The CivicWorks Canon

Principles discovered through practice, refined through communities, and shared for future generations.

Ideas Worth Passing Forward

Every discipline develops guiding principles. These principles are not rules. They are observations that have repeatedly proven true while helping communities learn, collaborate, and grow.

Why a Canon?

The CivicWorks Canon is intended to preserve the enduring ideas that guide every CivicWorks implementation. Technology will change. Organizations will evolve. Communities will grow. These principles should remain useful.

CivicWorks Canon

  1. Communities become wiser when understanding accumulates rather than disappears.
  2. Knowledge grows when information is connected, not simply collected.
  3. The community is not the audience. The community is the co-author.
  4. Most civic websites organize information. CivicWorks organizes understanding.
  5. Every generation should begin with more understanding than the generation before.
  6. Communities become stronger when knowledge is shared and success is celebrated together.
  7. The greatest legacy is not what we build, but what others are able to build because of us.
  8. Good decisions begin with shared understanding.
  9. Relationships give information meaning.
  10. Stewardship is the responsibility to leave our communities better than we found them.

Living Principles

The CivicWorks Canon is not intended to be static. As communities apply CivicWorks in different places and circumstances, new principles may emerge. The Canon should evolve thoughtfully through experience.

Practice Before Theory

These principles were not created in isolation. They emerged while working alongside residents, community organizations, local governments, nonprofits, businesses, and volunteers. Practice came first. The framework followed.

The Purpose

The CivicWorks Canon exists to help future builders understand not only what CivicWorks does, but why it exists.

Communities deserve more than information. They deserve understanding.

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