Steinberg: (Civic Tech) Paying Your Own Way (or Not) - Civicist

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PAYING YOUR OWN WAY (OR NOT)

It’s important to be able to talk honestly about not achieving
self-funding because it will stop impactful-but-not-profitable ideas
being distorted into impactless-but-possibly-profitable ideas.

By: Tom Steinberg Apr 8, 2016

It’s time to be honest about civic tech projects that can pay their
own way, and those that can’t.

Some civic tech projects are crafted with sustainable income streams
lovingly engineered into their DNA. I used to go slightly green with
envy when I thought of the sheer elegance of the Change.org business
model—charging NGOs to send email to petitioners who are known (thanks
to signing a petition) to be highly likely to support those NGOs’
causes. It was obviously a great service, and a great business, and
the whole thing grew like a balloon. And their CEO was charismatic and
good looking, too. It just wasn’t Fair.

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Received on Tuesday, 12 April 2016 13:52:02 UTC