Finding Your People
Identify your project team, stakeholders, and community partners.“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” — Henry Ford
For your project to succeed, you need to think carefully about who needs to be involved, what they bring to the project, and how they can participate. There are three groups to think about: the volunteers who will make up your team, external stakeholders who can offer different perspectives, and the community partner(s) who help keep the project grounded in a real-world problem.
You don’t need to have everyone identified at this stage of the process, just a good understanding.
Your Internal Team
Section titled “Your Internal Team”One of the strengths of Civic Tech DC is that we bring together folks with very different skills and experiences. Yes, the traditional developers are important, but so are designers, organizers, researchers, and policy experts who can complement each other.
For example, while a developer might build a tool, a designer helps understand what users actually need. There are many times when a tool is built, but when brought to the community for feedback, the developers learn that the community doesn’t need it or find it useful. Having multiple perspectives means you can approach the same problem from different angles.
Here are some perspectives you might want on your team:
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Developers who can build and maintain the technical tools.
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Designers and user researchers who can understand user needs.
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Researchers and analysts who can work with data.
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Community organizers who can build relationships.
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Project managers who can help organize tasks and keep the team moving.
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Writers who can develop documentation.
These are just examples. People don’t need to fit neatly into one role, and someone might want to contribute skills outside their professional background. You can explore more examples in our Participation Pathways guide.
Think about what each person could own, rather than simply assigning people tasks. Someone interested in research might lead interviews and problem discovery. Someone who wants to develop their design skills might take ownership of user testing and prototyping.
It is also worth asking what your team doesn’t have. If everyone on the team is technical, you may need to intentionally bring in people who understand the community or policy environment. If everyone is an organizer, you may need technical support. The goal is not to have every skill represented equally, but to recognize where your team’s perspective has gaps.
Expand to the Stakeholders
Section titled “Expand to the Stakeholders”Your internal team will only see part of the problem, and sometimes, after you’ve been working on a project for a long time, it becomes harder to identify your own assumptions. Civic Tech DC projects benefit from bringing in people who experience the problem or have expertise in the issue you’re trying to address.
Your external network might include a journalist who can highlight your work in a blog, a researcher who has spent years studying the issue, or a government employee who understands how an existing process works.
It’s important to acknowledge that this network may develop later in the project, once people can see what you’re working on and how they can help. However, having a list of potential stakeholders in mind early on is useful.
The important question is not simply “Who can use our product?” It is:
“Who can help us understand this problem better and make the project more useful?”
Also, not every stakeholder needs to become a formal project partner. Some might offer feedback once, while others may stay involved throughout the project. Here are a few ways stakeholders might contribute:
- Advisors: Answer questions, share expertise, or review ideas periodically.
- Research or design partners: Participate in interviews or help test potential solutions.
- Champions: Introduce the project to people who could benefit from it or help spread the word about its work.
Create Different Pathways for Participation
Section titled “Create Different Pathways for Participation”Not everyone you talk to needs to become a formal project partner. In fact, sometimes asking folks for a large commitment pushes them away, not because they don’t want to help, but because they don’t have the time.
Instead, create different levels of participation depending on what someone can offer and what you need from them. Pay attention to their level of interest and availability before asking for a larger commitment. It’s often better to start small and build the relationship over time.
For example:
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One-time participants: Someone might participate in an interview or test a prototype to help you understand the problem.
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Advisors: A researcher or subject-matter expert might answer questions or review ideas periodically.
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Research or design partners: A community organization might help recruit users, conduct interviews, or test possible solutions.
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Implementation partners: A government office or nonprofit might eventually integrate the tool into its existing work.
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Champions: Another organization might introduce the project to people who could benefit from it or help share its work.
These aren’t necessarily permanent categories. Someone who starts by participating in an interview might become an advisor, while an organization that initially provides feedback might eventually take a more active role.
Think of partnership as a pathway rather than a binary decision. Someone doesn’t have to say “yes, I will partner with your project” before you can learn from them.
Your Community Partner
Section titled “Your Community Partner”For a project intended to have real-world impact, you should eventually have a person or organization that can tell you whether you’re solving a problem that actually matters.
This could be a nonprofit, community organization, or group of people directly affected by the issue. Unlike a stakeholder who might provide occasional advice or feedback, a community partner has an ongoing role in helping guide the project and keeping it connected to the people it is intended to serve.
For community-initiated projects, an organization may already be involved. For volunteer-initiated projects, finding this relationship is one of the project lead’s most important responsibilities.
Your partner doesn’t necessarily need to promise that they’ll use your final product. Early in the project, their most important role may simply be to help you understand what’s actually happening. Talk to them about how the problem works today. What do people currently do? What would make a new tool genuinely useful? What would make it difficult to adopt?
This is especially important because the problem your team initially identifies may not be the problem that needs solving. An organization might tell you that its challenge is a lack of information, only for interviews to reveal that the real issue is that information is difficult to act on. A government office might say it needs a new tool, while frontline staff explain that the existing process is the real bottleneck.
Your partner should therefore be more than a potential customer or recipient of your finished product. They should help you test your assumptions throughout the project.
Remember that your partner may have limited time and competing priorities. Be clear about what you’re asking for, follow up, and make it easy for them to provide feedback.
You should also think about what happens after the project is built. If the goal is for a community organization to eventually use or maintain the work, that conversation should begin early.