Maria and Ana went to the budget meeting on Tuesday. They brought three neighbors. Maria printed the leadership scorecard from this page and filled it out before they walked in: Kept Promises — 2 out of 5. Listened — 1 out of 5. Delivered Results — 1 out of 5. When the alderman said "we're working on it," Maria held up the card and said "working on what, specifically?"
The room got quiet. Then someone else raised their card. Then another. Three months later, the streetlights were fixed.
It wasn't the card. It was that the card gave people a language for what they already knew.
Did they do what they said? Did they listen? Did they explain? Plain criteria that anyone can understand. Every member of a group scores independently. Scores combine into a composite — no one person dominates the result. Templates for alderpersons, block captains, board members, program directors, principals. Printable scorecards.
When a community puts effort into something — a program, a project, a plan — this tool helps see whether it's making a difference. What's improving. What isn't. And what to try next. The answers go back to the community, not up to an office.
Pick a leader or program. Go through the list. Check what they said against what happened. Templates for alderpersons, schools, and programs — each item grounded in something specific they said or were supposed to do. Print the results. Bring them to the meeting. Come back in three months.
Traffic-light view of how your community is doing across four domains: survival needs, neighbor connections, governance accountability, and shared knowledge. Green means working. Red means action needed. Enter your zip code.
Every tool on this page runs on the same idea. How is this supposed to work. Where is it not working the way it should. What can we do about it.
For a leader: What did they promise to do? What didn't happen, or happened differently than promised? What should happen next?
For a program: What was this supposed to accomplish? What results are we actually seeing? What should we adjust?
The community does the evaluation. The community owns the results. The tools just make the thinking visible.
A one-time scorecard is a complaint. A scorecard repeated every three months is accountability. These tools let you track the same leader or the same program over time — so you can see whether anything changed.
The four-question cycle
1. Plan — What did the leader promise? What was the program supposed to do?
2. Measure — What actually happened? Score it with the community evaluation tool.
3. Improve — What should change? Take the scorecard to the next public meeting.
4. Verify — Did it change? Score again in three months. Compare. That's the loop closing.
Colleges and hospitals use this same process to check whether they're doing what they said they'd do. The only difference: instead of an institution holding the forms, the community holds them. Instead of a dean signing off, the neighborhood signs off. The data goes to a public meeting, not a filing cabinet.
Open-source participatory democracy platform used by 400+ municipalities worldwide. Supports participatory budgeting, assemblies, consultations, and proposals. Used by New York City and Barcelona.
Collaborative decision-making for groups. Discussions, proposals, and multiple voting methods. Works for groups of 5 to 1,000+. Run as a worker cooperative. Open source.
Data on 16,000+ law enforcement agencies. Use of force, accountability, funding, and outcomes. Search by department. Linked to action.
Free tool for participatory budgeting — communities decide together how to allocate money. Used by schools, neighborhoods, and municipal governments.
Strong Towns — step-by-step walkthrough of a real municipal budget. Where the money goes, what the numbers mean, and what to ask.
💬 Discuss budgets & accountability →Mutual Aid Disaster Relief — how communities organize to take care of each other when systems fail.
💬 Discuss self-governance →Maria needed food. She found it. She needed to understand her rights. She learned them. She needed her neighbors. She found Ana. She needed her leaders to do their jobs. She held them accountable. None of this required money, a degree, or permission. It required tools that were free, honest, and built for people like her.
That's what CommUnity OS is. Not a product. Not a service. Infrastructure that belongs to the people who use it.
Join your neighborhood →Every tool on this site is free. No account. No email or tracking. Posts you share are visible to neighbors.