Learn from the Graveyard

The Civic Tech Field Guide's Graveyard commemorates hundreds of dead civic tech projects 'for research and field learning.' Its stewards name the uncomfortable patterns: most innovation projects fail; funding success doesn't guarantee project success; and social networks for local information fail *repeatedly*.

The hyperlocal row, with lessons attached:

• EveryBlock (2007–2013): Adrian Holovaty's block-level news feeds — Knight-funded, widely admired, shut down by its corporate parent NBC with no notice. Data feeds about neighbors aren't community, and corporate parents kill hyperlocal on a whim.
• Neighborland (2011–2019): a beloved participatory-planning platform used by 200+ agencies — acquired by Nextdoor and closed. Communities that don't own the platform lose the archive of their own participation.
• PledgeBank (mySociety, 2005–2015): 'I'll do it if N others join me' — mutual commitment productized. It worked at small scale, repeatedly, and still couldn't sustain itself as a destination site. Commitment mechanics want to live *inside* an existing community, not on their own island.
• The sharing-site cluster (StreetBank, OpenShed, Favabank, OurGoods): stand-alone borrow-a-ladder platforms die of empty-marketplace loneliness. Sharing thrives where a trusted forum already exists — Front Porch Forum's borrowed ladders outlived every dedicated sharing site.
• The disaster-born tools (Red Hook Hub, Recovers.org): coordination tech born in crisis evaporates between crises unless it gets a peacetime job.

The survivors share a shape: owned by or accountable to their community (Front Porch Forum's public benefit corporation, Loomio's worker co-op, Decidim's association, Amsterdam's Gebiedonline cooperative), paid stewardship rather than pure volunteerism (Detroit's digital stewards, City Bureau's paid Documenters), and modesty of scope. Before building anything, visit the graveyard and find your idea's headstone — then design against its cause of death.

Details

• source note: Graveyard framing and project fates per the Civic Tech Field Guide (CC BY-NC-SA); EveryBlock and Neighborland details per Holovaty's own post-mortem and CTFG's entries.
• practice kind: framework
• survivor patterns: community ownership (PBC, co-op, association), paid local stewardship, modest scope with a peacetime job, embed in existing trust rather than build a destination