share our excitement for the possibilities!