Building Participatory Philanthropy with CIVIC
Agora and CIVIC Launch a New Experiment in Participatory Governance
Today, Agora and the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) are launching a new experiment in participatory governance—using open-source, onchain infrastructure to give CIVIC members a transparent way to weigh in on the future of CIVIC's mission and impact.
CIVIC works with communities, armed actors, and decision-makers to prevent, mitigate, and respond to civilian harm. Through this initiative, CIVIC is exploring how blockchain technology can create new opportunities for participation, transparency, and collective decision-making within a mission-driven organization.
Starting with membership
CIVIC is launching a permissioned membership NFT on Base. The NFT acts as an onchain membership credential, allowing members to participate in CIVIC’s new governance process.
Once someone becomes a member and receives the NFT, they can use that membership to weigh in on proposals through a dedicated governance platform powered by Agora.
The governance system is built using the open-source OpenZeppelin Governor framework. Proposals, votes, and results are recorded onchain, making the process transparent and independently verifiable.
CIVIC will begin with six proposals scheduled to run before the end of the year. This initial series will give CIVIC and its members an opportunity to learn what effective participatory governance looks like in practice.
An experiment in transparent governance
The goal of this first phase is not to design a complete governance system in advance. It is to start small, invite real participation, and learn from the results.
Which questions benefit most from community input? How should proposals be structured? What helps members participate meaningfully? And where can transparent, verifiable technology improve trust in the process?
Public blockchains and smart contracts offer useful properties for this kind of experiment. The rules governing participation can be made explicit. Proposal and voting activity can be inspected. Results can be verified without relying solely on a private system or database.
Technology alone does not create good governance, but it can provide a stronger foundation on which good governance practices can be built.
Last but not least, this experience will also allow participants to learn about CIVIC and the crucial work they do around the globe.
Agora’s contribution
Agora is donating the engineering capacity and services required to support this initial effort.
We believe the benefits of transparent, accessible governance infrastructure extend beyond crypto-native communities. Nonprofits and other mission-driven organizations can use the same tools to involve their communities, gather structured input, and make decision-making processes easier to understand and verify.
By supporting CIVIC’s launch, we hope to facilitate a practical experiment in transparency while illustrating what blockchains and smart contracts can offer organizations operating outside the traditional boundaries of Web3.
We also hope the lessons from this work will help inform future experiments in participatory nonprofit governance.
What this initiative does—and does not—control
This initial governance program is focused on participation, transparency, and learning.
There are currently no plans for the governance system to directly control CIVIC’s funds. The first proposals will allow members to weigh in through a transparent onchain process without transferring control of CIVIC’s assets to the system.
People who want to financially support CIVIC’s work can continue to donate directly through CIVIC’s website.
Join the experiment
There are two steps to get involved:
- Become a member: Visit participate.civiliansinconflict.org to join and receive your CIVIC membership NFT on Base.
- Weigh in on proposals: Once you have your membership NFT, visit engage.civiliansinconflict.org to review proposals and participate in governance.
As always, you can support CIVIC’s broader mission by visiting CIVIC’s donation page to contribute.
The first six proposals will run before the end of the year. We invite you to become a member, take part, and help CIVIC and Agora explore what more transparent and participatory governance can become.