The civic and democratic resilience movements are not short on tools. Organizers use event platforms, CRM systems, deliberation software, and survey frameworks every day. The problem is that these tools do not share data. When a participant RSVPs for an event in one system, that data does not connect to the pre-event survey in another, or the relationship map their coordinator maintains in a third. Network leaders spend hours wrangling spreadsheets instead of acting on intelligence. Funders see individual project reports but not collective field impact. Researchers cannot run cross-site analysis because every organization uses a different taxonomy — "bridging dialogue" means something different in every database.

Civic Intelligence Infrastructure (CII) is being built to solve this coordination problem — not by building another civic tool, but by building the connective tissue between the tools that already exist.

CII's architecture has three interdependent elements. The first is a shared civic data standard: a collaboratively developed, openly published taxonomy of core civic data objects — events, contacts, organizations, survey responses, relationships, civic assets, and outcomes. This standard is being developed as a field commons, in alignment with adjacent standards efforts in the civic technology and governance space, rather than as a proprietary CII product. The second element is a normalization layer: lightweight connectors that translate data from participating tools into the shared taxonomy. Hub coordinators keep using the tools that work for them; CII runs underneath, linking their data into a common, analyzable format. The third element is an analytics and reporting layer: once data is normalized, aggregate analysis becomes possible for the first time. Network coordinators gain ecosystem-wide visibility. Funders receive standardized reports comparing impact across grantees. Researchers access cross-site datasets at a scale previously impossible.

CII's interoperability work focuses on the civic functions most commonly fragmented and least served by existing standards: event management, contact and relationship data, and civic asset inventory, and ecosystem mapping. This complements rather than duplicates emerging standards in the deliberative tools space.

CII is a project of Mediators Foundation and is positioned as a sister project of Better Together America. Phase 1, currently underway, focuses on discovery — mapping the tool landscape through structured interviews with hub coordinators, identifying the highest-priority integration points, and co-designing the shared data taxonomy with coordinators, academic partners, and tool vendors. A proof-of-concept integration with a beta cohort of BTA-affiliated organizations will follow.

The project is led by Brandon Norgaard, with Kristina Becvar serving as measurement and evaluation subject matter expert. CII is actively building relationships with potential integration partners and standards collaborators across the civic technology ecosystem, and is seeking funders, academic partners, and pilot organizations interested in helping shape this infrastructure from the ground up.

Project Director Bio:

Brandon Norgaard is a researcher, civic technologist, and software engineer with over 20 years of experience in platform architecture, data modeling, and systems integration. He leads the technical design and strategic development of Civic Intelligence Infrastructure, bringing expertise in data normalization, interoperability standards, and civic technology ecosystem mapping.

Brandon co-created OpenHaven (openhaven.net), an AI-assisted navigator for the decentralized and peer-to-peer technology ecosystem developed through the Collaborative Technology Alliance. He is a team member at Eudaimonia Institute and is pursuing a master’s degree in Wisdom Design at California Institute for Human Science, with thesis research focused on coordination infrastructure for democratic resilience. He is affiliated with the Institute of Applied Metatheory and is co-author of the paper “Mapping an Ecology of Integrative Approaches to Addressing the Metacrisis.”