Introduction to Civic Say

In today’s rapidly evolving world, the voices of the communities are more crucial than ever. For charities, especially grant-makers, that are looking to make a difference, understanding the public sentiment and engaging effectively with communities can be a game-changer. This is where Civic Say comes in.

Civic Say is a comprehensive platform designed to enhance civic engagement (see what we did there?) and gather public opinions. It provides charities with the tools they need to connect with their audience, collect valuable feedback, and make informed decisions. In this post, we’ll explore how Civic Say came about and how it can empower your charity and transform not only transform the way you make decisions, but also the way you engage with your community.

Origin story

The idea came about due to Yasmin’s frustrations due to the lack of digital tools to support community panels to make decisions through a participatory-grant making model. Her process was to use an ordinary survey platform alongside Microsoft Excel to try and extract meaningful data from poll results. This was extremely time consuming as data had to be manually exported from the survey platform, inputted into Excel and then manipulated with formulas. Even then, the insights were limited and the process was very vulnerable to human error. Civic Say addresses these problems, abstracting away all of these manual efforts so that as soon as participant votes are casted on a poll, meaningful insights are instantly at the ready.

Key Features

• Engage with participants
  • You can create various types of engagements tailored to your needs. Whether it’s a survey, a poll, or a questionnaire, the platform supports multiple question types, including Likert scale questions, ranking, multiple-choice, free text responses, and word clouds.
• Real-time analytics
  • Having all of this data is useless unless you’re able to extract insights from it - our dashboard allows you to get real-time insights as soon as your participants submit their responses to your questions.
• Tagging and categorisation
  • Civic Say allows you to create tags for each engagement you create, making it easier to categorise different themes. This feature is particularly useful for tracking different campaigns, initiatives, or areas of interest, enabling you to analyse and compare data efficiently. For example, do you want to see how often youth-focussed initiatives are being funded? It’s as simple as exploring the charts and analytics for this tag.
• Anonymity and abstention options
  • To foster honest feedback, Civic Say allows for anonymous voting. This can be particularly useful when discussing sensitive topics, ensuring participants feel comfortable sharing their true thoughts. Additionally, the platform supports abstention options, enabling participants to opt-out of voting on specific issues without feeling pressured to provide an opinion, thus ensuring more accurate data collection.

Why your charity should use Civic Say

• Make informed decisions
  • The insights gained from Civic Say’s engagements offer a clear view of community needs and opinions. This data is invaluable in guiding your charity's strategy, ensuring resources are used effectively and programs are tailored to serve your audience better.
• Build Transparency and Trust
  • Actively seeking and acting on public feedback demonstrates transparency and accountability. This can enhance your charity’s reputation and build trust with funders and the community, which is crucial for long-term sustainability.
• Measure and Improve Impact
  • Civic Say allows you to track the effectiveness of your initiatives. By analysing feedback, you can identify what’s working and what isn’t and make the necessary adjustments to maximise your charity's positive impact.

Civic-Say introduces a paradigm shift from the traditional, siloed decision-making process to a more collaborative, data-driven approach. By providing digital infrastructure for decision-making tailored to the charity sector, Civic-Say empowers stakeholders at every level to engage actively, share insights, and collectively shape outcomes, moving towards a democratic framework that better serves the needs and aspirations of the communities charities engage with.

We aim to foster transparent, inclusive, and data-driven decision.

If you’d like to schedule a demo or learn more about the platform - get in touch with us on hello@civicsay.com