The Open Planning Project (TOPP) is a non-profit incubator for projects and technology to catalyze large scale social change.

TOPP identifies opportunities where great improvements to the world can be brought about by small, focused, concerted action. TOPP's expertise in software development gives it the ability to leverage information technology to help solve these problems.  TOPP also works closely with other advocacy groups and government to build collaborative solutions for these societal issues.

TOPP uses the principals of openness to gain leverage for its ventures.  The software that TOPP develops is all released under open source licenses.  The tools that TOPP builds are designed so that they can be easily reused.

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TOPP's investments build bridges for collaboration between government and civil society. We provide governments with software to enable an infrastructure for transparency while also catalyzing and supporting grassroots movements that effect immediate change. The end goal is true democracy: fully empowered citizens, armed with the tools and information to collaborate with responsive government to solve the problems that confront us. In the process, our work facilitates shared decision-making by helping governments become more effective, increasing public access to useful information, and mobilizing communities to action around common causes.

Projects

Visit our projects page to learn more about the initiatives we are currently undertaking.

Some highlights:

  • OpenGeo builds open source software to help governments make their geospatial information more accessible to citizens.
  • LivableStreets engages citizens to reverse automobile-dominated urban planning and create healthier, more sustainable, people-oriented neighborhoods.
  • Among our emerging initiatives, we are providing web-based tools to help communities organize and collaborate for change, organizing a movement to advocate for a better education system in New York, and developing an innovative feed aggregator to help people hear about the issues that matter to them.