Creating opportunities for civic technologists in training is a crucial part of Florida Community Innovation (FCI)’s mission. We’re often asked by our nonprofit partners: what advice would you give to other organizations looking to engage with educational institutions on civic tech efforts in a sustainable way? This guide is an overview of FCI’s advice on how nonprofits can work with students to build technology to make the world a better place.
What is Civic Tech?
According to Cyd Harrell, author of “A Civic Technologist’s Practice Guide”, “Civic tech is a loosely integrated movement that brings together the strengths of the private-sector tech world (its people, methods, or actual technology) to public entities with the aim or making government more responsive, efficient, modern, and more just.” The realm of civic tech also takes place outside of government, where the collaborative efforts of individuals and communities develop technologies and/or initiatives to address community needs or reduce gaps in resource access.
Florida Community Innovation (FCI)’s Florida Resource Map (FRM) is an example of a civic tech project, built in partnership with local stakeholders, student interns, and volunteers. This comprehensive map of available local resources in Florida empowers Floridians to engage with public services in a way outside of typical government engagement.
Student Involvement in Civic Tech Projects
As the interest in civic tech increases, so do opportunities for collaboration between nonprofits, volunteer organizations, and students. Universities and colleges have increased their course offerings on civic tech, and civic tech organizations increasingly provide opportunities for students to collaborate with them. Initiatives like the U.S. Digital Corps fellowship and Coding it Forward fellowship provide additional professional development and skill-building opportunities for early career civic tech professionals.
This presents a special chance for civic tech organizations, especially nonprofits, to team up with universities. This can involve teams of student developers, UX designers, or program evaluators, to name a few of the options for collaboration. Some universities have capstone course programs, where graduate and undergraduate students focus on providing services to clients, where your organization can serve as the client.
Multiple perspectives are valuable when working on projects like technology, marketing, research, and planning. Students bring in new thoughts that encourage others to rethink how they have done things. Civic tech groups benefit from the open-ended iteration and ongoing maintenance that students can provide – both in a volunteer capacity and projects that can fulfill degree requirements.
Many graduate schools also partner with civic organizations and government agencies to offer internships and other hands-on learning opportunities for students. Through these partnerships, graduate students can gain valuable real-world experience while also contributing to the development of innovative solutions for your organization’s challenges.
Accountability Mechanisms
The collaborations with students can serve as a valuable mechanism to assess your projects’ effectiveness. Master’s degree programs frequently feature capstone projects completed over a semester or academic year, offering opportunities for comprehensive program evaluations.
Florida Community Innovation (FCI) partnered with multiple schools, including Georgetown University, University of Michigan, and American University, to evaluate the effectiveness of our flagship project, the Florida Resource Map (FRM), and our stakeholder outreach with the FRM. Given the opportunity to explore, research, and reach their own conclusions, graduate students provide a valuable, outside perspective and analysis on the work of an organization.
By working with graduate students, nonprofits that normally wouldn’t have the resources for in-depth impact analysis can bridge this gap and form a mutually beneficial relationship. Students gain the opportunity to conduct real-world research, while nonprofits can outsource some of their work to these talented and motivated individuals.
Working With Students Outside of the Classroom
Nonprofits often face challenges in maintaining long-term volunteer commitment due to volunteers’ limited availability for extended engagement.
An exciting opportunity arises when nonprofits tap into the academic world. Nonprofits need volunteers, while students are looking for short to medium-term projects to sharpen their skills. By creating programs tailored to students who are interested in volunteering for a single semester, nonprofits can establish a steady stream of support with established programs/protocols.
When working with student volunteers, who are not earning academic credit from working with you, it’s crucial to recognize that they are students first. Many students work at different hours and have incredibly varied schedules. Volunteers should feel comfortable adjusting their level of involvement as needed. These principles foster a sustainable and most importantly, long-term partnership with volunteers.
How to Get Started
Tech Projects
FCI’s recent iteration of the Florida Resource Map was largely developed by a team of student interns based on input from our local government and nonprofit partners. We’ve implemented the following strategies to foster collaboration and optimize the development of the most recent iteration of the map:
- Technical Onboarding
New interns or volunteers may not initially have all of the full-stack web development skills to actively contribute to a project, which could deter them. Our robust onboarding process includes taking our crash course and doing a mini practice project, which helps students efficiently pick up these skills. This has resulted in a 60% increase in the active contributions made by students. This allows students from underrepresented groups who have a passion for public service to start engaging.
- Continuous Support
Throughout the development process, continuous support such as mentorship and check ins can help maintain students’ passion and confidence, and support them as they adjust. After onboarding, FCI matches new FRM interns with returning intern mentors to help transition to production quality tasks. We also hold office hours to help solve problems and walk them through how more experienced interns figured out novel problems.
- Student Accountability
We emphasize the importance of schoolwork with both interns and student volunteers, and also encourage students to be accountable for their assigned tasks. We track all tasks in an Agile project board and hold weekly stand ups where everyone shares what they are working on. Students can get class credit for their hard work, which also allows them to spend more time on developing the Florida Resource Map and furthering their skills.
- Align with Student Interest
Most projects have a range of different roles (front end, back end, UI, UX, etc.) New interns may be unsure of which exact role they want to take. We introduce the types of roles and allow interns to try them out, or switch to another team if they find another match.
Graduate Student Research Partnerships
Many department heads at leading universities prioritize experiential learning, considering it a top initiative. Graduate students are keen on gaining real-world experiences, and nonprofits are uniquely positioned to offer them.
While there’s a common misconception that nonprofits shouldn’t apply business tactics from the private sector, these strategies can help them leverage their competitive edge. Just like corporations tap into student talent, nonprofits can promote their opportunities for career advancement and growth. By positioning themselves as clients, nonprofit organizations can not only support capstone projects but also contribute to their essential mission simultaneously.
The first step in finding a research team is identifying contacts and relations in academia. Cold emailing or even introducing yourself to local academic institutions in person, may be an option. Start by looking for departments or even specific professors who have interests that align with what outcome you are looking for.
An important aspect of working with universities in this manner is to understand the students with whom you may be working. Graduate students are often a mix of established professionals and recent undergraduates. For many, this will be their first time submitting publishable research. Therefore, working with this team will be a different experience than working with full-time researchers. To effectively manage this relationship, set clear expectations, be communicative, and prepare to field questions.
When supervising a team of students, the best support you can is to be as specific as possible about what you envision for the deliverable. This will prevent any miscommunication on the final result and make the team’s delegation easier.
Just like getting a haircut from an apprentice barber, detailed instructions make the process easier and more productive for both parties. That said, it is important not to become a “helicopter parent” and hover over all the decisions students may make, stifling their creativity.
At the onset of your relationship, make sure to specify how often you will meet with the team and other expectations of your partnership. Too much guidance may pressure your team into giving you what they think you want to hear and not real results.
Encourage open communication about results no matter what they expose. Upon hearing feedback, it is important to consider these observations to help the organization grow.
Additionally, the supervisor of a team of graduate student researchers needs to be able to answer their questions. For those who commission non-local researchers, be prepared to answer questions about the idiosyncrasies of your locality.
For example, at FCI, we often commission research about Central Florida. To someone not from Florida, Central Florida means “roughly Disneyworld” or “somewhere around Orlando, does Tampa count? Miami?”. Even Floridians have disagreements. So, we prepared a packet to send to our researchers containing the demographic information on the seven counties that make up Central Florida. The big takeaway here is that communication is necessary for effective team management.
When getting your research delivered, it is important to show gratitude, but expect results. After all, this is a graded project.
Another important yet unique relationship to manage is that with the course instructor. They will want you to behave like real, paying clients, with real and honest feedback. This is what the professor expects as a part of their curriculum – to challenge their students while providing them with engaging real-life experience. Be sure to thank the instructor, and if all goes well, they should want to continue their partnership with your organization for future semesters.
Case Studies
The following case studies represent a few highlights of FCI’s partnerships with higher education institutions. Note that many of them are based outside of Florida, which reduces biases when asking them to conduct project evaluations for us.
University of Florida
Since 2021, FCI has partnered with the Bob Graham Center to hire cohorts of paid student interns each semester. Interns are able to develop their own projects or provide assistance to existing projects. While interning at FCI, students learn about topics including nonprofit management, civic technology, public policy, software development, and stakeholder engagement. This provides them with invaluable experience, learning how to develop and maintain cutting-edge civic tech to help the people of Florida.
Georgetown University
In 2022, a group from the McCourt School of Public Policy worked with FCI as a part of their capstone project. FCI gave the group a broad prompt: to investigate how the Resource Map could be improved and if an online resource map is the solution to connecting resources to those in need.
They adopted a multifaceted strategy, employing classroom principles to benefit an organization serving Floridians daily. Civic technology allows for this kind of cross-state collaboration, engaging many different stakeholders who are all looking to use innovation for the public good.
The students conducted an analysis to explore opportunities for enhancing the Florida Resource Map through collaboration with our partner organizations. Their report offers valuable insights, combining a literature review, landscape analysis, stakeholder interviews, and nonprofit data to guide improvements in FCI’s operations.
The team won McCourt’s 2023 Client-Based Capstone Prize for their project, “Reducing Resource Gaps in Florida through Human-Centered Technology.”
American University
In Spring 2022, FCI partnered with graduate student researchers in American University’s School of Public Affairs Department of Public Administration and Policy to conduct policy research about local governments and service provision in the State of Florida, looking to improve the Florida Community Resource Map.
Their investigation highlighted crucial aspects of municipal and nonprofit collaboration that were overlooked, leading to gaps in resource allocation. The team offered FCI recommendations on addressing this issue by promoting collaborations with municipalities and counties.
University of Michigan
In Fall 2021, FCI partnered with undergraduate researchers from the University Reach Consulting Group at the University of Michigan School of Information. These students worked with FCI to investigate the distribution and accessibility of resources throughout the Central Florida area.
Through a survey drafted and dispersed by FCI and the Central Florida Foundation, Reach compared the concentration of active resource providers across over fifteen counties in Central Florida.
Their research found that education and disability resources were especially sparse across almost all counties, except Orange County. Reach concluded that funding for such resources should be proportional to population size.
Questions to Think About Before Contacting Universities
Do we have a product or initiative that is established enough that can be revised meticulously by a group of student researchers?
Is there a team that we can delegate to specifically communicate with universities and students? What resources can be made available to the students?
Do we have a guideline of expectations and deliverables we are looking for?
How does our project align with the academic interests and expertise of the targeted universities?
How will ethical considerations be addressed through this project?
What logistical considerations need to be addressed, such as timelines or specific requirements or constraints?
Florida Community Innovation
The Florida Community Innovation Foundation (FCI) conducts groundbreaking work connecting Florida’s citizens with trusted information and resources to navigate challenging times. We do this by building innovative, human-centered technology, and conducting persuasive public education campaigns that move the needle on access to services and compliance with public health guidance.
FCI exists to empower young innovators to build scalable social services technology for their communities. We are a network of young professional volunteers and envision a Florida where everyone has equal access to trusted information, critical services, and rewarding careers.
About our Authors & Editors
Joshua Nemery is a sophomore at the University of Florida and is a FCI volunteer. He has worked on numerous FCI publications, including an op-ed that was published in the Orlando Sentinel.
Aniqa Ahmed is a 2023 graduate from the University of Florida and is a board member of FCI. Within FCI, she is involved in the external affairs team and help manage FCI’s different outreach projects.
Luke Li is a FCI intern studying Computer Science at the University of Florida. He enjoys software engineering and leads the team developing our flagship project, the Florida Resource Map (FRM). He enjoys tackling social challenges with technology and loves to see his apps go into production to serve real-world users.
Nicole Dan is the Vice-President of FCI’s board. At FCI, she volunteers her time quality-checking FCI’s external outreach and publications materials. She currently works at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration as a Broadband Programs Specialist.
Erin Enabnit is a current junior at the University of Florida, pursuing her BA in Political Science and BS in Public Relations. At FCI, Erin is the driving force behind our external affairs team, helping write press releases, scheduling our social media outreach, and supporting FCI’s partnerships with organizations across the state.
Claudia Garcia is a fourth-year Political Science major with a minor in Public Leadership and Environmental Justice and Policy. She is interested in public service and in using her skills to help solve major public issues. At FCI, she is a part of the external affairs team where she helps maintains and builds our partnerships with organizations across the state.
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