CivicLex turns 5!!

This week, we announced CivicLex’s Five Year Birthday! In many ways, it’s wild to me that it has already been five years. Starting an organization like ours in the middle of Kentucky is no easy feat. But we did it.

We started CivicLex to help residents understand how to get involved in local government. Our first year’s budget was around $20,000, we had a shared desk space in The Plantory, and I was a part time contractor.

Since our launch, we have hosted 296 civic education workshops and events, designed or facilitated over 650 community conversations, reported on 1,360 public city meetings, gathered direct, documented feedback from 7,825 residents about civic issues, and published 156 editions of our weekly city hall digest that have been read hundreds of thousands of times.

We’ve embedded artists in local government, connected thousands of residents with their elected leaders and city staff, collaboratively designed programs with our major daily newspaper, our Public School system, and more, and we have led initiatives to bring more resident voice to complex governmental processes like budgeting, the legislative process, and Comprehensive Planning.

In a couple weeks, we’ll be hosting a kickoff party for our summ