Case Study
San Rafael – Together Academy 2025

At California Workforce Association’s (CWA) Meeting of the Minds conference in Monterey (September 2025), we invited participants to time travel…
Background In the Spring of 2025, our Ridiculously Hopeful Futures (RHF) project invited community members and public benefits administrators across…
At a time when public benefits programs are in a state of uncertainty due to the utter chaos ensuing at…
In a continuation of our work with California’s Employment Training Panel (ETP), we recently wrapped up a 10-month design process…
At the start of June, we kicked off the newest Innovation Team offered by the City of Sunnyvale. This project…
Every year, the CivicMakers Team takes a look at what projects (both internal and external), people, and partners furthered our…
The CivicMakers Team gathered together for what we called a Team Strategy Jam on Monday, June 12th, at our office…
It can be difficult to fit time for reflection and learning from our work into the day-to-day of running a…
It’s been two years since we piloted our Learning Lab at the City of San José - how the time…
How do communities design for accessibility? What can we learn from co-creating living spaces with people with disabilities and their…
Last week, we brought our team back together for the first CivicMakers retreat in over three years. In addition to…
Last Updated: November, 2021 A key step to engaging the humans in human-centered design is identifying your stakeholders. This framework…
Last Updated: November, 2021 When engaging stakeholders (whether it be the general public, partners, staff, etc.), it is important to…
In the era of physical distancing, face-to-face public participation tactics like town hall meetings, community workshops and tabling are not…
Finding hope for positive systems change from an informal online meetup with public servants I’ll admit it. I’m a compulsive…
The govtech movement holds great promise, but is hindered by a glaring blindspot — the assumption that technology alone will…
Oftentimes, when deep into the design of a group process, I hit a point where the possibility of failure seems…
If the recent election showed us anything, it’s that we need to learn to listen and understand each other better.…
At CivicMakers, we believe gathering the right mix of people, cultivating community and building trust are key ingredients for any successful…

















































