Legislata for Engaged Citizens
Here’s what Legislata is and how it can help you
“People should know what politicians are doing.” - Stewart Pearson, The Thick of It
Stay on top of the news that matters to you
Being a citizen who wants to stay engaged in politics can be difficult. There is no shortage of hot takes and arguments about national politics, but finding out about what is happening at your local level, about issues that don’t attract cable news, or trying to get involved can be a difficult.
There are a number of ways which Legislata can help citizens learn more about politics and to participate more. Two that we want to highlight are:
Set up alerts for what matters to you
Become an informational and thought leader
Set up alerts for what matters to you
One reason that Twitter has become the de facto newswire is that it’s where political conversations happen. But it’s not designed to deliver the news you need to know when you need to know it. It’s instead designed for the opposite, to keep you engaged and scrolling through more and more ads.
Legislata can serve some of the same functions as social media, by letting information be easily shared with those who wish to hear it. But we’re also built for professionals who need that information to be delivered quickly and efficiently.
To that end, we let you join offices serving political communities, from cities to states to issues, and set up notifications. When something is posted about what matters to you, you’ll receive a notification in the app and in an email. If you care about a particular topic and want to know whenever someone posts an article or press release about it, you now can.
Become an informational service to your community
“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” - Thomas Jefferson, 1787
Unfortunately, the local press is facing severe pressure that has left news deserts in many areas. Currently, we see some citizens trying to fill that void by live-tweeting council meetings or sending out newsletters to their neighbors about what’s happening. But live-tweeting can be hard to find and filter later. Newsletters might not be targeted precisely and so ignored by the people who would otherwise be interested.
You can create an office in Legislata into which you load the content that matters for your area, tagged by what it relates to. Others can add to this to reduce the pressure on yourself to load everything. Your friends and neighbors can set up alerts for when things happen that matter to them. This lets you have the vehicle for local governmental and political information without the need for your own web hosting or trying to find a way into your community’s social media feeds.
Get in touch for advice about how to set up such a group.
How to sign up?
If you want to get started right away, you can go to app.legislata.com and create an account (currently, it only works on desktop, not mobile). You can also request to join offices sharing information about different geographies, or create your own and invite others to follow you.
Additional tidbits
A full user guide is available here.
A tutorial video series is here.
You can check out our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy (and Privacy Policy for California) and our FAQs to learn more about it.
You can request a personal demonstration here.