FAQs

  • Common Good AI is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping community groups, advocacy networks and social good organizations to host dialogues, solve problems and find common ground through collective intelligence. Through deliberative tech platforms, Common Good AI enables organizations to consult with a large number of individuals, far larger than would be possible in a traditional “town hall” setting, and creates a two-way dialogue between participants to build consensus and shared understanding. We support organizations from pre-planning all the way to communicating outcomes, and our services include:

    • Conducting strategic analysis to identify opportunities and challenges for potential consultations and collaborations

    • Facilitating the use of digital tools to enable you to reach more stakeholders, better

    • Translate the results of your outreach into action plans and strategy development

    • Knowledge sharing about digital tool deployment and new social tools that foster democratic engagement and promote equity and inclusion.

    To learn more about what we do or if your organization is interested in working with us, please reach out at info@commongoodai.org.

  • The Common Good AI platform can be used as a stand-alone consultation process, or in conjunction with other outreach such as face-to-face or small-group meetings. It can also be used for multi-stage consultations, where the outcomes of the first phase shape the second consultation.

    Common Good AI enriches outreach in a range of ways:

    • You can reach large numbers of people; the platform has successful hosted dialogues with over 1,500 people.

    • Participants interact with each other’s ideas, building understanding and respect.

    • It eliminates unconscious bias in facilitators and participants: people react to the ideas, not the individual.

    • It balances voices, so all are heard, not just those that speak loudest.

    • People can engage when it’s convenient for them, allowing more diverse groups to share their views.

  • Common Good AI works with organizations focused on solving community problems or seeking to promote democracy and civic engagement. We are currently looking for organizations interested in using digital tools that would be a good fit for large scale collaborations. 

    Some of the ways people are interested in using Common Good AI include:

    • Political voice to promote citizen-government dialogue, including youth engagement

    • Primary, secondary, university, or adult education.

    • Health care service access or needs.

    • Climate changes or emergency preparedness for natural disasters.

    • Poverty eradication and economic development.

    • Political voice to promote citizen-government dialogue, including youth engagement.

    • Community safety, including social cohesion and well-being.

    To ensure your collaboration is a success, it takes approximately 3–4 weeks to design a process, possibly more if you are engaging over 100 people. If you want to discuss further, email us at info@commongoodai.org so we can explore working together.

  • Common Good AI is committed to using the best digital tools for the job. There are many deliberative tech tools available, and all of them have different strengths and weaknesses. This space is ever evolving, and we are continually researching and vetting technologies to see if they would be a good addition to our offering. We currently use CrowdSmart.ai as our primary digital provider, but plan to add more to our portfolio as we continue to grow and learn as an organization. We have a close working relationship with CrowdSmart, and we’re excited to use their technology to power engagements at scale.

  • Common Good AI is committed to a “big tent” approach, and we want to include AI tools that support our mission. Any code developed under the Common Good AI organization will be open source. Currently, we primarily work with CrowdSmart.ai, a proprietary, for-profit organization, as a digital provider. CrowdSmart is opening their API, so knowledge models developed through a Common Good AI collaboration can be available publicly. If you have questions about our technology or open source policy, feel free to reach out at info@commongoodai.org

  • Collective intelligence is a well-developed scientific discipline rooted in the concept that a cognitively diverse group of people working together will come up with a better solution than an individual alone. Collective intelligence leverages collaboration and communication, often assisted by technology, to create solutions to complex, multifaceted problems. By engaging a wide range of stakeholders, we leverage the power of diverse perspectives and experiences to use collective intelligence to solve complex problems.