In the Fall of 2013, my co-founders and I finished a months-long  “listening tour” of election offices, meeting with public servants in courthouses and capitals from New Jersey to California, Wisconsin to Tennessee.

As we criss-crossed the country we saw:

• Huge advances in data programs and tools that connect people to the civic information they need to participate in elections,
• People hustling in local offices to do more with very little,
• County election offices striving to keep pace with technology, and
• City clerks collecting data to improve the voter experience in their communities

Through these conversations, we recognized an opportunity to both lift up the innovative work happening in election departments across the country and also help tackle challenges to accessing the ballot box on a nationwide level. Shortly afterwards we took a leap a faith and launched Center for Tech and Civic Life to create easy-to-use resources for election administrators, develop infrastructure to better deliver information about elections, and highlight best practices for public engagement.

It turns out we were on to something. Since our founding, CTCL has connected election officials who serve over 80 million voters with tools and trainings so they can best serve their communities. We’ve provided the public with information about candidates and elected officials nearly 300 million times, helping to develop the foundation for lifelong civic habits. Through it all, we’ve worked in partnership with experts and leaders in technology, civic engagement, accessibility, and more, to ensure our work stays on the cutting edge and truly serves the needs of voters.

Over the last 5 years, we’ve not only delivered tangible impact, but we’ve also built an organization that is poised to continue to do the work of pushing our democracy into the 21st century for years to come. As we’ve matured as an organization, we thought it was time for our branding to reflect that growth. So, today we’re sharing our new website, logo, and visual identity. Oh, and we’re shortening our name (just a tad) to Center for Tech and Civic Life.

As we approach the 2020 election cycle, the officials we work with are facing global challenges: from protecting our voting systems from cyber attacks to delivering trusted information to the public in a sea of digital noise, while the challenges of tight budgets, limited staffing, and outdated technology remain constant. 

And as the Center for Tech and Civic Life enters its fifth year, it is clear that our work to connect Americans with the information they need to become and remain civically engaged, and to ensure that our elections are more professional, inclusive, and secure is needed now more than ever. 

We’re up for the challenge.