In April of 2020, NSF and MetroLab began work on the Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC), per the Cooperative Agreement (CA) completed in August of 2019. MetroLab’s support for the CIVIC program was designed to align with the goals of the CA, which aim to build capacity for the CIVIC program through outreach, capacity building, resource development, communications support, programming for finalists and winners, and joint-funder engagement.

MetroLab prepared for the launch of CIVIC by coordinating the program announcement and supporting stakeholder engagement, including development of the public-facing website (nsfcivicinnovation.org), management of X account (@NSFCIVIC), newsletter, and email outreach to over 50 network and membership organizations and more than 600 research and civic organizations. This work generated a significant number of proposals by the submission deadline in August 2020. During this first grant year, MetroLab amplified the CIVIC program by developing promotional content including a video that reached more than 2,500 viewers and the facilitation of a guest column from NSF’s program officers published on the National League of Cities “CitiesSpeak” platform. Additional efforts from MetroLab included a webinar series, four live Q&A sessions that engaged federal partners and 600 participants, and the development of the “communities of practice” activities that took place during Stage 1 and Stage 2 of CIVIC.

To further these efforts during the four-month community-of-practice period (Stage 1), MetroLab connected with over 500 members of CIVIC teams through events and toolkit deployment. We engaged 45 experts from the civic-research ecosystem in our Expert Network, who provided valuable insight to the Stage 1 Awardee teams. MetroLab’s events and resources helped teams build deep relationships across disciplines, while also providing tools that teams could use to further root their efforts in prioritizing community impact. Following the Closing Event of Stage 1, MetroLab continued  to engage closely with the general public by featuring recorded 1-on-1 team interviews on X and the CIVIC Awardee page.

Following the conclusion of Stage 1, MetroLab focused efforts on teams advancing to the second stage of the program. Our work started by creating a collaborative environment between the Stage 2 teams who had previously been competing against one another. As part of a continuous effort to improve the program, we gathered feedback from teams on the community-of-practice activities from Stage 1 to determine how we should adjust programming and tools provided. 

In addition to expanding our programmatic and evaluation work, MetroLab supported media and communications efforts for CIVIC. When launching the announcement of the Stage 2 awards, our outreach both expanded national recognition of the CIVIC program and local recognition of each Stage 2 project. Both the website and X are managed by MetroLab.

In October 2021, during the Ideas Festival, MetroLab generated an additional 3,000 visits to the website and 27,200 impressions on X. We accumulated over 100 participants in this workshop series designed to help guide teams in crafting their ideas, and this participation resulted in 84 submissions from across the country. We published a full analysis of the results on the CIVIC website: nsfcivicinnovation.org/ideas-festival.

In September of 2022, MetroLab coordinated the closing event in support of NSF. This event, held at the National Portrait Gallery, featured presentations from all 17 teams, and prominent speakers from all federal funding partners. We hosted seven federal agencies, congressional staff, and  members of the public, growing a new civic innovation ecosystem. The second day of the closing event focused on community-of-practice building, dedicated to strengthening team relationships with one another.

Following the success of the closing event, MetroLab sought to gain a better understanding of the teams' experiences and the efficacy of the program. To support this work,  MetroLab was granted a No Cost Extension (NCE) to evaluate CIVIC 2021. During the NCE we analyzed the work of all 17 NSF CIVIC Stage 2 Teams, including interviewing 13 of them individually. The analysis identified predictors of success and general programmatic takeaways, informing our development of the NSF CIVIC Playbook, the NSF CIVIC Ideas Platform, and the NSF CIVIC Brand Book. The deliverables that MetroLab produced can be leveraged by NSF CIVIC teams of any cohort, as well as by NSF. The NCE allowed MetroLab to develop suggestions and ideas for the future of the program based on qualitative findings that have been documented and shared with NSF CIVIC officers.

By elevating the CIVIC profile to a new audience, MetroLab proactively worked to expand the reputation and knowledge of NSF’s exciting investments in the CIVIC program. The work completed by MetroLab during CIVIC 2021 helped teams simultaneously build deep relationships across disciplines and provided tools to further the Sustainability, Transferability, and Scalability of CIVIC projects. The efforts from MetroLab helped bolster the development and implementation of best practices to grow and improve the following iterations of CIVIC.

Last Modified: 03/04/2024
Modified by: Kathleen G Burns