Mission of the Project

To help Iowa cities build and institutionalize "citizen-initiated performance assessment" (CIPA), which is a result-oriented governing system that engages citizens and community organizations in the design, implementation and usage of performance measures, so that a city government is more accountable to the public, citizens have stronger trust in government, and public services are more cost-effective.

Objectives of the Project

1. To promote the concept of "result-oriented" management to elected and non-elected officials through workshops, publications, conferences, and web-based training materials;
   
   
2. To assist city officials in developing various mechanisms to seek citizen input in the design and implementation of performance measures, including the establishment of citizen performance teams, facilitation of public meetings, and the usage of information technologies;
   
   
3. To assist officials and citizen representatives in integrating citizen input in developing performance measures;
   
   
4. To assist elected and non-elected officials in integrating citizen-based performance measures in activity-based budgeting and program management;
   
   
5. To assist city officials and citizen representatives in developing cost-effective mechanisms to report citizen-based performance measures to the general public; and
   
   
6. To facilitate citizen-official dialogues in policymaking to enhance democratic governance and policy effectiveness.