· Ed Dowding · Portfolio · 2 min read
Civic Action Generator
Design novel civic interventions by selecting strategic constraints. An AI tool that generates genuinely innovative ideas for community action—not templates.
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The Problem
Most civic engagement tools offer pre-packaged solutions: petition templates, letter-writing campaigns, town hall formats. These work for known problems with known solutions, but fail when communities face novel challenges requiring creative intervention.
The gap: when standard civic playbooks don’t fit, communities lack structured ways to generate genuinely innovative approaches to collective action.
What I Built
A constraint-based idea generator that helps design novel civic interventions by selecting strategic parameters:
Strategic Constraint Selection
- What’s missing? — Identify the bottleneck you’re trying to address
- Where’s the leverage? — Choose which system layer to target
- What’s the mechanism? — Select how you’ll intervene
- What’s the hook? — Determine how you’ll engage people
- Timeframe — Set realistic implementation windows
- Lens — Focus on specific domains (climate, housing, democracy, etc.)
Genuine Innovation The tool doesn’t retrieve templates—it generates novel combinations by intersecting constraints in unexpected ways. Each output is tailored to the specific parameters, considering tech trends and climate realities.
The Tech Stack
- Platform: Claude AI (Anthropic) public artifact
- Interface: Interactive parameter selection with instant generation
- Methodology: Constraint-based creativity—innovation emerges from the intersection of well-chosen limitations
Lessons Learned
Constraints Enable Creativity Paradoxically, more constraints produce more innovative outputs. Asking “what civic action should we take?” yields generic answers. Asking “what 3-month, coalition-building intervention targets information asymmetry in local housing policy?” yields specific, actionable ideas.
Parameters Beat Prompts Structured parameter selection outperforms open-ended prompting for idea generation. Users who can’t articulate what they want CAN select from curated options. The interface does the prompt engineering.
“Don’t Know” Is Valid Including “Don’t Know” options for each parameter lets users explore without false precision. The tool handles uncertainty gracefully, generating broader ideas when constraints aren’t specified.