Open-source civic tech projects
See how nonprofits, legal clinics, researchers, community members, and other public-interest partners work with volunteers to validate needs, build in the open, and learn from what happens next.
Bring us a problem or an idea
You do not need a finished plan. Start a private conversation about the people affected, the need, and what you know so far. We will explore validation, fit, scope, and volunteer capacity with you.
Public-interest technology in practice
Every project starts with a real need or a promising idea. Partners and users help validate the problem; volunteers contribute product, data, design, development, research, policy, and project-management skills; and the team scopes work that can be tested in the open. Status labels below distinguish active Civic Tech DC work from past projects and independent projects that began in the community.
These examples are organized by the problems and audiences they serve, not by technology alone.
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Nonprofit data and operations
DC Reentry Housing documents an active coalition-data project, including what still needs validation. DARIA shows how an abortion fund's shared-spreadsheet workflow became open-source case-management software that is now maintained independently.
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Legal access and legal clinics
Clean Slate is a past project that paired legal-services expertise and attorney review with a limited eligibility-triage tool. Its archived status is part of the lesson.
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Journalism, research, and democracy
Data and Democracy is building a reproducible election-data workflow with an initial public-interest user. SpicyRegs helps people explore federal regulatory work.
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Community information and public data
Open Data DC and other projects across housing, transportation, environment, and local government show how open data can become more understandable and useful.
Have a related need? Bring us a problem or idea. Want to contribute? Join a Project Night or meet the community on Slack.
Current projects
These projects are currently listed as active Civic Tech DC work. Their individual pages describe what is underway, what has been validated, and what remains uncertain.
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Active
VoteCatcher
Building open-source campaign infrastructure that grassroots organizers can use, starting with petition-signature review.
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Active
CIB Mango Tree
Helping researchers, journalists, fact-checkers, moderators, and watchdogs examine social-media data for signs of coordinated inauthentic behavior.
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Active
Congressional Tech
Building practical tools that reduce technological roadblocks for congressional staff and make legislative activity easier for the public to understand.
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Active
Data and Democracy Project
Making election and democracy data easier to understand and use so journalists, advocates, administrators, and oversight groups can act on what they find.
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Active
DC Reentry Housing Project
Building a citywide data platform with the DC Reentry Housing Alliance to connect housing availability, eligibility, and shared outcomes across the coalition.
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Active
Ride Score DC
Rating DC street segments for cycling safety and comfort, with an interactive map that shows riders and advocates the data behind each score.
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Active
SpicyRegs
Turning federal regulations and public comments into accessible, reproducible data and tools for technical and nontechnical users.
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Active
WaterVoice DMV
Helping DC Metro residents compare recent water-quality conditions before they swim, paddle, fish, or wade in local waterways.
Past projects
Since its founding in 2012, Civic Tech DC has worked on dozens of projects. This is a selected archive rather than a complete inventory. A past label may mean the work ended, transitioned to another maintainer, or no longer operates as a Civic Tech DC project; read the individual page for current status.
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Past
ANC Finder
ANC Finder was a project to help residents of Washington, DC understand and engage with their Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANCs).
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Past
Clean Slate
A past legal-access project that helped DC residents explore whether marijuana-related records might qualify for sealing or expungement.
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Past
DARIA
Open-source case-management software created by abortion funders and their supporters, first deployed at the DC Abortion Fund and now maintained independently.
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Past
DC Crash Bot
DC Crash Bot (now known as Data-Driven Streets) combined DC police crash reports with DC Fire & EMS dispatch data to identify unrecorded “ghost crashes,” producing a more complete, data-driven picture of street safety in Washington, DC.
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Past
Housing Insights
The Housing Insights tool provides data about subsidized affordable housing projects and the neighborhoods that they're in.
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Past
Open Data DC
A community-run data portal for and by the people of Washington, DC, built for research, visualization, learning, and civic projects.
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Past
Open Election Map
A map to display the results of Washington DC's 2014 General Election in collaboration with NPR affiliate, WAMU.
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Past
Our DC Schools
Our DC Schools was an online resource that helped Washington, DC residents visualize proposed changes to public school boundaries.
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Past
StreetView
Automate mapping of urban vegetation from street level imagery to create a layer for exploring which areas of a city might be at greater risk during future heat waves.
Looking for deeper history, or an idea to pick up? The Ideas Graveyard catalogs 13 years of project files: dormant ideas verified as still worth reviving, and superseded ones with a record of what replaced them.
Beyond the projects themselves, our organizational initiatives are the programs and infrastructure that keep Civic Tech DC running, and each one names the specific support it needs.
Content owner: Civic Tech DC organizing team. Last reviewed: July 24, 2026.