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Participedia harnesses the power of collaboration to respond to a recent global phenomenon: the rapid development of experiments in new forms of participatory politics and governance around the world. We live in a world in which citizens of most countries are asking for greater involvement in collective decisions. Many governments, non-governmental organizations, and even some corporations are responding by experimenting with ways to increase public participation. Hundreds of thousands of participatory processes occur each year in almost every country in the world. They are adressing a wide variety of political and policy problems. And they often supplement and sometimes compete with more traditional forms of politics, such as representative democracy. Participedia responds to these developments by providing a low-cost, easy way for hundreds of researchers and practitioners from across the globe to catalogue and compare the performance of participatory political processes.

HOW ARE CITIZEN SCIENTISTS USING OPEN HARDWARE TO MAKE GROUNDBREAKING DISCOVERIES?

Welcome! We are the Devon Doughnut Collective, a group of Devon Doughnut Makers on a mission to co-create the first iteration of a Devon Doughnut. We are asking, "Could a dashboard of some kind help to provide a picture of how Devon is faring ecologically and economically? Would this be useful to people living and working here? If so, how, and to do what?"

Terran Collective is building Hylo, a platform for amplifying cooperation among people doing the important work of regenerating our communities and our planet. You're invited to join us on this epic mission as a founding stakeholder - we need your help!

WHAT IF WE BUILT OUR COMMUNITIES AROUND PLACES? As both an overarching idea and a hands-on approach for improving a neighborhood, city, or region, Placemaking inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community. Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share, Placemaking refers to a collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm in order to maximize shared value. More than just promoting better urban design, Placemaking facilitates creative patterns of use, paying particular attention to the physical, cultural, and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution.

The Resistance Manual is an open-source platform to harness the collective power of the people to resist the impact of a Trump presidency and to continue to make progress in our communities. The Resistance Manual is focused on presenting truthful and actionable information. All content is reviewed for accuracy and relevance before being posted. Already, thousands of pieces of content have been contributed to the site from people all over the country, helping to keep communities informed and ready for the work ahead.

The World Bank is the largest single source of development knowledge. The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) is The World Bank's official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products. Through the OKR, The World Bank collects, disseminates, and permanently preserves its intellectual output in digital form. The OKR is interoperable with other repositories and supports optimal discoverability and re-usability of the content by complying with Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) standards and the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).

Sourcemap is the open collection of supply chains and environmental footprints. Visit sourcemap.com for more information.

Our Theory of Change The Network is about: Building community demand for results, by mobilizing residents and stakeholders around an equity agenda creating opportunity for families and transforming neighborhoods. The Network is about higher aspirations, and about providing both the expectation of a better future as well as the connections and collective power to pursue it. Creating new connections to systems and organizations by creating new avenues and approaches for interacting with systems that otherwise pose barriers. Transforming the environment to sustain the change, creating family-centered, equitable, results-focused systems that work for all families. Holding ourselves and others accountable for what we say we are doing in community.

Collectively, we have it backwards. The vast majority of our amassed intelligence and imagination is consumed by commerce, from grand efforts to build wealth to granular activities like selling movie tickets and deodorant. While we donate some time and treasure, efforts that serve the greater good are severely undermanned.

Founded in 1991, Living Cities is an innovative collaborative of 22 of the world's largest foundations and financial institutions. In nearly 20 years Living Cities members have collectively invested almost $1 billion, helping shape federal funding programs, redirecting public and private resources, and helping communities to build homes, stores, schools, community facilities and more. However, our members are not simply funders. They shape our work and priorities by participating on the Living Cities Board of Directors, four standing committees and three working groups. In sum, our members contribute the time of 80-plus expert program staff toward improving the lives of low-income people and the cities where they live. - See more at: http://www.livingcities.org/about/#sthash.Wkj6TLk6.dpuf

Our Philosophy & Guiding Principles Social systems work as they do because of how we work - how we think and interact. Our habitual ways of thinking and acting typically lead to change efforts shaped by mechanical problem solving and unproductive competition, often among otherwise well-intentioned interveners. In effect, we try to control complex processes that cannot be controlled, and in so doing miss the real opportunities for deeper and more long-lasting change. By contrast, natural systems demonstrate harmony, balance, integration, and ongoing evolution. The new knowledge we see emerging in the world shapes organic processes of change that result in social systems that are more resilient, sustainable, and adaptive. These "integral" learning and change processes knit "inner" and "outer" change, and are both deeply personal and inherently collective.

The problem is that we use these powers in historically/culturally path dependent ways so the tensions become more acute. The rationalism of the nation-state as a system-hierarchy is good when talking to other states (treaty writing as per Kyoto or the Treaty of Rome), or when universal rules are needed (eg tax collection) but bad at the particular (eg helping troubled families). Passion-populism is critical for mobilisation but can also be corrosive as it fails to offer any real solutions (see UKIP et al). Creative-civic power is good at adapting resources, institutions, and policies to particular needs or ambitions but it is bad at universal welfare and justice. It can also be just as failure prone as passion politics and hierarchy (it's hard and complex to confront particular, local and personal challenges).

Sustainable Cities Collective is an editorially independent, moderated community for leaders of major metropolitan areas, urban planning and sustainability professionals. We look to aggregate content and provide resources for all who work in or are interested in urban planning, sustainable development and urban economics. Looking at issues such as transportation, building practices, community planning & development, education, water, health and infrastructure, we hope to create a community where people can get involved and learn about the advances in how cities are becoming smarter and greener in the 21st century.

YouGov is a professional research and consulting organization, pioneering the use of technology to collect higher quality, in-depth data for companies, governments, and institutions so that they can better serve the people that sustain them. Used by the Economist

Mutual Awakening is a powerful spiritual opening that occurs between two or more individuals who have turned toward each other in a gesture of profound sensitivity and vulnerability. This profound level of connection brings us into an inner world that exists between us. This shared inner space, sometimes called inter-subjectivity or 'we-space,' is a new frontier in consciousness. Most of us have very little access to it, but over the course of the next few decades our society will develop a capacity for experiencing inter-subjectivity that will rival our current access to individual consciousness.

People Pioneers is a new concept being tested in the 2015 UK general election. Whatever their political interests or Party affiliation,  Stephen will be encouraging people from all walks of life to listen systematically to each other across communities, to identify collective strengths, common concerns and key aspirations from within the whole constituency.   Stephen will work with People Pioneers to shape a broad based, independent organisation able to inform and support elected members - and hold them to account.   If elected to Westminster, Stephen pledges to meet regularly with the Pioneers for reflection, conversation, dialogue, discussion and action planning. 

Family Independence Initiative (FII) is a national nonprofit which leverages the power of information to illuminate and accelerate the initiative low-income families take to improve their lives. Using hard data and compelling stories, we are sparking a movement to transform the stereotypes, beliefs, practices, and policies that undermine families' efforts to get ahead. FII believes that our country is greatly underestimating the ability of low-income families to lead their own change. FII has tracked the progress of hundreds of families over the last decade and found that the lack of upward mobility is not the result of a lack of initiative but can be traced to two other factors: 1. Lack of information, and therefore lack of investment, in the initiatives low-income families take on their own or collectively. In order to access services and programs, families have to show neediness instead of initiative(bolstering already prevalent negative stereotyping). 2. Negative stereotypes and the focus on individualism have led to government and charitable practices that discourage families from turning to one another and developing the mutuality that historically built America's middle class.

The Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative has launched a new website to share information about our collective efforts to combat homelessness. The website includes information on Homeless Initiative at work including real life stories of clients whose lives have been transformed, quarterly progress reports, educational information about Measure H, and latest news. 

Arts and culture are a deep and intrinsic part of every community. Across the United States there are over 113,000 organizations dedicated to many aspects of cultural life. This activity encompasses a broad range of disciplines that ranges from performing arts production and presentation, to visual arts exhibition, to arts education and arts in healthcare, to preservation and interpretation of our collective heritage.