> *“We are going to have to find ways of organizing ourselves cooperatively, sanely, scientifically, harmonically and in regenerative spontaneity with the rest of humanity around the earth... We are not going to be able to operate our spaceship earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common.”  — R. Buckminster Fuller* ## Objective The Open Civic Innovation Framework is a design methodology that supports the coordination of open civic innovation. It aims to empower communities and individuals to actively participate in local stewardship and civic engagement through participatory design methodologies that prioritize collective well-being and shared responsibility. As a minimum viable coordination infrastructure, the framework is designed to maximize the interoperability of civic utilities as well as to foreground a participatory, pluralistic and polycentric approach to creating civic systems. As such, the framework is intended as an infrastructural foundation upon which adaptive open civic systems can be built to meet adaptive local needs. ## Core Concepts - The spirit of responsible civic stewardship as civic innovators calls for an **open civics:** a process of synergistic collaboration and civilizational stewardship that engages in the evolutionary adaptation of our core civilizational systems. - An open civics implies a **civic renaissance**: a renewal of the civic virtue of mutual care and responsibility, values that are embedded in a renewal of **civic culture**. - **Civic innovation** is the improvement of **civic utilities** and **civic systems** that are important for the public good. - **Open civic innovation** is a design method that engages willing participants in a participatory design process that empowers civic innovators, organizers, and patrons to coordindate collective action. - The process produces open civic stacks, or modular blueprints that combine patterns (conceptual designs), protocols (operational mechanisms), and playbooks (actionable guides) into templates for open civic systems that can be enacted by communities. - Open civic utilities are infrastructural components that support the functioning of open civic systems and are composed together in civic stacks. ## Audience This framework is designed to support civic innovators, organizers, and patrons seeking to engage with or develop open civic systems that prioritize local self-determination, vitality, and resilience.