Over the Christmas holidays the VisibleGovernment.ca board developed a Mission, Principles, Goals and Objectives statement to help guide the organization over the next five years.  The final version was approved at the last board meeting on February 7, 2009.

Mission

• Improve civic participation and government accountability in Canada by promoting online tools for government transparency.
  

Principles

We believe:

• Well-functioning governments are a corner stone of a well-functioning society.
• More accessible information will lead to greater government accountability and greater citizen involvement, resulting in a more representative and effective government
• Citizens have a responsibility to hold their government accountable.
• Governments have a responsibility to publish the data that allows citizens to hold them accountable and provide effective oversight of government activities.
• Currently, government has insufficient incentive to publish data.  A third party is required to marshal public support and raise awareness.
• Open source licensing allows for accountability and transparency to the source code level; further, open source licensing allows for maximum contribution and re-use of the source code base.

VisibleGovernment.ca will:

• Promote public awareness of the power of open government data to improve the relationship between citizens and their government.
• Raise funds to enable the implementation of online tools for government transparency.
• Create a process to ensure that funds  raised for citizen web services are effectively spent.
• Be a recognized leader and facilitator for online tools for government transparency.
• Become a re-distributor of information and best practices regarding the implementation and promotion of citizen web services based on open government data.

Objectives

The five year objectives of VisibleGovernment.ca are:

Education and Outreach:

• Create outreach programs to support and enable groups, both internal and external, that further VisibleGovernment.ca’s mission.
• Raise public awareness of online tools for transparency through media exposure and conference participation.   
• Build knowledge base related to online tools for government transparency.  Create systems to redistribute information on best practices of citizen web service development.

 
Promote Development of Online Tools for Government Transparency and Civic Participation:

• Develop internal web projects to raise awareness, visibility, and further mission.
• Direct money to external web projects via grants and contests.  Provide support to external projects by providing access to expertise and other resources.
• Develop acceptance criteria for projects we fund.
• Systematically audit success of funded websites.
• Release all code developed through VisibleGovernment.ca funding as open source.

Fundraising:

• Raise money for programs and core organizational activities.  Funds may be raised through grants, private donations, or revenue-generating activities.

Organizational Structure:

•  Develop effective reporting guidelines and metrics.
•  Select, attract, and develop key personnel.