Introduction
Digital civic participation enables citizens, associations, and institutions to propose ideas, deliberate, and decide in a transparent way. In this guide you will find a verified selection of active platforms and portals, with working links, what they do, and how to interact with them. For the general context see what digital democracy is and, on the technology side, blockchain and transparent voting. For practice, see our step-by-step guide to participatory proposals.
Why use participatory platforms
- Inclusion: join from desktop or mobile, anytime, anywhere.
- Transparency: every step is traceable and publicly available.
- Efficiency: less logistics and faster counting of results.
- Collaboration: co-design online with structured moderation.
International and open source platforms
Decidim — Open source framework for consultations, participatory budgeting, assemblies, initiatives, and petitions.
How to interact: register on your local instance, follow an active process, submit proposals, comment, and vote.
Consul Democracy — Open source platform used by hundreds of cities worldwide for proposals, debates, voting, and consultations.
How to interact: create an account on your local instance, explore the processes, and participate with ideas and votes.
Your Priorities (public instance: yrpri.org) — Crowd-sourcing of ideas, discussions, and light voting to set priorities.
How to interact: join a community, publish ideas, compare them, and vote with easy tools.
OpenDCN — Italian open source project for online deliberative processes (forums, proposals, voting).
How to interact: access the instance of your municipality or association, join forums and consultations.
LiquidFeedback — Liquid democracy platform with thematic delegations and structured votes.
How to interact: sign up on the instance of your organization, create proposals, or delegate your vote on specific topics.
Polis — Real-time statistical analysis of opinions for large groups (used in vTaiwan).
How to interact: enter a “conversation space”, agree/disagree with statements, and add your own.
Loomio — Collaborative decision-making with threads, proposals, polls, and records.
How to interact: join your group’s space, discuss proposals, and vote (consensus, majority, check-ins).
Citizen OS — Open source platform for discussions and online voting (public/private) with audit trail.
How to interact: create a consultation, invite participants, discuss, and vote with exportable reports.
All Our Ideas — “Wiki survey” to set collective priorities by comparing pairs of ideas.
How to interact: start a survey, share it, vote between pairs of ideas, and see the ranking emerge.
vTaiwan — Official hybrid consultation process in Taiwan combining Polis with offline meetings.
How to interact: check open processes, read reports and consensus summaries, and join discussions.
OpenStad — Dutch toolkit for local engagement, participatory budgeting, and crowdsourcing projects.
How to interact: log into your city’s portal, submit proposals, and vote on projects.
CitizenLab — SaaS platform for public institutions (consultations, PB, roadmaps), with analytics and segmentation.
How to interact: go to your city’s portal, create a profile, follow the processes, and contribute.
EngagementHQ (Granicus) — Suite for digital consultations (surveys, forums, maps) with sentiment analysis.
How to interact: create an account, answer surveys, join discussions, submit ideas.
Civocracy — Platform for community engagement and collaborative decision-making, used by regions and cities.
How to interact: find your organization, sign up, and participate in projects and consultations.
Active institutional portals (examples)
NYC – The People’s Money (Decidim) — New York’s participatory budgeting and civic engagement platform.
How to interact: sign up with NYC.ID, submit ideas for your district, follow phases, and vote.
Helsinki – OmaStadi (Decidim) — Citywide participatory budget with dedicated funds and open data results.
How to interact: propose projects, follow validation, vote for them, and monitor implementation.
Bologna – Partecipa (Decidim) — City’s portal with processes, documents, and open results.
How to interact: register, explore ongoing processes, submit proposals, comment, and join meetings.
Milan – Partecipa (Decidim) — City platform for petitions, consultations, and projects.
How to interact: log in, support petitions, propose ideas, and participate in consultations.
Concorder: simple and collaborative
Concorder is our platform designed to simplify the creation of participatory proposals (public or private). It offers groups/communities, paragraph-based discussions, transparent voting, moderation, personal and group pages, and file management. For a guided path, see the step-by-step guide.
How to get started (quick checklist)
- Define goals and audience (PB, regulation, urban plan).
- Choose the platform (open source: Decidim/Consul/Citizen OS; SaaS: CitizenLab/EngagementHQ/Civocracy).
- Set clear phases (ideas → evaluation → vote → implementation → monitoring).
- Enable secure ID (SPID/eID or robust verifications).
- Accessibility and communication: mobile-first, newsletters, social media, hybrid meetings.
Efficiency vs. traditional assemblies
- Participation: hybrid processes usually reach more people than in-person meetings only.
- Costs: reusable platforms reduce logistics and printing costs.
- Speed: votes and results are available almost in real time.
- Transparency: full traceability and, where possible, open data.
To reinforce integrity and auditability, see blockchain and electronic voting.
Conclusion
Choosing the right platform depends on goals, scale, and resources. With the active tools listed here, you can design more transparent, efficient, and inclusive processes today, combining digital participation with face-to-face meetings.
