I named this blog after a line from C. Wright Mills’ 1960 essay The Cultural Apparatus, which I first read in 2008 during a journalism school class at the University of Colorado:
“The first rule for understanding the human condition is that men live in second-hand worlds. They are aware of much more than they have personally experienced; and their own experience is always indirect. The quality of their lives is determined by meanings they have received from others.”
That quote has stayed with me—not just because it’s a sharp observation about how we process the world, but because it remains unsettlingly relevant. We don’t encounter reality raw; we inherit it through headlines, feeds, photos, slogans, and the countless interpretations of others. Mills called the system that produces and distributes these interpretations the “cultural apparatus.”
Back in 2008, journalism as a profession was entering a crisis that has only deepened since. The demise of local newspapers and public-interest reporting, the erosion of journalistic ethics, the rise of social media, the fragmentation of the internet, and now the explosion of AI and synthetic media—seen through the lens of C. Wright Mills, these shifts help explain much about our current moment. The cultural apparatus isn’t just evolving; it’s fragmenting, accelerating, and becoming harder to trace and trust.
Today, that apparatus is both more expansive and more manipulable than Mills could have imagined. Platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter) deliver curated slices of experience in real time. AI-generated content blurs the line between authentic and synthetic, while billionaires, governments, and opaque algorithms shape what rises to the top. Conspiracies scale faster than facts. The experience of “seeing it with your own eyes” is often preempted by a push notification or a viral meme.
In this environment, the question isn’t whether we live in secondhand worlds—it’s who’s furnishing them, and to what end.
That’s why I started this blog. Over the years, I’ve used this space to explore those questions directly—writing about civic tech, participatory democracy, communication systems, and the ethical design of digital tools—all efforts to interrogate and influence the cultural apparatus itself. It’s a place for me to think critically about the cultural apparatus we all live within—and to make my own small contribution to it. I’ve worked in digital communications, civic tech, and democracy support. I’ve seen how narratives can be built for liberation, and how they can be weaponized. I’ve tried to help build tools and spaces that make democratic values legible, accessible, and resilient.
If we’re going to live in secondhand worlds, then let’s at least try to make them better ones—rooted in equity, truth, and human dignity.
“We are going to have a multi-polar sustainable development world. It’s not going to be led perhaps by the United States or by some of the traditional actors.”
That’s how Jeffrey Sachs reflects, in his recent video, on the sudden collapse of many U.S.-funded development programs and the broader geopolitical realignment underway. But how will that realignment play out in practice for international development?
Sachs points to large-scale regional initiatives like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which unites 55 countries around shared economic goals. He sees momentum building across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. He also praises China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an ambitious effort to link infrastructure and investment projects across continents.
While Sachs “admires” the BRI, I view it with more caution. The initiative has undoubtedly reshaped global development finance—but often at the cost of saddling countries with unsustainable debt, locking them into opaque agreements, and emphasizing extractive infrastructure over inclusive, community-driven growth. Development that mortgages the future in service of the present is not development worth celebrating.
Still, Sachs is right about the bigger picture. Even as initiatives like the BRI draw critique, they exemplify a broader shift: the world is no longer waiting for traditional donors to lead. Sachs’ observation reflects not only a change in geopolitical dynamics, but also a loosening of the development script—one no longer authored exclusively by the familiar cast of Western donors and Bretton Woods institutions. Countries are forging new alliances, testing new platforms, and imagining new paradigms.
The landscape for non-state international development finance is also shifting. A vital but often overlooked source of development finance is remittances—money sent home by migrants and diaspora communities. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the potential of the “migrant transnational class” to drive rural development through remittances and social capital, focusing on return migration in Mexico. That research explored how remittances improve livelihoods, fund education, and support local businesses—not just as financial transfers, but as part of a broader ecosystem of transnational engagement. In many regions, they have long outstripped foreign aid in both volume and impact.
That lifeline is now under threat, at least for U.S.-based remitters. As part of the Trump administration’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” the U.S. government has proposed a new federal tax on all remittances sent abroad—effectively taxing migrant families twice. In 2024 alone, sub-Saharan Africa received nearly $10 billion in remittances from the U.S.—a figure nearly on par with the total foreign assistance it received before the Trump-era cuts. Countries like Gambia, Liberia, and Senegal, where remittances make up a significant portion of national income, would be especially hard hit (New York Times, June 3, 2025).
Another notable trend is the growing influence of private wealth in shaping the development agenda. States and multilateral institutions have historically dominated this space. While a few large philanthropies—most notably the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—have had outsized impact in areas like global health, their overall scale has not yet matched that of state-backed finance.
But that balance may be shifting. As private fortunes—particularly those built in the tech sector—continue to grow, a new class of philanthropic actors is emerging. This trend is likely to accelerate as a handful of major companies consolidate control over the development of frontier Generative AI models, further concentrating global wealth and influence in an already narrow segment of society. This concentration not only shapes who builds the tools of the future—but also who sets the ethical guardrails and development priorities surrounding them. Some, like those aligned with Founders Pledge, are optimistic that tech entrepreneurs can become a transformative force in global development. As the organization puts it: “In our vision of the future, the value created by technology benefits those who need it most.”
Yet not all tech billionaires are channeling their influence in support of international development. Elon Musk, despite being the world’s richest individual, was a driving force behind blanket cuts to U.S. foreign aid—a stark reminder that private wealth is not inherently aligned with global development goals.
While private capital can certainly catalyze innovation, it also risks entrenching the very power imbalances development is meant to dismantle. And unlike centralized agencies such as USAID—which, for all their flaws, offer unified leadership, institutional memory, and a coherent development philosophy—philanthropic giving led by individuals is inherently more fragmented. Its goals, methods, and ideologies vary widely from donor to donor, making it harder to ensure consistent priorities or align efforts across sectors and regions.
In short, development finance in a multipolar world will be messy. With power dispersed across regional blocs, diaspora networks, corporate actors, and tech philanthropists—each with competing priorities and asymmetrical resources—the international development landscape is becoming less hierarchical and more contested. This pluralism presents both opportunities and risks. It opens the door to more locally rooted, innovative approaches, but also raises the specter of incoherence, duplication, and unaccountable influence.
As we enter this new era, goals, methods, and ideologies will continue to diverge—mirroring the broader dispersion of influence in the global order. The challenge will be to embrace this multiplicity without losing sight of shared values, and to cultivate mechanisms that enable alignment when necessary, while leaving space for difference and disruption where it matters most.
After ten years at the National Democratic Institute — in roles ranging from digital communications to project management — I was laid off. Like many others in the international development space, I was swept up in the collapse that followed the Trump administration’s elimination of U.S. foreign assistance — a move that also gutted the very institutions meant to support democratic resilience abroad.
For me, this marked the end of a decade at the National Democratic Institute. Over ten years, I served in a range of roles — from digital communications to project management — and spent the last several years as part of NDI’s DemTech team. While I wasn’t formally a team lead, I often played a leadership role in practice, especially when it came to managing complex tech implementations and coordinating with external vendors. I helped define requirements, translate between program needs and technical delivery, and make sure tools actually worked for the people using them.
That kind of continuity is rare in this field — and it has made reentering the job market unexpectedly disorienting. It meant that when the layoff came, I had been thrust into a job market I hadn’t needed to navigate in a long time. My muscle memory was gone. The terrain had changed. And so had the sector. I found myself questioning how my experience would translate to other contexts — whether a decade of work in international democracy programs, with their specific jargon and frameworks, would resonate with new employers or sectors outside that bubble. Is what I’d built still relevant — and valuable — to others?
While the sector begins to innovate and rebuild, another tsunami is underway.
The AI wave is still swelling — reshaping workflows, disrupting institutions, and raising profound questions across education, journalism, policy, and governance. Tools like ChatGPT and open-source LLMs aren’t just new technologies; they’re catalysts for rethinking how knowledge, communication, and power are structured. This future is unfolding faster than most civic institutions can respond. And the pace of deployment continues to outstrip our collective ability to govern or understand it. As someone who’s worked at the intersection of tech and democracy, I see how the rush toward AGI and rapid productization is leading many companies to underappreciate the human impacts of these tools. The people most affected — especially those already underserved — are often left out of the design process entirely. We need to re-center human consequences in this work, not treat them as edge cases or cleanup tasks.
At least in the short term, the U.S.-funded international development sector won’t bounce back. (I’ve even suggested to the director of my graduate program — Columbia SIPA’s MPA in Development Practice — that it could help reimagine what this future might look like.) So I decided to start building something different — a new way of working that still aligns with my long-term goals.
I began working as a freelance consultant. Not just as a placeholder, but as a way to work more intentionally, partnering with organizations I respect to build tools and strategies that fit this moment. Much of that work has been with domestic clients — a shift I didn’t plan, but one that’s opened new ways to apply my skills in deeply local, relevant ways. The challenges are different, but the core questions remain: who is this for, and who’s being left out?
And while “consultant” is a new title for me, the work itself isn’t unfamiliar. In fact, it feels like a natural extension of what I was already doing — just with new labels and new audiences.
In fact, much of what I’m doing now builds directly on my experience in NDI’s DemTech team, where I was often brought in midstream to help shape, fix, or redesign technology projects in motion. The teams I supported spanned regions, mandates, and technical comfort levels. I learned to enter fast, listen carefully, clarify goals, and help make messy projects functional and sustainable. That experience made me unusually comfortable with the core conditions of consulting: ambiguity, velocity, and cross-functional collaboration.
And before that, in grad school, I had dipped into consulting too — primarily building websites. It was project-based, creative, and real-world — and I loved it.
This isn’t just about helping teams with tech. It’s about helping organizations stay grounded in their values while adapting to real-world constraints — shrinking budgets, shifting priorities, and powerful new tools that are easy to misuse or misunderstand.
At the same time, I won’t pretend consulting is a guaranteed path. It’s fulfilling, but it’s also uncertain. I’m constantly juggling multiple projects, working pro bono, staying open to new collaborations, and — like many others in this space — always thinking about what’s next. For now, it’s a path I’m walking with intention — even if I don’t have all the answers yet. I’m still figuring out what this looks like long-term, and how best to align the work I care about with the evolving needs of the field. At some point, that may require a harder pivot — one that stretches beyond adjacent spaces and demands a deeper reinvention. If and when that time comes, I hope to meet it with the same clarity of purpose. In the meantime, I continue to explore full-time opportunities that align with this mission and allow me to do this work in a more sustained, strategic way.
This spring, I had the opportunity to support several student-led civic tech projects through the University of Maryland’s iConsultancy program. The partnership was originally facilitated through my role at the National Democratic Institute (NDI), but when NDI’s participation was disrupted by a sweeping freeze on U.S. foreign assistance programs, I continued advising the students in a personal capacity.
What started as a straightforward mentorship experience became a much more fluid—and in some ways more meaningful—engagement, shaped by shifting roles, student initiative, and a shared interest in public-interest technology. In many ways, it reminded me of the spirit of open source: people stepping in, adapting to change, and contributing however they can. NDI itself has long embraced open source platforms like Decidim and CiviCRM as part of its commitment to digital democracy—tools that reflect the values of transparency, adaptability, and shared ownership.
Three Projects, Three Distinct Challenges
Each iConsultancy team focused on a different scope of work—specifically related to Decidim, an open-source platform for democratic participation, and a new tool that NDI was designing to make information more accessible to people with intellectual disabilities. These projects were all rooted in the open source ethos: building in the open, iterating in real time, and aiming for impact beyond the immediate team.
1. Decidim Alternate Deployment Methods
This team explored ways to simplify and modernize how Decidim is deployed across different environments. The official Heroku option had become outdated, and the manual installation process was prohibitively complex for non-expert users.
The students conducted a technical evaluation of Docker and Heroku deployment methods, tested them across operating systems, and ultimately created an updated Docker configuration tailored for production environments. Their contributions were submitted to the Decidim GitHub repo. These additions make it significantly easier to deploy Decidim in a production environment using Docker Compose. Like many open source contributions, their work advanced on community-maintained tools, with the potential to be picked up and improved by others.
2. Easy Read Generator UX Redesign
The second team focused on redesigning the user interface for NDI’s Easy Read Generator project, a tool that simplifies complex civic documents to make them more accessible for individuals with intellectual disabilities and those with lower literacy levels.
Drawing on user research, accessibility guidelines (like WCAG), and competitive analysis, the students developed a high-fidelity prototype and detailed UX recommendations. While I had envisioned an iterative redesign of existing wireframes, the team pushed the concept further—exploring new features such as login options and donation functionality. Their willingness to experiment expanded the conversation about what this tool could become.
3. Manual Installation Documentation Enhancements
The third project aimed to unify and improve Decidim’s manual installation documentation. English-language instructions were incomplete, and more robust Spanish-language documentation had yet to be translated or standardized.
The team was tasked with consolidating and testing these disparate guides, streamlining the process for deploying Decidim with all its intended features. Documentation is the connective tissue of any open source ecosystem, and while this team faced challenges in delivering their final product, the importance of the task—and the gaps it sought to fill—remains clear.
Lessons from the Field
Each project reflected the realities of open collaboration: sometimes productive, sometimes messy, always instructive. The teams that stayed organized and engaged produced genuinely useful outputs that could be built upon by others. In other cases, student groups struggled to balance their workload or needed more support to stay aligned with the project’s goals.
To be clear, this isn’t a critique of the iConsultancy model—student-led learning is, by design, exploratory. But like any open source initiative, success is rarely the result of individual effort alone. It depends on a thoughtful mix of initiative, shared norms, and an ecosystem of support. Civic tech projects, especially those aiming for real-world relevance, demand a working knowledge of community context, accessibility, and technical infrastructure—all challenging to fully absorb in a single semester. And just as open source contributors rely on documentation, mentors, and community to navigate complex codebases, student teams benefit from structured feedback, clear goals, and a culture that rewards asking questions. Those ingredients can turn short-term projects into lasting contributions.
Why I Stayed
Even after my layoff from NDI, I chose to remain involved because my commitment to the projects didn’t depend on a formal title. The UMD students brought real energy and fresh ideas. And continuing to mentor them gave me a sense of continuity and purpose at a time when many other structures were unraveling.
In civic tech, we often talk about resilience, distributed leadership, and decentralization. These principles are foundational to the open source ecosystem, where no single person or entity controls the project and leadership often emerges organically from contributors. This experience reminded me that these values aren’t just theoretical—they show up in how we navigate change. Open source projects are a fitting metaphor: they can survive the loss of their initial stewards, thriving as new contributors pick up the thread. Our work, too, can have a life beyond any single job or institution. Even when a formal role ends, the ideas, tools, and momentum we create can continue evolving—adapted, expanded, and reimagined by others who care.
Participants develop a list of features they would like to be included in an Easy Read generator tool. They then used this list to design a prototype tool.
From the 15 percent of people around the world who live with a disability, 8 in 10 reside in developing countries. Although Article 21 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities (CRPD) grants them the right to accessible information, people with disabilities often face communication barriers due to a lack of information accessibility. Access to information is essential for democratic and political participation, which enables people to make informed decisions and influence policies that affect their lives. If people with intellectual disabilities have greater access to easy-to-read information on political processes or policies and the necessary assistance using it, they will be better equipped to advocate for themselves and participate in democracy. By reducing communication barriers through Easy Read and other accessible formats, societies can foster inclusion, making it possible for people with disabilities to engage fully in civic life.
With these circumstances in mind, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) organized a two-day workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, to bring people with intellectual disabilities, caretakers, civil society representatives, government officials, and accessibility experts together to test and design tools for creating Easy Read documents. The workshop began by reviewing the results of a remotely-conducted activity to test assumptions about how to best address barriers to accessible information in Kenya. Participants then explored the possibility of using generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, to facilitate the creation of accessible information. To ensure that everyone could participate, NDI provided accessibility accommodations, such as sign-language interpretation, an expanded time frame agenda to allow for ample participation, and illustrations to enhance comprehension and retention.
Easy Read is a method of presenting information in an easy-to-understand format. Easy Read materials are especially beneficial for people with disabilities, those with low literacy levels, non-native language speakers, and individuals experiencing memory difficulties. Easy Read combines short sentences that are clear and free of jargon with simple images to help explain the written content. Easy Read is essential not only for people with intellectual disabilities but also for making information accessible to everyone, particularly in a democratic society. Accessible information enables all citizens to participate in civic processes, make informed decisions, and understand their rights and responsibilities. By utilizing Easy Read, NDI seeks to support inclusive democratic participation and enable people to actively engage in their communities.
Alice Mundia, Chairperson of the Differently Talented Society of Kenya (DTSK), discusses barriers faced by persons with intellectual disabilities, specifically with regard to accessing information.
Twenty representatives from various disabled people’s organizations (DPOs) and other civic groups contributed their diverse perspectives and expertise to advance information accessibility in Kenya. These groups included the United Disabled Persons of Kenya (UDPK), the Kenya Association of the Intellectually Handicapped (KAIH), Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet), Differently Talented Society of Kenya (DTSK), Black Albinism (BI), Ubongo Kids, Down Syndrome Society of Kenya (DSSK), Kenya Sign Language Interpreters Association (KSLIA), the Kenya National Association of the Deaf (KNAD), and the Directorate of Social Development under the Ministry of Labour and Social Services. The event fostered collaboration and laid the foundation for further development of accessible digital tools in the country.
On the first day, participants reflected on the structural challenges that restrict access to information for people with intellectual disabilities. Alice Mundia, Chairperson of the Differently Talented Society of Kenya (DTSK), led a discussion on the barriers to creating and distributing Easy Read materials. Participants then explored NDI’s Easy Read website, provided feedback on navigation and usability, and used generative AI tools to draft Easy Read documents. Working in small groups, they refined these drafts, exploring the potential and challenges of using AI for accessible content creation.
“I wish I knew about this before. This will help a lot,” said a teacher who supports students with Down Syndrome. “I struggle to break down complex jargon into understandable information. With this tool, that work becomes easier.”
During the second day, participants focused on mapping key stakeholders involved in creating and disseminating Easy Read documents and developing a prototype for an Easy Read Generator tool. Participants collaborated to design user flows, interfaces, and features for the tool by sketching visual prototypes. This hands-on session ensured that the tool would meet the diverse needs of people with intellectual disabilities and their supporters. The concept for an Easy Read Generator originated during a pitch competition in 2021, where NDI staff proposed tech solutions to democracy challenges. The winning idea, the “Right To Know” project, envisioned an Easy Read translator, anticipating the development of generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, which has enabled computers to simplify complex documents quickly.
Through the workshop, participants found that while ChatGPT is a powerful tool for generating and simplifying text, the unpaid version has several limitations that hinder its generation of accessible content. These include browsing limitations and the inability to upload documents or generate images.
Following this workshop, NDI has begun exploring two avenues to address these limitations and improve access to accessible information for people with intellectual disabilities. First, NDI is reaching out to companies that provide Generative AI chatbots to explore the possibility of allowing NGOs that support people with intellectual disabilities to access paid services for free or at a reduced cost. Such a program could enable disability rights advocates, caregivers, and organizations to leverage the most advanced tools to generate Easy Read content. This would significantly enhance their ability to reach and support individuals who depend on these accessible materials.
NDI is also exploring avenues for developing the prototype Easy Read Generator that participants designed into a working application through future programs. This tool would not only improve the experience of using Generative AI tools to create Easy Read documents, it could also be offered for free to select partner organizations, eliminating cost as a barrier to generating easy-to-read information.
This illustration captures the second day of the workshop, which focused on designing an Easy Read AI chatbot.
Through this workshop, participants from diverse backgrounds collaborated to explore generative AI’s potential for making information accessible for all. The workshop provided an invaluable opportunity to address challenges, share insights, and develop solutions. NDI remains committed to expanding these programs to ensure that all citizens have access to information in formats they can understand and use.
Author: Jesper Frant, Senior Technology Projects Manager for NDI’s Democracy and Technology team
NDI’s engagement with this program is implemented with the support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) program.
NDI is a non-profit, non-partisan, non-governmental organization that works in partnership around the world to strengthen and safeguard democratic institutions, processes, norms and values to secure a better quality of life for all. NDI envisions a world where democracy and freedom prevail, with dignity for all.
Managing and organizing contact information is a vital task for any organization, and it can be a rewarding challenge. Whether you’re a political party managing membership lists or an advocacy group organizing campaigns, maintaining lists of contacts, tracking interactions, and conducting outreach are essential activities that can drive your mission forward. In particular, moving from a siloed approach – individual staff are responsible for their own contacts – to teams – collaborating on a shared online database – can pay huge dividends.
The array of available cloud-based databases is vast, but every organization has different sets of needs, levels of expertise, and financial resources that will determine the right tool for the context. This blog post aims to provide essential guidance to help you identify the perfect cloud-based database tool to meet your goals and technical requirements, turning this challenge into an opportunity for growth and efficiency.
Different Tiers of Contact Management Tools
Contact management tools range from simple spreadsheets to feature-rich contact relationship management systems (CRMs). We’ve broken down these tools into four tiers based on complexity and specialization. By understanding the capabilities and limitations of each tier, you can choose the contact management tool that best fits your project’s needs and resources. The examples below are not exhaustive and were chosen to illustrate solutions that are available at little or no direct cost. Generally, as the tools become more complex, they tend to become more expensive.
Tier One: Cloud-Based Spreadsheets
Example: Google Sheets is a versatile and accessible tool for basic contact management. It allows users to create, share, and collaborate on spreadsheets in real-time. With features like data validation, conditional formatting, and integration with other Google Workspace apps, it’s a great starting point for small teams or projects with straightforward needs.
Tier Two: Message Boards or Groups
Example: Google Groups focuses on communication and collaboration rather than just contact management. It allows you to create and manage groups of contacts for email communication and collaboration. Unlike most other systems, it allows members to speak with each other, and it is ideal for multi-stream communication. While it doesn’t offer the advanced contact management features of a CRM or the flexibility of a spreadsheet, it provides a simple way to communicate with and manage groups of people, making it a great fit for teams or projects that need a straightforward collaboration tool.
Tier Three: Specialized Marketing Tool
Example: MailChimp is a specialized marketing tool designed for email marketing and constituent engagement. It offers features like automated email campaigns, audience segmentation, and detailed analytics. MailChimp is ideal for organizations looking to enhance their marketing efforts without the complexity of a full CRM system.
Tier Four: Full-Featured CRM
Example: CiviCRM is a comprehensive CRM platform that supports extensive contact management, communication, event management, casework, and campaign planning. It allows users to store, track, and segment large volumes of contact data, and engage with contacts via email, SMS, and social media. CiviCRM is suitable for organizations that need robust features for managing relationships and coordinating large-scale activities. DemTech supports the use of CiviCRM through its DemCloud hosting service, providing a cost-effective solution for partners with limited resources, though organizations will need to dedicate significant staff time to make the most of using this tool.
Selecting the Right Tool for Your Needs
Step One: Define Your Requirements
Start by clearly defining what you need from the tool. Your key needs will depend on the problem you’re trying to address and may include:
Language Requirements: Does the tool need to support multiple languages?
Offline Capability: Will you need to access the tool without an internet connection?
Security Requirements: How critical is data privacy and security for your project?
Specific Features: Do you need features like email marketing, customer segmentation, case management, or detailed analytics?
Step Two: Prioritize Your Requirements
Once you’ve defined your requirements, prioritize them. Use a Human-Centered Design (HCD) process to ensure that the tool meets the needs of your users. Always consider the context in which the tool will be used. In addition to the functional requirements (the features of the tool), you should also consider your organization’s needs and assets with regard to privacy, capacity, and sustainability.
Privacy: Since contact management systems inherently manage information about individuals, privacy should always be a priority. Consider your risk profile in determining the steps you need to take to ensure the security of the information you are collecting.
Capacity: Assess whether you and your target audience have the skills, resources, and availability to use the technology as intended. Consider how technology gaps might reinforce the exclusion of marginalized populations.
Sustainability: Determine if you will need to use the tool long-term. Do you have the ability to sustain funding, training, and skills to maintain it without creating security risks?
Step Three: Define Your Assets
Identify the technical, monetary, time, and partnership assets you have at your disposal. If you can collaborate with a partner, consider their technical expertise and financial resources. Ensure alignment with partners on the timeframe for sustaining the approach and consensus on the project’s objectives.
Selecting the right contact management system is not just about choosing the most advanced or popular tool, but about finding the one that aligns with your organization’s unique needs and resources. By carefully defining and prioritizing your requirements, and considering factors such as privacy, capacity, and sustainability, you can transform the challenge of contact management into an opportunity. Remember, the right tool can empower your team to collaborate more effectively, engage more meaningfully with your contacts, and ultimately, drive your mission forward. As you embark on this journey, keep in mind that the perfect solution is one that evolves with your organization, adapting to new challenges and opportunities along the way.
This blog was originally posted to on the Dem.Tools blog.
Abdellatif Belmkadem (left) and Maurice Sayinzoga (second-from-left) participate in a panel discussion about how civic technology can help to create feedback loops between citizens and government to improve service delivery.
In the heart of London, the TICTeC conference – held June 12 and 13 – was a rare opportunity to take a break from the grind and reflect on the amazing and inspiring work of civic technologists around the world. Hosted by MySociety and supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, this event was the first time the conference was held in-person since the COVID-19 pandemic forced most such convenings online. Representatives from the global civic technology community forged new relationships, shared tools for democratic engagement, and explored how emerging technologies are reshaping the civic technology landscape.
NDI’s participation reflects our commitment to a critical message: democracy doesn’t end at the ballot box. Civic technologists play a particularly important role in supporting government service delivery and reinforcing feedback loops between government and citizens. For example, Code for Pakistan’s use of Ushahidi to help the government more effectively allocate aid after floods was a critical and timely application of open-source technology that directly impacted people’s lives. Since Ushahidi is open-source, the Code for Pakistan team was also able to develop a connection to the popular WhatsApp messaging tool, broadening the reach of the initiative. In another example, Abdellatif Belmkadem of the National Institute of Innovation and Advanced Technology of Morocco explained how using Fix My Street in Casablanca is not just facilitating infrastructure repairs, but fundamentally reshaping the social contract between government and citizens. This project is also furthering the development of the Fix My Street open-source project by exploring machine-learning based approaches to categorizing issue reports. The session, co-led by NDI’s Maurice Sayinzoga, DemTech Program Director, underscored that technology alone will not “make democracy work” and shared practical steps for engaging government stakeholders, navigating bureaucratic hurdles, and demonstrating the tangible benefits of technology tools. These examples demonstrate how technology can connect citizens’ needs with government action, but in both cases government buy-in is essential to ensure the tools actually help solve real-world issues, rather than just contributing to a backlog of unresolved complaints.
NDI also showcased innovative approaches to civic tech in closed and conflict affected contexts. Sarah Moulton, NDI Deputy Director for Technology and Democracy, moderated a panel discussion with Jesper Frant, NDI Senior Technology Project Manager, and representatives from two of NDI’s civic technology partners, Pavel Liber and Isabel Hou. The discussion centered on how tech tools can help to build community around democratic principles, despite seemingly insurmountable headwinds. Pavel shared his experience building an innovative online platform, New Belarus, that enables Belarusians to build a free Belarusian community online. Isabel shared her decades-long experience growing an active civic technology community in Taiwan. g0v holds weekly hackathons and develops tools to, among other things, protect the integrity of online information, and visualize government budget data. They recently completed a “Civic Tech Project & Community Handbook” which describes their approach to building community around civic technology. Jesper shared lessons learned for working with civic technology in countries with weak digital infrastructure, low tech literacy, and high security risk, emphasizing a human-centered approach and a commitment to “do no harm.”
While the challenges in many of these contexts can often seem insurmountable, civic technology is about empowering citizens and enhancing the mechanisms of democracy. It’s about ensuring that every voice is heard and that governments are responsive to their citizens. NDI is committed to harnessing the potential of civic tech to make democracy more dynamic, participatory and effective.
A photo from the main page of the Digital Organizing SOS: Stories of Security game shows the leaders of civil society organizations that you, as a digital security trainer, are asked to help as part of the game.
NDI’s Democracy and Technology (DemTech) team has a longhistory of experimenting with different types of games for good. We have even tried our hand at developing our own gaming platforms with varying levels of success.
For example, the defunct DemGames Debate app was a Drupal-based app intended to reinforce learning through fun practice quizzes. Originally designed to gamify NDI’s youth debates programs, it became evident that there was not sufficient demand to justify the expense of maintaining the platform and it was deprecated.
DemTech’s more recent efforts to gamify learning have favored the narrative fiction style. Narrative fiction games are online games that use narrative storytelling to guide players through fun fictitious scenarios where they can choose their own adventure. These games are pretty simple to develop, and there are a variety of options of tools that can be used to build them. DemTech has experimented with Google Forms and Powerpoint, but has favored the more broadly-adopted open-source narrative fiction tool called Twine. Besides having a more rich, user-friendly, and flexible game development framework, Twine games are also simple HTML files that can be hosted at almost no cost and there is no need for software patches or updates for the game to live on indefinitely. So far, DemTech has created four Twine games:
Alissa for Olania! – In this cybersecurity game, players take on the role of first-time presidential hopeful Alissa Orme’s campaign manager in the fictional country of Olania. They have to boost Alissa’s popularity and raise funds to help her win the election, while preventing cybersecurity incidents from derailing the campaign. (related blog post)
Digital Organizing SOS: Stories of Security – You play the role of a cybersecurity trainer to help leaders of civil society organizations more safely and effectively organize virtual workshops, fundraise online, use social media, and collect and store data.
Human Centered Design – In this game, players take on the role of program lead tasked with designing a transparency and communication app. They have to test their knowledge of how to apply the principles of Human Centered Design effectively.
Leading Change – In this game, players are a youth leader seeking to boost the voices and needs of young people in a city’s COVID pandemic response. They have to learn about Adaptive Leadership, while exploring how this concept could play out in a realistic scenario.
NDI has also experimented with offline tabletop exercises (TTX). TTX are discussion-based sessions in which players are grouped into teams, assigned roles in a fictitious scenario, and called on to solve a series of challenges. These games give players a sense of what it’s like to work as a team to confront a realistic scenario, like a natural disaster or cybersecurity incident.
DemTech developed a TTX game called CyberSim that simulates risks for a political party in a campaign environment and helps players assess their readiness and implement better digital security practices. To mirror the chaos of a typical campaign environment, the events of the game are rapid-fire and overwhelming. The immersive experience not only teaches lessons about cybersecurity, but also gives players a better sense of the high-stress and high-stakes environment in which decisions about cybersecurity incidents are often made.
Because the game is so rapid-fire, the pace can make the job of the facilitator difficult. To address this tension between creating a realistic–yet still functional–gameplay environment, DemTech developed an app to help CyberSim facilitators manage events and provide a summary of the actions taken. Crucially, the app enables facilitators to moderate an after-action review – a “post-game” exercise that allows players to reflect on what they learned. While originally designed to be played in person, DemTech recently developed an online version of the TTX that can be played using the Discord app. The team is also actively developing new versions of CyberSim tailored to civil society organizations and parliaments to join the current campaign-focused iteration.
Games for good are an innovative and effective way to educate, empower, and inspire people to take action on issues that matter to them. Whether it is online or offline, narrative fiction or tabletop exercise, games can create immersive and interactive experiences that challenge players to think critically, collaborate with others, and learn from their mistakes. DemTech has experimented with implementing “serious games” in various contexts and regions, with a focus on democracy, governance, and human rights. We invite you to explore our games, share your feedback, and join us in creating more games for good in the future. Together, we can make learning fun and meaningful. If you are interested in learning more about our games for good or playing them yourself, please visit our website or contact us.
Digital organizing is a key component of any successful political campaign. It involves using technology to mobilize supporters, raise funds, communicate messages, and get out the vote. It can also be a powerful tool for governing. Digital tools enable members of parliament to manage constituent correspondence or even manage interactions with citizens. However, not all digital organizing tools are created equal. Some are tailored to specific contexts, while others are better suited to business or sales applications.
That’s why the National Democratic Institute’s (NDI) Democracy for Technology (DemTech) team, decided to invest in developing and supporting the open-source platform CiviCRM. CiviCRM is a constituent relationship management (CRM) system that can be used to conduct many democracy activities, including conducting surveys and running campaigns, as well as basic CRM activities like managing contacts and sending emails. CiviCRM is a good fit for our partners that don’t have a lot of money to spend on digital campaigning tools, which is most of them. For partners with little experience with digital organizing, CiviCRM also provides a hands-on opportunity to introduce the concept. Partners who complete the training have the option to continue to use CiviCRM at no cost through DemTech’s DemCloud hosting service. They can also migrate their CiviCRM site off DemCloud to their own hosting environment, decide to use another CRM solution or simply choose not to use a CRM system at all.
For DemTech, one of the biggest advantages of CiviCRM is that it can be easily localized to a new country. It has been translated into dozens of languages, including Catalan, Dutch, French, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Spanish, and Turkish. Not only can our partners use the tool in their own language, but they can adapt it to their specific needs and challenges. For example, CiviCampaign is a component of CiviCRM that allows users to create and manage advocacy campaigns, and it can be tailored to suit different electoral systems, voter registration processes, and campaign strategies.
DemTech has supported the use of CiviCRM across a wide variety of contexts. For example, a group of organizations in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) used Civi to survey key target audiences about their policy priorities as they prepared to launch broad advocacy campaigns in the runup to 2023 elections.
DemTech also maintains relationships with technology vendors that specialize in supporting the tool such as iXiam and CoopSymbiotic.
CiviCRM is not always the right digital organizing tool. NDI looks at a wide array of tools available such as MailChimp, NGP VAN, NationBuilder and Salesforce, and makes recommendations based on the ease of localization of the tool, how the tool has been used by democratic organizations, ease of use and cost. We are always exploring new contact management tools or opportunities to partner with companies that support digital organizing.
DemTech’s mission is to provide tailored support and advice on topics related to the impacts of technology on democracy, the use of technology in democratic development, and applying human-centered design approaches to democracy programming. We believe that digital organizing is a powerful way to empower citizens and strengthen democracy around the world. That’s why we support CiviCRM and other contact management tools that can help our partners achieve their goals.
It’s September 28, 2020 and COVID deaths have just surpassed one million worldwide. And as you watch the news, your boss sends you an email. You’ve been stuck inside for months watching the pandemic, political unrest, and natural disasters unfold with little to no interaction with anyone outside your bubble, and you’re expected to keep working as normal. And as all of your activities, including work, were forced online, you find yourself realizing something you never would’ve imagined: you are fed up with the internet. You have, as it turns out, a severe case of Zoom fatigue.
Zoom Fatigue has been an unexpected side effect of the pandemic. Individuals are experiencing exhaustion and burnout due to the excessive use of video conferencing calls. To address this issue, innovative platforms are being utilized by promoting engaging interactions and enhancing the overall experience of remote learning and communication. One such platform is Open edX, an open-source learning management system, which supplies a ready-built framework for mitigating Zoom fatigue for programs that deliver training online. Instead of relying solely on video conferences, Open edX enables engaging educational methodologies designed for the internet. Since its founding in 2012, OpenEdX has been used by a wide range of organizations, from institutions of higher education to major corporations, and even national governments. The platform uses a combination of video lectures, interactive exercises, quizzes, and other tools to deliver course content. The open-source nature of Open edX means that anyone can access and use the software, and modify and improve it as needed, without software licenses or subscription costs.
While the pandemic has abated in most regions (or at least been accepted as the new normal), the pre-pandemic “business as usual” where programming is delivered almost exclusively in-person has shifted permanently. In the post-pandemic world, there is a greater reliance on online training as in-person events are not always feasible and are more expensive. Moreover, air travel is a large contributor to climate change putting pressure on organizations to rethink the sustainability of programming that requires frequent international travel. This shift toward convening online has also contributed to the rise in Zoom fatigue as programs attempted to move their programs out of meeting rooms and into Zoom meetings, without fundamentally rethinking program delivery or design.
Well before the pandemic, NDI hosted its own instance of Open edX (ed.ndi.org) to offer a wide range of courses aimed at strengthening democratic institutions and promoting citizen participation. These courses cover various topics such as cybersecurity for democracy activists, combatting information manipulation, digital rights advocacy, and best practices for leveraging technology to support democratic development. Some of the courses are self-paced and can be accessed anytime, while others are delivered through virtual classrooms accompanied by live instructors. Additionally, NDI offers customized training programs tailored to specific organizations and contexts. The courses are designed for individuals and groups interested in enhancing their knowledge and skills to effectively engage in democratic processes and advance democratic values.
Recent adopters of Open edX at NDI have used it to turn toolkits or guides, that would historically have been published in PDF format, into engaging multimedia online courses with integrated features that track learner progress and evaluate learning outcomes.
Edx courses enable engaging online approaches that yield real learning. This, we’ve found, is something that even the most expertly-facilitated Zoom call cannot provide. Courses can have videos, slide shows, text, audio, live broadcasts, or a range of other methods of sharing information. The platform also can facilitate quizzes and evaluations, provide discussion boards and interactive games, and even integrate surveys for post-class feedback. Many people value the credentials that can come with education so NDI worked to improve the open-source OpenEdX software to provide elegant certificates personalized with their information for those who successfully completed a course.
Interest in the online learning platform has recently spiked. Ironically, just as the pandemic is easing, new programs are coming online that are making online methodologies for program delivery central to their approach. This includes the House Democracy Partnership – an initiative of the U.S. Congress supported by the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute – which is turning their Legislative Oversight Guide into a series of mini-courses, and NDI’s Movement-Based Parties initiative which is using Open edX to deliver engaging online training at scale.
These new online courses are a positive sign that NDI is moving beyond attempting to deliver via Zoom programs designed to be done in-person. Almost any program that has some educational component can emulate this approach and consider using Open edX to improve their program delivery and learning outcomes. Exceptions may exist in cases where intended learners have high security risk or do not have access to quality internet connections. Any online approach could further the marginalization of groups with limited or no access to the internet. If you’re interested in exploring the possibilities of Open edX for your own programs or want to learn more about NDI’s use of the platform, I encourage you to visit ed.ndi.org to see what courses NDI is currently offering and try Open edX for yourself.
Twenty representatives from various disabled people’s organizations (DPOs) and other civic groups contributed their diverse perspectives and expertise to advance information accessibility in Kenya. These groups included the United Disabled Persons of Kenya (UDPK), the Kenya Association of the Intellectually Handicapped (KAIH), Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet), Differently Talented Society of Kenya (DTSK), Black Albinism (BI), Ubongo Kids, Down Syndrome Society of Kenya (DSSK), Kenya Sign Language Interpreters Association (KSLIA), the Kenya National Association of the Deaf (KNAD), and the Directorate of Social Development under the Ministry of Labour and Social Services. The event fostered collaboration and laid the foundation for further development of accessible digital tools in the country.
Through this workshop, participants from diverse backgrounds collaborated to explore generative AI’s potential for making information accessible for all. The workshop provided an invaluable opportunity to address challenges, share insights, and develop solutions. NDI remains committed to expanding these programs to ensure that all citizens have access to information in formats they can understand and use.
