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Introduction
Welcome to Open Navigator - an AI-powered platform that analyzes municipal meeting minutes and financial documents to identify policy opportunities for advocacy.
:::tip[All Data is Cited & Properly Attributed] Every dataset, standard, and research source used in this platform is properly cited with complete attribution, licenses, and BibTeX references.
View Complete Citations & Data Sources - Academic research (MeetingBank, LocalView, Council Data Project, City Scrapers), Government data (U.S. Census, NCES, IRS), Civic tech standards (OCD-ID, Popolo, Schema.org, CEDS, OMOP CDM), Nonprofit data (ProPublica, Every.org, Findhelp), Church & congregation data (ARDA, HIFLD, National Congregations Study), Enterprise tech partnerships (Microsoft, Google, AWS, Databricks, Snowflake, Salesforce), and more. :::
👋 Choose Your Path
This documentation is organized by audience. Click the section that best describes you:
📊 Policy Makers & Advocates
I want to:
- Hold governments accountable
- Analyze meeting minutes and budgets
- Track nonprofit spending
- Find advocacy opportunities
🛠️ Developers & Technical Users
I want to:
- Install and configure the platform
- Scrape meeting data
- Deploy to production
- Contribute to development
Platform Scale
Open Navigator provides access to comprehensive data from 5 states:
All data is 100% free and public - no subscriptions or API fees required.
🎯 Top 5 Use Cases
These are the most powerful ways to use Open Navigator:
📊 1. Hold Governments Accountable
The Problem: Cities and school boards claim priorities in meetings but don't fund them.
The Solution: Compare meeting transcripts with budget line items to expose gaps between rhetoric and reality.
Data Used: MEETING, BUDGET, JURISDICTION, TOPIC
🗺️ 2. Find Policy Windows for Advocacy
The Problem: Advocates miss critical moments when governments are receptive to change.
The Solution: Track meeting sentiment, budget cycles, and legislation timing to identify when to act.
- Budget discussion: April 15 (2 weeks away)
- Sentiment: +0.65 (favorable toward policy)
- Similar cities: 3 passed related ordinances
Data Used: OPPORTUNITY, SENTIMENT, DATE_DIMENSION, METRIC_VIEW
🏛️ 3. Track Nonprofit Effectiveness
The Problem: Donors can't verify if nonprofits deliver on their mission.
The Solution: Combine Form 990 financial data with service delivery data and meeting citations.
- Revenue: $2.5M (Form 990)
- CEO Salary: $450K (18% of revenue)
- Program spending: 42% (below 65% standard)
- Meeting citations: 0 (not mentioned in city meetings)
Data Used: NONPROFIT, DONATION, CONSTITUENT, PROGRAM_DELIVERY
🗣️ 4. Analyze Public Sentiment & Debate
The Problem: It's hard to know how communities really feel about policies.
The Solution: Extract sentiment from meeting transcripts, public comments, and video debates.
- Public comments: 127 speakers
- Sentiment breakdown: 58% against, 35% for, 7% neutral
- Board vote: 6-1 to require masks
Data Used: MEETING, VIDEO, OFFICIAL, SENTIMENT, VOTE_EVENT
🎓 5. Compare Education Spending Across Districts
The Problem: Parents don't know if their school district spends money efficiently.
The Solution: Benchmark per-pupil spending, administrative costs, and outcomes across similar districts.
| District | Per-Pupil | Admin % |
|---|---|---|
| Your District | $18,500 | 24% |
| Similar District A | $14,200 | 12% |
| Similar District B | $13,800 | 11% |
Data Used: JURISDICTION, BUDGET, DEMOGRAPHICS, METRIC_VIEW
:::info[Explore the Complete Data Model] These use cases are powered by a comprehensive data model with 40+ entities including jurisdictions, meetings, budgets, nonprofits, officials, videos, and more.
View Complete Data Model ERD - Interactive diagram with all entity relationships :::
📊 What Data We Integrate
Open Navigator combines multiple free, public data sources:
- 📄 Meeting Minutes: 1,000+ municipalities with full transcripts and videos
- 📺 Video Channels: 50+ state legislature YouTube channels
- 💰 Financial Data: Complete budget and Form 990 coverage
- 🗺️ Geographic Coverage: All 50 states, 3,000+ counties and cities
- 🏛️ Nonprofits: 3M+ organizations with Form 990 financial data
- 🗳️ Elections: Ballots, candidates, results, polling data
- ✅ Fact-Checking: Claims verification from trusted sources
See Data Sources Overview for complete details.
Quick Start
Visit Developer Documentation for installation and setup instructions.
For production deployment options, see:
Next Steps
For Policy Makers
Learn how to find advocacy opportunities and track government accountability.
🛠️ For Developers
Install the platform, configure scrapers, and deploy to production.