Knight Foundation invests $800k in local civic engagement tools

The Knight Foundation is investing $815,000 in local civic engagement tools, the organization announced earlier this month.

Out of the four projects that Knight’s Tech for Engagement Initiative is funding, two have a Philly presence: Change By Us, a crowdsourced civic platform that Philly’s 2011 Code for America fellows implemented here, and OpenGovernment.org, a local government tracking service that the Knight Foundation says will be tested in Philly.

The bulk of the grants is going toward CEOs for Cities, the Chicago-based organization that developed Change By Us. The $590,000 grant will be used to upgrade the platform and implementing it in other cities more easily, according to the organization’s grant site. CEOS for Cities hopes to work with Philly on an upgrade, CEOs for Cities’ Manager of Research and Engagement Mark Ebner says nothing is set in stone yet. Currently, Change By Us is run by Drexel University.

The Knight Foundation is investing $225,000 in OpenGovernment.org, run by the Participatory Politics Foundation. Read more about it here.