Project Setup

Your project has been accepted into Civic Tech DC; congratulations! Now it’s time to prepare it for volunteers to join and contribute.

Project Setup covers the basic steps you need to complete before your first official Project Night. You don’t need to have everything figured out, but you should come prepared with a good pitch and enthusiasm for getting others involved.

For more detailed guidance on organizing your team, managing your project, or setting up technical tools, see our Lead a Project, Grow a Project, and Technical Resources guides.

1. Document Your Project

Before recruiting volunteers, make sure your project has a clear purpose and a realistic starting point.

Complete the Project Brief Template to document the problem you’re trying to solve and what you hope to build or accomplish. You can also reuse this brief as a one-pager to help onboard new contributors and introduce them to your project, so you won’t have to start from scratch later.

2. Identify Contributor Needs

Think about what kinds of contributions your project needs and what volunteers can realistically work on. Complete the Volunteer Contributor Needs Template to identify roles, and refer to the Contributor Pathways page for ideas on how volunteers can get involved.

3. Set Up Your Project Tools

Every project needs a central place for contributors to find information, communicate, and work together.

Before your first Project Night, make sure you have:

• A project Slack channel. Create a channel in the Civic Tech DC Slack workspace for your team. You should make it public so people can find and join your project. Slack also allows you to add tabs at the top of a channel for onboarding documents, links, and other resources.
• A GitHub repository, if your project involves code.
• A shared location for project documentation. Google Drive is a good option and makes contributors have appropriate access.

For instructions on GitHub access, repositories, and other tools, visit Technical Resources.

4. Prepare for Your First Project Night

Your first Project Night is an opportunity to introduce your project to the community and begin building your team. Come prepared to explain what you’re working on and what you need help with. For more guidance on running Project Nights, see Lead a Project.