civ.works is building a social platform for civic engagement that will allow users to participate in democracy directly through features like voting, participatory budgeting, and policy debates. It will address privacy concerns with social media and empower citizens to create change. The founders are seeking $225,000 in funding to develop the platform over the next 1.5 years, with the goal of reaching financial viability after 9 months of testing when it reaches 60,000 subscribers paying $3.99 per month.

1. civ.works
engage excite empower

2. Executive Summary:
We are building the seamless,
compelling and easy social
platform for civic engagement.

3. Opportunity:
A significant opportunity exists today
that encompasses a vast demographic.
Our social platform will address millions
of social network (ie.- Facebook) users
who are frustrated with privacy issues
and advertising plus millions more who
are disenfranchised by the current post-
”Citizens United” political landscape.
Social Media
Users with
Privacy
Concerns
Frustrated
Citizens
Issue-
based
Advocates

4. With an easy to use, visually-compelling,
privacy-protected social network at the core
-we will be integrating open source
components that will allow people to evolve
beyond the use of electronic petitions to
creating law, policy, voting, economic
activism and participatory budgeting.
The civ.works Solution:

5. The civ.works community will include
people that are presently frustrated by
constant changes in privacy settings
for existing social platforms, advocates
that create or respond to electronic
petitions and those seeking economic
and political empowerment.
Audience:

6. At approximately 60,000 subscribed
users we expect to reach viability
(will no longer need to rely upon
grants or donations) to afford
operating, development and
research resources.
This is based upon a monthly
subscription fee of $3.99 for users
that subscribe to the service and
includes approximately 35% of the
accounts to be free for academic
users (.edu email domain).
Viability:
60,000 Subscribers
will provide Viability

7. Start with core early adopters
(invite-only to build demand ie -ello
and Google gmail success)
Use invitation demand, referrals,
earned media and social media to
achieve subscriber mass and scale.
Marketing Strategy:

8. Founding Team:
Golda Velez, Chief
Architect
You don't have to be a rocket
scientist but it helps. Golda began
software engineering at Jet
Propulsion Laboratory while
completing her academic study at
Caltech in Mathematics. She has
since worked for Factual, Oracle
and others major enterprises and
start-ups directing complex projects,
programs and teams.
Adam Lake,
Network/Outreach
Adam has been working on issues
related to civic cooperation,
empowerment and engagement since
emerging from Virginia Tech. He is a
disruptor of the conventional and his
concepts, ideas and vision continue to
shape the civ.works concept.
George A. Polisner, Founder
George has spent the last several years of
addressing highly-complex conceptual
technological and economic challenges for
government, large enterprise and society.
He remains active and engaged in socio-
economic and environmental justice,
participatory democracy and budgeting,
transparency and accountability in
governance and he has significant
experience in corporate social behavior
(CSR) and addressing externalities.

9. Needs:
We are seeking $225,000 (in a mix of crowdfunding, large donations from high-net worth individuals
and foundation grants). We have cash flow analysis that supports viability after our initial funding which
will be primarily used for software engineering, user experience design and leveraging social media to
gain subscription and use momentum. Our platform design, development and engineering phase will
require six months, followed by our alpha and beta releases. We expect to be at break even 9 months
after our alpha release (1.5 years after full funding).
Design, Development & Engineering : (6 months)
Alpha/Beta Testing
(3 months)
Break-even (9 months)

10. Visual Platform Direction/User Experience:
User Activity
Dashboard
User Profile &
privacy
controls
Status/
Newsfeed
Democracy
OS
Participatory
Budgeting
Economic
Activism
(alonovo
ratings)
Seamlessly navigate
through your dashboard,
profile and newsfeed, and
track your voting, events,
and participation

11. User Profile:
User Profile (similar to facebook -user controls who can see what
information) work, education, favorite organizations and causes,
books, films, societal heroes, tags/keywords of interest (helps weight
feed relevance, friends, groups and photo albums).

12. Activity Dashboard:
User Activity Dashboard
(We will encourage engagement
through gamification/competition)
● Participation Trends
● Content Shared
● Votes/Polling
● Divestment/Purchases
● Democracy OS
● Participatory Budgeting
“You have 6 active
campaigns”
“You have voted 27
times this week”
“You have 12 new
group members in
your campaign”
“Karli J. posted a photo of
you : ‘Love this pic from
the SpeakOut event on
Saturday!’”
“You have 3 new
event invitations”

13. Standard Newsfeed: Can anyone tell me how to get an initiative on the
ballot in Massachusetts?
Here’s the latest article on restrictive voter ID laws from
Public Citizen. www.pubcit.com/voterID
Any other moms out there who are interested in
meeting up about the new traffic laws in Dover?
Rally tonight at Gerald Park for our Firefighters!
Come and show your support at 7pm!
Click here to learn about the ballot initiative
process in Massachusetts
6 friends are attending
Add to your events

14. Democracy OS Pages:
What is Democracy OS?
Democracy OS is a web-based platform for
civic engagement that is going to be used
around the world. Democracy OS allows users
to share information and debate on important
public policies, and then vote on the issues they
care about.
How Does it Work?
Representatives and local law-makers can
connect directly to voters to get your input on
important matters. This allows our law-makers
to make our government more representational
and allows your voice to be heard.
Sample of Democracy OS Online Demo / Taken from democracyos.org
By connecting civ.works with Democracy OS,
users can have a seamless 360 degree view of
their civic engagement. Focus on outcome-
based consensus building to move beyond
political ideological entrenchment of today.

15. Participatory Budgeting:
What is Participatory Budgeting?
Participatory budgeting invites citizens to have
a say in how your local government or other
organizations allocate spending.
How Does it Work?
Local governments and organizations set aside
a certain amount of funds and allow citizens to
vote on how those funds are used. Participatory
budgeting is being used in over 1500 cities
worldwide, and is being used by New York City
Council and Toronto’s Public Housing Authority.

16. Economic Activism (alonovo):
What is Economic Activism?
Provide ratings on corporations based upon
their “CSR” information. Help educate and
inform consumers and investors about shifting
their investments and/or purchases to
companies (like CREDO) that are balancing
growth with sustainability.
The alonovo database
Identify, acquire, aggregate and normalize
attributed, trusted data about environmental,
governance, fair labor, diversity, executive pay
ratio and supply chain compliance –and render
an easy to understand grade. Educate and
inform the community on the significance of a
collective economic impact. Ie- “Costco vs
Walmart” or “CREDO vs Verizon”.

17. civ.works: the platform
for civic engagment
Thank you for considering to be a part of the
future of democracy and engagement.
civ.works is coming.