Nicolas Fonty and Barbara Brayshay have developed this model, with collaborators, for a civic learning and action platform.

They write:

This slide is an illustration of how this rich set of data and visualisations could be used to organise collaboration and co-production. Between communities themselves but also with universities, practitioners and possibly local authorities

1. How to share the specific expertise of each particular grass root community groups. How to create with it a bank of knowledge (on legal issues, planning issues, community gardening…) and know-how (how to register an asset of community value, how to foster participation, how to oppose a disruptive planning application.
2. How to track funding and make it reach grass root community groups.
3. How to connect important metropolitan supports to the platform and community groups. (how to get support from students, how to get in touch with pro bono practitioners, and so on…) Interactive mapping of the expertise, needs, support and funding are essential interfaces to organise and coordinate these connections.

The map would be just one tool of this collaborative platform that we could also describe as a Civic Innovation School (a concept from CivicWise). It would include other open digital tools besides the mapping (online resources, a wiki and a communication interface) + a series of labs and master classes dedicated to community-led issues (planning, training, medias, time banking, festivals…).

We are at the very beginning of these reflections but we presume that this project doesn’t need much funding to start because it is all about coordination, if we can convince the potential metropolitan supports to collaborate.