 mySociety logo | |
| Founded | 2003 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Tom Steinberg |
| Focus |
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| Location |
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| Products | |
| Employees | 35 (2024) [1] |
| Website | mysociety |
mySociety is a UK-based registered charity, [2] previously named UK Citizens Online Democracy. [3] It began as a UK-focused organisation with the aim of making online democracy tools for UK citizens. [4] However, those tools were open source, so that the code could be (and soon was) redeployed in other countries. [5]
mySociety was founded by Tom Steinberg in September 2003, [6] and started activity after receiving a £250,000 grant in September 2004. [7] Steinberg says that it was inspired by a collaboration with his then-flatmate James Crabtree which spawned Crabtree's article "Civic hacking: a new agenda for e-democracy". [8] [9]
mySociety went on to simplify and internationalise its code [10] and through the now dormant Poplus project, encouraged others to share open source code [11] that would minimise the amount of duplication in civic tech coding.
Like many non-profits, mySociety sustains itself with a mixture of grant funding [8] and commercial work, providing software and development services to local government and other organisations. [12]
In March 2015, Steinberg announced his decision to stand down as executive director of mySociety. [13] In July of that year, Mark Cridge became the organisation's new CEO. [14]
