Project Resources

This page is primarily intended as a resource for project leads, although everyone is welcome to use it!

Organization

Organization is fundamental. Without it, good intentions and talented contributors get lost. This section includes the basics every project should have in place.

One of the most important assets your project can have is good organizational skills: Every project should have these basics in place.
One-pager for new team members: Create a single document that captures your mission statement, the problem you’re solving, and the skills you’re looking for. Even if this information already exists elsewhere, on your website, in a pitch deck, or across Slack, having a clear, well-organized one-pager gives new teammates a place to start. Include links to your Slack channel, GitHub repo, and any tools contributors need to download.
Roles and responsibilities: People contribute more consistently when they know what’s needed in the project and can see where they fit. Define the roles your project needs, even loosely. This doesn’t need to be a formal org chart; a simple list on a Slack project board works well. Keep it visible and up to date as the project evolves.
Take notes of meetings: Take notes of meetings. The goal is for people who missed the meeting to get up to speed in two minutes, so the team isn’t relitigating the same questions week after week. Running notes also build a useful record of how the project has evolved. You can use AI note takers like Garnola or Otter, but ask folks first.
Establish a cadence of check-ins: This can just be the regular Project Nights, or it can be Project Nights with occasional virtual check-ins. Keep in mind that contributors have different availability and working styles; some only show up to Project Nights, while others want to push work forward in between.

Building Your Team

As important as the tool or service you’re building is, the team dynamic matters just as much.

1. Hosting at Project Night

Project Night is your most reliable recurring opportunity to move the work forward and bring new people in. Here are some tips for making the most of it.

Project Pitch

This is the best time to share about your project with a room full of people who care about civic tech and are actively looking for something to contribute to.

Please keep it to 30 seconds or a minute. The longer you take, the less time you have for the actual project work. A tight pitch also signals that you respect everyone’s time, which earns goodwill. Practice saying it out loud before the event so it feels natural.

Update your pitch slides frequently so the information is current. You should have gotten the slides as part of your onboarding materials, if not, please reach out.

Establishing a Rhythm

It is up to you how you structure your project nights. Some project leads jump right into the tasks, and when new members join after new member orientation, they move into introductions and check-ins.

Some project nights do not do any new member orientation due to time constraints. In those cases, it is recommended to have a one-pager (see below) that new members can look at to get onboarded on their own. However, there should be some acknowledgment of new members that involves the entire team. Even a brief “welcome, glad you’re here” from the group goes a long way.

Don’t dominate the conversation during project nights. It’s good to let other people lead and talk about what they are working on. Contributors feel more invested when they have space to share progress and own parts of the conversation. Your job as Project Lead is to lead, but also know when to let others have the space.

Next Steps

New member enthusiasm wanes VERY quickly after a meeting, so it’s recommended to check in with them and write a welcome message in Slack to them within 24 hours of the event. Reference something specific from the conversation (what they were interested in or what issue they were going to look at) so it feels personal.

2. How to Build Community

Building a healthy community means making it easy for people to show up and feel like their contribution matters.

Supporting New Contributors

Start by lowering the barrier to entry by designating specific topics as beginner-friendly. These should be real, self-contained tasks that give a new contributor a genuine win and a feel for how the project operates.
As a Project Lead, you won’t always have the capacity to give extensive one-on-one support to every new contributor. If someone is looking for more time or guidance than you can realistically provide, point them toward documentation, connect them with another teammate when possible, and let them know you appreciate their enthusiasm. Being transparent about your capacity builds more trust than overcommitting.

Recognizing Strengths

Civic tech projects attract people with a wide range of skills and interests. Ask contributors what they want to work on and try to align those interests with the project’s needs. A policy analyst might want to experiment with data wrangling, while a developer may be interested in user research.
Create roles that match people’s goals, not just their credentials. Have them visible on a Slack board so anyone can see what’s available and self-select into work that fits them.
Public recognition signals that people’s time is valued and encourages others to step up:
- Have a contributor give the project pitch at Project Nights. It is a good way for them to practice their public speaking skills in succinctly delivering a quick pitch.
- Give a thank-you in the project’s Slack channel when someone ships something, joins a call, or helps onboard a new member. Specific recognition (“thanks to Maya for cleaning up that data pipeline”) is appreciated.
- Allow people to take “ownership” of part of the project. When someone feels responsible for a feature, a dataset, or a relationship with a partner, it grows the project and shows accountability.

Grow Awareness of Your Project

A great project that nobody knows about won’t get used or contributed to. Visibility isn’t self-promotion — it’s part of the work. The people your project is meant to serve need to know it exists, and potential contributors need to be able to find it.

Be Able to Tell a Good Story

People connect with problems and people, not software, so lead with the human impact. When someone asks what the project is, tell them about who you are trying to following by the how. Meet each audience at the level of what they already care about. For example, a city official needs to hear how your project reduces the burden on their staff, while a funder would need to see measurements at a meaningful scale.

Audience	What They Want to Hear
Community members / users	“This was built for people like me, by people who understand my situation.”
City officials / agencies	“This reduces burden on our staff and serves residents we’re responsible for.”
Funders / foundations	“This is solving a documented, measurable problem at meaningful scale that I can fund.”
Contributors	“This is interesting, impactful work worth my skills and time.”
Press / journalists	“This is a specific, human story my readers will recognize and care about.”

Host Your Own Activities

You are welcome to host events that help your project grow. These can range from simple coworking sessions to more structured events. In many cases, events involve partnering with another organization for a demo or lightning talk, which is a low-lift way to share your work with new audiences.

If you are hosting a working session, you do not need to notify us unless you require a formal space agreement or plan to use Civic Tech DC marketing. Libraries and open coworking spaces are free to use.

Civic Tech DC can also support more structured sessions such as working groups, public demos, or user research workshops. These are typically most effective when co-hosted with a partner organization that brings complementary expertise or audiences. Depending on feasibility, we may be able to help with space or food, but in most cases you should plan logistics independently. We can, however, support marketing and outreach.

If so, please fill out this Google Form with details on the event. Some event ideas include:

User research meetups: Invite the people your project serves to test it and share their experience
Data or policy deep dives: Sessions that walk through datasets and methodologies behind your project
Partner showcase events: Co-hosted events with another organization to share complementary work and explore intersections

Visual Communications

Many projects at Civic Tech DC focus on the technical side, but just as important is the engagement and communication work that surrounds it. How you present your project lets people immediately grasp what it does and why it matters, many of whom are non-technical themselves. The tool may be brilliant, but if people can’t quickly see it solving a real problem, interest can fade very quickly.

You are welcomed to use Civic Tech DC’s LinkedIn to help spread the word. Here are some ideas to post:

A new software launch or major feature release
A milestone worth celebrating
A human impact story or testimonial from someone your project helped
A behind-the-scenes look at how the project works or how decisions get made
An event you’re presenting at or a recap afterward

You are welcome to post on your personal LinkedIn and tag Civic Tech DC so we can reshare, or you can submit content directly for us to post from the organization account. Please create a graphic, write a short post description, and fill out this form. The organizers will review and schedule it.

Create a Logo

A logo gives your project a recognizable identity and makes it easier to share across platforms consistently. Canva has free templates that are a good starting point. Aim for something simple that works at small sizes (like a Slack avatar) and large ones (like a slide header).

Create a Website

A project website gives you a visual place to share with partners and potential contributors. AI tools can help you get a first version up quickly, though adding some personality beyond the generated defaults goes a long way.

Astro is a good option for civic tech projects. It’s free, open source, and well-suited to content-focused sites without requiring a lot of frontend experience.
Typedream Similar to Carrd but with a slightly richer editor. Good for telling a story with sections and visuals.
[Ghost] — Clean, fast, and great for projects that want to publish updates, case studies, or impact stories alongside a project overview.
Jekyll The classic static site generator. Native GitHub Pages support means zero deployment configuration if your code is already on GitHub.

Have a Pitch Deck

A pitch deck gives you something polished to share when presenting at events or reaching out to partners . Use Google Slides so it’s easy for teammates to collaborate and update. Some slides worth including:

What the project is and the problem it solves
Who it’s for and who’s affected
Where the project stands today
How someone can get involved
Who’s currently on the team

Encourage Others to Talk About It

Your team members are your best advocates. Make it easy for them by giving them a short, consistent way to describe the project in a sentence or two. They can then use this at networking events or on LinkedIn.

Maintenance of the Project

Projects outlast their founders. Sometimes you have other responsibilities like a new job or a shift in priorities. Planning for longevity from the start saves future maintainers enormous pain; it doesn’t have to be long but have enough details to make the transition smoother.

How to deploy the application: Step-by-step, written for someone who wasn’t in the original build.
Where credentials and access controls live: You can use a shared password manager (e.g. 1Password, Bitwarden) or document the process for transferring access.
Who to contact if something breaks: Include the hosting provider, any data partners, and anyone with institutional knowledge of edge cases.