Code for America
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| Established | September 2009 |
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| Executive Director | Jennifer Pahlka |
| Location | San Francisco, CA |
| Website | codeforamerica.org |
Code for America is a non-partisan, non-political 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2009 to address the widening gap between the public and private sectors in their effective use of technology and design. According to its website, the organization works with residents and governments in solving community problems. The organization began by enlisting technology and design professionals to work with city governments in the United States in order to build open-source applications and promote openness, participation, and efficiency in government, and has grown into a cross-sector network of practitioners of civic innovation and a platform for "civic hacking."
Through five programs, Code for America helps government work more like the Internet.
The Washington Post described Code for America as "the technology world's equivalent of the Peace Corps or Teach for America." The article goes on to say, "They bring fresh blood to the solution process, deliver agile coding and software development skills, and frequently offer new perspectives on the latest technology — something that is often sorely lacking from municipal government IT programs. This is a win-win for cities that need help and for technologists that want to give back and contribute to lower government costs and the delivery of improved government service."
The New York Times described Code for America as "a new nonprofit project... which aims to import the efficiency of the Web into government infrastructures" and "[tries] to make working in government fun and creative."
In 2009, the founder Jennifer Pahlka was working with O'Reilly Media at the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington, DC. A conversation with Andrew Greenhill, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff of the City of Tucson, sparked the initial idea for Code for America, when he said “You need to pay attention to the local level, because cities are in major crisis. Revenues are down, costs are up -- if we don't change how cities work, they're going to fail." The two began discussing plans for a program that eventually became Code for America, “a one-year fellowship recruiting developers to work for city government.” With support from web entrepreneur Leonard Lin, Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, and technologist Clay A. Johnson, among others, the organization was launched in September 2009.
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