Strategic Plan

2013-15 Strategic Plan 

Mission 

Harness the power of online tools to support participation in public life, strengthen communities, and build democracy. 

Goal 1 - Inclusive Engagement: Strengthen, broaden, and stimulate diverse engagement through effective, meaningful, and informed online discussion and exchange on public issues 

  • Strategy 1.1: Actively engage people from diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and less-represented groups to raise unique community voices, as well as increase listening, understanding, respect, and civility among all 
  • Strategy 1.2: Strategically expand the number and geographic distribution of local online groups (e.g., Neighbors Forums, Issues Forums) and next generation online engagement opportunities 
  • Strategy 1.3: Improve effectiveness, reach, and sustainability of civic online engagement and social media activities 

Goal 2 - Active Citizenship: Empower people through interactions, experiences, and online skills to have an impact on their communities and governments 

  • Strategy 2.1: Build capacity of people to participate in more effective ways 
  • Strategy 2.2: Collaborate with other organizations that bring people together around issues and places 
  • Strategy 2.3: Create face-to-face opportunities for people to collaborate in addition to online platforms 
  • Strategy 2.4: Increase the use and relevance of information resources about governance, elections, the media, and public affairs to help address public challenges 

Goal 3 - Effective Practices and Tools: Develop, leverage, and disseminate online practices and tools from around the world to promote engagement and active citizenship 

  • Strategy 3.1: Collect, curate, and disseminate relevant effective practices 
  • Strategy 3.2: Help practitioners, volunteers, and organizations make use of effective e-democracy practices, tools, and lessons 
  • Strategy 3.3: Create and implement metrics and evaluation tools for all our projects and share results 
  • Strategy 3.4: Provide education and training for local leaders and community members on online engagement and public transparency, and provide strategies, models, and tools 
  • Strategy 3.5: Use open source tools to the greatest extent possible and work to ensure that major investments in our primary software platforms are released under common open source licenses 

Previous plans: