Hi Michael,

My idea is very rough still.

The Problem: City and local governments vary in level of accessibility and transparency to their citizens and most fall in the opaque and convoluted category. Most citizens I know connect to partisan groups or non-profit groups to effect changes in their communities, but they are not necessarily fully informed of the way their local community and city government decide to fund a particular project.

The Fix: The goal of my start-up is to create a platform in app and website form where local citizens can go to find out what projects are up for funding in their community, where the discussion meetings are being held and more importantly, can register their rating and/or vote on the project they believe is the most necessary for their community via the app or the website. I would also like to include a feature where each community also has community neighbors and during a particular funding cycle each community takes a turn in either pledging tax dollars to a neighboring community for a very urgent project (example: South Central LA schools need computers, so the Los Feliz, Silver Lake, North Hollywood and Hollywood Hills neighborhoods pledge some of their tax dollars to fund this project) or collaborating on a larger project that engages all communities (special project at the LA county museums or day camps in Griffith Park funded by the city parks & rec)...

I would love feedback as I am trying to create something that is independent from government and yet collaborative... 

Cheers,

Mary