More About Us

What's in a Name?

The name, Sustainable Civic Solutions, reflects our focus:

Sustainable This word means that we are focused on solutions that endure. Such solutions have a design that inherently and naturally allows for increased adoption, data integrity, scale, and evolution, resulting in increased civic value over time.
Civic This word emphasizes our focus on civic problems that relate to individuals' lives in their neighborhoods, and which would benefit from shared municipal solutions. We believe this space is currently underserved.
Solutions This word emphasizes our focus on systemic solutions. There is no presumption that the answer will be purely technological. We understand that the best solutions will need to consider "soft" factors, like people, organizations, and politics, and "hard" factors, like processes and technology.

The Principles that Guide Us

Our work is guided by a set of important principles:

Technology is Only a Lever All too often, it is said that the "solution" to a problem is to "build an app for that". Too often, the approach is to have a "solution in search of a problem" or technology for technology's sake. We know that "soft" factors are just as important. We treate technology as just one lever that can encourage consistency, discipline, and transparency, not a goal unto itself.
Create Shared Solutions that Scale Our intention is to create and support solutions that are designed from the ground up to efficiently and flexibly meet the needs of all constituents who share the same problem. Creating solutions that have benefits now yet can scale fully requires deep expertise.
Be the Platform Only We aspire to provide solutions that are "platforms" upon which constituents can operate and collaborate more effectively. We will facilitate and empower civic organizations while still allowing them to maintain their uniqueness. For example, we might provide shared tools to enable organizations to better manage their client relationships without limiting each organization's way of working. Put another way, we intend to be the platform, not own the "content".
UI is not UX All too often, "user experience (UX)" is equated with the visual "user interface (UI)" for a particular user population and task. We recognize that the notion of user experience must broadly encompass the total experience of all constituents over time.
Start Small, Partner, and Iterate Our initial focus will be on the most promising opportunities, working with non-profit partners, starting with limited scope. We test in the field and iterate based on actual results. This approach is about focus, speed and efficiency.
Be Diverse, Inclusive, and Nonpartisan It is imperative that civics embrace absolutely everybody, without bias. We believe fundamentally that diversity results in better outcomes. We work with partners who espouse these principles to create solutions that promote them.
Remain Independent Our loyalty is to society at large, and our "profit" is the net positive impact achieved. We are therefore organized as a non-profit, and we set our priorities accordingly.
Engage Government Strategically By developing collective solutions, we recognize that we may gain the participation and data to eventually engage government entities in beneficial fact-based policy changes, partnerships, and funding. These are important future opportunities and responsibilities. But, government engagement is complicated. Therefore, absent a strong government sponsor, we prefer to begin by solving immediate problems directly with civic partners.

Partners, Further Reading, and References

Our work is informed through work with other organizations, their missions, and their research.

The Westside Coalition, of which we are a member, who represent the majority of social service organizations in West Los Angeles. We have presented at one monthly meeting.
We are collaborating with the Volunteer Collective on new solutions related to volunteer management.
We partnered with Love The City Center and Food Cycle LA to launch our Efficio solution at a large weekly pantry in West Los Angeles.
MITGOV/LAB, notably this article which cogently articulates important principles in applying technology to civic problems.
Professional volunteer organizations, like US Digital Response and Executive Service Corps, who recognize the value of applying deep expertise to complex problems.
General technology volunteer organizations, like Code for America that work to engage a broad variety of individuals in civic challenges.

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