About how to create and finance public projects in the field of e-Government
Several times I have already raised this topic - how exactly various civil and public projects are being created and financed, this time I will take a closer look at this topic and describe with examples how this happens in the world and in Russia.
These two questions are so closely intertwined that they are connected inseparably. How exactly projects are created, who initiates them, strongly depends on where they receive funding, if it is necessary at all. Projects are very different. Simple and complex. Created by one person and hundreds of volunteers. Based on crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. Of course, on open data and not only. However, they all can be clearly categorized.
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Projects can be divided into the following groups:
- projects for grants of non-profit organizations (within the country);
- projects created by grants from international organizations;
- projects created by the state order;
- projects created by existing non-profit organizations to support their activities;
- commercial projects;
- personal “projects-impulses” from initiative citizens;
- crowdfunding
- media projects created by the media
And also on each of the approaches I will tell in more detail.
In fact, these are projects created within the framework of a non-commercial grant financing within one country. If we talk about Russia, such funding goes through the grants of the president, but there are few projects that have visible results on the Internet. At best, reports. If we talk about other countries, many of the projects known to us in the US were funded by the Sunlight Foundation, here on their website the full list includes projects such as FollowTheMoney and OpenCongress.
You can receive such grants by actively searching for them and preparing applications for them. The main problem, usually, is that in Russia the grants of the public chamber are distributed once a year by competition, and the rest of non-profit funds are in no hurry to invest in civil projects.
There is a considerable number of international organizations engaged in financing projects involving citizens around the world. These are the organizations of the Soros Foundation (Open Society Institute), the Hewlett Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the USAID, the UKAID, various European programs and many others. These organizations select and finance projects, mainly in their specialized areas.
One of the projects created with international money is a project like AidData - aiddata.org . It was created precisely by means of international funds.
There are also many similar projects in Russia, but the overwhelming majority of them do not advertise that they received an external grant. Because in Russia it is always associated with politics, sometimes correctly associated, but not always.
Projects created by the state order
Such projects are many and few. Here are some examples of global projects for public funds: USASpending.gov , Data.gov , Data.gov.uk and all other open data portals.
In Russia, these are such projects as:
- The bill zakonoproject2011.ru - discussion of some laws initiated by the President of our-with-you-federation
- Soldiers of Victory soldaty-pobedy.ru - Rosokhrankultura project for crowdsourcing information about those killed in World War II.
- Windows of Russia. Folk photo chronicle. oknatass.ru - project of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media
- TakZdorovo.ru. The draft program “Healthy Russia. takzdorovo.ru - project to maintain a healthy lifestyle
With projects on state orders, there is almost always one big problem - a strong bureaucratization of their development. Even when you manage to create them, they don’t go any further.
The state is, in principle, a poor customer for such projects, since most of these projects are based on personalities and their personal drive, which is not applicable for government projects in the vast majority of cases.
Most of these projects are created very slowly. It is very difficult to “sell” the project to the state structure, in many respects due to the limitations of 94- for which it will be necessary to launch a tender / auction of quotations and when preparing requirements for a specific system it can easily be challenged in the antimonopoly service. In other words, there are a lot of restrictions and such projects are still very rare and not only in Russia, but also in the whole world.
Projects created by existing non-profit organizations to support their activities
This is one of the most common ways to create civil projects, when there is a non-profit organization and so dealing with any topic - the openness of information, saving belkov, protecting children and so on. There are many such organizations and many of them over time understand that using the Internet to crowdsource activities, to involve citizens in order to better communicate their work is necessary. Therefore, they create social technology projects that are convenient for everyone.
From recent examples. The GOLOS project - stat.golos.org - is just an example of the _technologization_ of the activities of a non-profit organization. The same projects include the project aiddata.org - created on the basis of the previously existing base of financial donors PLAID and turned into an online project for the disclosure of such information.
In Europe and the United States, such projects are now the basis of the trend, and it is for them that philanthropists and grantors make money much easier, especially when such projects provide for crowdfunding.
But commercial public projects are very, very few. As well as in principle, there are few successful local startups. One of the most notable is Socrata , an open data publishing service. He has a very clear business model for receiving money from the structures that run the Open Government Directive in the United States.
The problem with such projects is that it is not clear what kind of business model they should have. If you take money from government agencies, then it is very difficult to balance between the public of the project and its connection with state bodies. If you take money from citizens, it is not clear why. If for the implementation of certain state functions, it is very, very incorrect.
These projects can also include various civil projects that have a publicly accessible web interface, as well as mobile applications distributed for a nominal fee of about 1 USD.
This also includes projects for the aggregation of procurement information, both in Russia and in other countries.
In any case, such projects are few.
These projects are the most. In fact, they can include all those projects that citizens do on their own, "because they want to". They can be conditionally divided into those projects that are made in the framework of various competitions, and those that are created on their own initiative, but this division will be very conditional because outwardly they may not differ at all.
To such projects I can refer the project OpenGovData.ru created by me
And here you can include a large number of projects of winners of such competitions as the World Bank competition and many others. There are hundreds of such projects in the world and, in fact, developers who do projects on their own initiative are the most active creators of civic engagement tools.
This is exactly what we almost do not have. But like all over the world. Crowdfunding requires, first of all, the willingness of people to donate. At the same time, it is very and very difficult to convey to a large mass of citizens the need for a particular project, civil initiatives, and so on. Most, choosing between donating $ 20 to sick children or a civilian project, will prefer children. And this is understandable, people more often donate money when they have an “emotional lead”. But, in any case, they don’t like to donate in Russia. Our country has a very low rating in the World Giving Index (WGI), we are there 138th . In Europe, WGI is worse only in Greece, Ukraine, Serbia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania. But this is a combination of parameters - the willingness to help financially, the willingness to be a volunteer (-koy) and the willingness to help a stranger. And if we talk about financial donations, then only Lithuania, Ukraine and Georgia are worse than in Russia.
Building a project funding model for crowdfunding in Russia, we need to take into account our specifics.
Media projects are another format of public projects that are being created by the media or, with their orders, with the goals to increase their own capitalization, increase readability, improve the quality of materials, search for new forms of interaction with the audience, and so on.
There are many such projects. Some of them are created from scratch. Some projects are bought by media holdings.
Here are some examples of global projects:
- PostPolitics - Washington Post project on the visualization of congressmen and their work
- Mapping Ameriica: Every City, Every Block - New York Times project on visualization of the census results in various sections
As one of the examples of Russian projects I will quote Gosludi commissioned by Polit.ru.
What can be advised to those who want to do similar projects in Russia or in other countries.
1. Be sure to see what the activists are doing in Russia and around the world. First of all, it makes sense to look at the results of contests on the use of open data, as well as the mashup in the field of e-Government, for example, ProgrammableWeb
2. Pay attention to already announced contests and submit your ideas to them. And it is not necessary that the competition was Russian. It makes sense to take part in international competitions.
3. View open data catalogs in Russia and in the world. It is quite possible that in them you will be able to find something that will lead you to the idea of ​​how to make something useful from this data.
4. Communicate, write off with other activists, with the creators of similar projects in the world.
5. If you have an idea, do not be lazy to embody it in the form of a prototype.
6. Feel free to consult, submit ideas for discussion. In my experience, the likelihood of "theft of ideas" in the field of public projects is almost zero. Since, unlike conventional startups, business models, most often, are not defined for these projects.
7. Use one of the methods of raising funds that I described above.
How are such projects created and for what money?
These two questions are so closely intertwined that they are connected inseparably. How exactly projects are created, who initiates them, strongly depends on where they receive funding, if it is necessary at all. Projects are very different. Simple and complex. Created by one person and hundreds of volunteers. Based on crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. Of course, on open data and not only. However, they all can be clearly categorized.
')
Projects can be divided into the following groups:
- projects for grants of non-profit organizations (within the country);
- projects created by grants from international organizations;
- projects created by the state order;
- projects created by existing non-profit organizations to support their activities;
- commercial projects;
- personal “projects-impulses” from initiative citizens;
- crowdfunding
- media projects created by the media
And also on each of the approaches I will tell in more detail.
Projects for grants of non-profit organizations (within the country)
In fact, these are projects created within the framework of a non-commercial grant financing within one country. If we talk about Russia, such funding goes through the grants of the president, but there are few projects that have visible results on the Internet. At best, reports. If we talk about other countries, many of the projects known to us in the US were funded by the Sunlight Foundation, here on their website the full list includes projects such as FollowTheMoney and OpenCongress.
You can receive such grants by actively searching for them and preparing applications for them. The main problem, usually, is that in Russia the grants of the public chamber are distributed once a year by competition, and the rest of non-profit funds are in no hurry to invest in civil projects.
Projects created by grants of international organizations
There is a considerable number of international organizations engaged in financing projects involving citizens around the world. These are the organizations of the Soros Foundation (Open Society Institute), the Hewlett Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the USAID, the UKAID, various European programs and many others. These organizations select and finance projects, mainly in their specialized areas.
One of the projects created with international money is a project like AidData - aiddata.org . It was created precisely by means of international funds.
There are also many similar projects in Russia, but the overwhelming majority of them do not advertise that they received an external grant. Because in Russia it is always associated with politics, sometimes correctly associated, but not always.
Projects created by the state order
Such projects are many and few. Here are some examples of global projects for public funds: USASpending.gov , Data.gov , Data.gov.uk and all other open data portals.
In Russia, these are such projects as:
- The bill zakonoproject2011.ru - discussion of some laws initiated by the President of our-with-you-federation
- Soldiers of Victory soldaty-pobedy.ru - Rosokhrankultura project for crowdsourcing information about those killed in World War II.
- Windows of Russia. Folk photo chronicle. oknatass.ru - project of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media
- TakZdorovo.ru. The draft program “Healthy Russia. takzdorovo.ru - project to maintain a healthy lifestyle
With projects on state orders, there is almost always one big problem - a strong bureaucratization of their development. Even when you manage to create them, they don’t go any further.
The state is, in principle, a poor customer for such projects, since most of these projects are based on personalities and their personal drive, which is not applicable for government projects in the vast majority of cases.
Most of these projects are created very slowly. It is very difficult to “sell” the project to the state structure, in many respects due to the limitations of 94- for which it will be necessary to launch a tender / auction of quotations and when preparing requirements for a specific system it can easily be challenged in the antimonopoly service. In other words, there are a lot of restrictions and such projects are still very rare and not only in Russia, but also in the whole world.
Projects created by existing non-profit organizations to support their activities
This is one of the most common ways to create civil projects, when there is a non-profit organization and so dealing with any topic - the openness of information, saving belkov, protecting children and so on. There are many such organizations and many of them over time understand that using the Internet to crowdsource activities, to involve citizens in order to better communicate their work is necessary. Therefore, they create social technology projects that are convenient for everyone.
From recent examples. The GOLOS project - stat.golos.org - is just an example of the _technologization_ of the activities of a non-profit organization. The same projects include the project aiddata.org - created on the basis of the previously existing base of financial donors PLAID and turned into an online project for the disclosure of such information.
In Europe and the United States, such projects are now the basis of the trend, and it is for them that philanthropists and grantors make money much easier, especially when such projects provide for crowdfunding.
Commercial projects
But commercial public projects are very, very few. As well as in principle, there are few successful local startups. One of the most notable is Socrata , an open data publishing service. He has a very clear business model for receiving money from the structures that run the Open Government Directive in the United States.
The problem with such projects is that it is not clear what kind of business model they should have. If you take money from government agencies, then it is very difficult to balance between the public of the project and its connection with state bodies. If you take money from citizens, it is not clear why. If for the implementation of certain state functions, it is very, very incorrect.
These projects can also include various civil projects that have a publicly accessible web interface, as well as mobile applications distributed for a nominal fee of about 1 USD.
This also includes projects for the aggregation of procurement information, both in Russia and in other countries.
In any case, such projects are few.
Personal projects from enterprising citizens
These projects are the most. In fact, they can include all those projects that citizens do on their own, "because they want to". They can be conditionally divided into those projects that are made in the framework of various competitions, and those that are created on their own initiative, but this division will be very conditional because outwardly they may not differ at all.
To such projects I can refer the project OpenGovData.ru created by me
And here you can include a large number of projects of winners of such competitions as the World Bank competition and many others. There are hundreds of such projects in the world and, in fact, developers who do projects on their own initiative are the most active creators of civic engagement tools.
Crowdfunding
This is exactly what we almost do not have. But like all over the world. Crowdfunding requires, first of all, the willingness of people to donate. At the same time, it is very and very difficult to convey to a large mass of citizens the need for a particular project, civil initiatives, and so on. Most, choosing between donating $ 20 to sick children or a civilian project, will prefer children. And this is understandable, people more often donate money when they have an “emotional lead”. But, in any case, they don’t like to donate in Russia. Our country has a very low rating in the World Giving Index (WGI), we are there 138th . In Europe, WGI is worse only in Greece, Ukraine, Serbia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania. But this is a combination of parameters - the willingness to help financially, the willingness to be a volunteer (-koy) and the willingness to help a stranger. And if we talk about financial donations, then only Lithuania, Ukraine and Georgia are worse than in Russia.
Building a project funding model for crowdfunding in Russia, we need to take into account our specifics.
Media projects created by the media
Media projects are another format of public projects that are being created by the media or, with their orders, with the goals to increase their own capitalization, increase readability, improve the quality of materials, search for new forms of interaction with the audience, and so on.
There are many such projects. Some of them are created from scratch. Some projects are bought by media holdings.
Here are some examples of global projects:
- PostPolitics - Washington Post project on the visualization of congressmen and their work
- Mapping Ameriica: Every City, Every Block - New York Times project on visualization of the census results in various sections
As one of the examples of Russian projects I will quote Gosludi commissioned by Polit.ru.
How to run projects
What can be advised to those who want to do similar projects in Russia or in other countries.
1. Be sure to see what the activists are doing in Russia and around the world. First of all, it makes sense to look at the results of contests on the use of open data, as well as the mashup in the field of e-Government, for example, ProgrammableWeb
2. Pay attention to already announced contests and submit your ideas to them. And it is not necessary that the competition was Russian. It makes sense to take part in international competitions.
3. View open data catalogs in Russia and in the world. It is quite possible that in them you will be able to find something that will lead you to the idea of ​​how to make something useful from this data.
4. Communicate, write off with other activists, with the creators of similar projects in the world.
5. If you have an idea, do not be lazy to embody it in the form of a prototype.
6. Feel free to consult, submit ideas for discussion. In my experience, the likelihood of "theft of ideas" in the field of public projects is almost zero. Since, unlike conventional startups, business models, most often, are not defined for these projects.
7. Use one of the methods of raising funds that I described above.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/119282/
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