Support BetaNYC this #GivingTuesday

Left to right: Civic Innovation Fellows, BetaNYC’s Director of Civic Innovation Fellow Emily Goldman, and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer.

Friends of BetaNYC,

We are very thankful for this past year and the opportunity we’ve had to improve New York City. On this #GivingTuesday, we ask for your help move our mission forward.

BetaNYC is a fiscally sponsored non-profit organized by two-full time staff members, nine ops-team volunteers, and you! Every year, we rely on donations (large and small) to develop new programming, maintain digital infrastructure, and organize events. Your donations help us keep government accountable by monitoring initiatives, testifying at hearings, and educating city agencies. At NYC School of Data, we use donations to provide childcare, and feed you.

For the past eight years, we have built a thriving civic technology, design, and open data community here in the NYC metro area. Additionally, as part of Code for America’s Brigade program, we participate in a national network of civic-tech and good governance groups which has helped inspire many of the tools and policies we advocate for.

If you want to move our open data advocacy into action, please donate here.

Just last week, the City Council Speaker announced Legistar’s API. Now, you can programmatically access the City’s source code! This win culminates years of advocacy for programmatic access to our laws and legislation. Yes, this might be the wonkiest of wonky wins, but are we not in the 21st century?

Speaking of legislative wins, the City Council passed a significant update to the City open data law. Now, we will get a bi-annual open review of the open data technical standards manual, an open data coordinator at every agency, and a data set of datasets outlining compliance, standards, and automation!

THESE ARE FUNDAMENTAL WINS FOR BETTER MUNICIPAL DATA IN NYC.

We are more than an open data advocacy group; this year…

  • We launched a civic innovation lab to improve community board operations and train our fourth cohort of civic innovation fellows. We are doing this with Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer, CUNY Service Corps, Fund for the City of New York, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
  • We launched BoardStat and a comprehensive open data analytics curriculum. BoardStat is an NYC 311 service request dashboard designed by community boards for community boards; this dashboard is helping community boards understand service request trends and moving our open data advocacy into action.
  • We hosted NYC largest community driven #civictech & #opendata conference – NYC School of Data — and helped the city launch open data week.

Our activism, programs, and events are powered by you. Either by labor or capital, we need your support to make 2018 as awesome!!

If you want build a pipeline of community technologists who will battle discriminnovation, please donate here.

Thank you for being a part of BetaNYC. Together, we will use our skills to improve everyone’s lives.

BetaNYC’s leadership team
Alex, Ashley, Benjamin, Christian, Emily, Lauren, Noel, Tim, Farheen, Heather, Lexi

P.S. – From now and into 2018, we plan on updating The People’s Roadmap, our community visioning document. This activity will help us determine our advocacy agenda. Join us for our next workshop on Thursday, December 7th at Civic Hall.
https://www.meetup.com/betanyc/events/245258638/

P.P.S. Check to see if your employer will match your donation or the hours you’ve volunteered with us this year!

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