# *Seeking White Paper Input - Collaborative Questions on Challenges and Successes in Sustaining and Scaling CivicTech Initiatives*

Hi there! Welcome to this asynchronous interview opportunity. The International Republican Institute (IRI) - a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to advance democracy around the world - is seeking input from civictech experts and teams to help inform the development of a white paper analyzing challenges and successful approaches to scale and sustain civictech projects and initiatives. We're interested in learning from the g0v community in what has and hasn't worked to scale your projects' use and to sustain them in the long term. We also invite your critiques, frustrations and suggestions to funders to inform how we can better support civictech projects.

**We welcome your input on any of the below questions and would appreciate you adding your responses by July 1. Anything you share will help to inform our white paper that we aim to share with IRI's global networks. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me, Amanda Zink, at [e-mail] with any questions.**

1. What role do you see for civictech in addressing governance challenges, especially in the longer term? Where do you see the biggest opportunities?

2. We’re especially curious to understand the key challenges that civictech projects must navigate. Based on your experience, what are the biggest **challenges** civic/govtech projects face, particularly in sustaining an initiative in the longer term

3. We're also trying to understand the key factors that make civictech initiatives **successful**, particularly in successfully scaling their user base and in sustaining their projects. Considering the challenges we've asked about above, what factors do you see as key to making civictech initiatives sustainable? What approaches, tactics or tools have enabled sustainment?

4. Based on your experiences, what does it take for civictech initiatives to be successfully institutionalized by government, both structurally and from a budgetary perspective? Have you seen any tactics work particularly well to encourage institutionalization?

5. What are funders or investors missing or misunderstanding? What can they do better to more effectively support civictech initiatives in the longer term? How could funding structures be improved? How can we better support the sustainability of projects we fund? How can we avoid duplication?

6. Are there any gaps you can identify in needed resources or support? What resources do you wish were available that would particularly help you or other civictech implementers in their work?