This project, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, helps Iowa cities implement "citizen-initiated performance assessment" (CIPA), to ensure performance measures are citizen-based, politically credible and used by policymakers in decision-making. Participating cities in the project use information technologies to complement more traditional methods, such as citizen committees, focus groups and town meetings, to bridge the governance gap between citizens and city officials. The ultimate goal of the project is to institutionalize sustainable mechanisms of "citizen-initiated performance assessment" into the budgetary and managerial process of city governments.
A video presentation about the Iowa CIPA Model
For high bandwidth users:In 2002-2003, many cities have begun to collect performance information based on citizen-initiated measures. Here are two examples:
In April 2002, Citizens of the nine cities came to the first CIPA conference to share their experience.
<update: December 2, 2004>