UK Citizens Online Democracy (or UKCOD) is a registered charity in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...

, number 1076346. At present, UKCOD's main activity is running the

mySociety mySociety is a UK-based registered charity, previously named UK Citizens Online Democracy. It began as a UK-focused organisation with the aim of making online democracy tools for UK citizens. However, those tools were open source, so that the ...

project. mySociety builds websites which give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives. It also aims to teach the

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

and

voluntary Voluntary may refer to: * Voluntary (music) * Voluntary or volunteer, person participating via volunteering/volunteerism * Voluntary muscle contraction See also

* Voluntary action * Voluntariness, in law and philosophy * Voluntaryism, reje ...

sectors, through demonstration, how to use the internet most efficiently to improve lives.

History

Early history

UKCOD was founded in 1996. This initiative was not associated with any political party although politicians and citizens of all political persuasions were invited to participate, and this has remained true of all UKCOD's projects. UKCOD’s first project, commissioned by the EU office of the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...

, was to host and manage an online discussion on whether Britain should join the

European Monetary Union The economic and monetary union (EMU) of the European Union is a group of policies aimed at converging the economies of member states of the European Union at three stages. There are three stages of the EMU, each of which consists of prog ...

. UKCOD was also heavily involved in research work contributing to the Freedom of Information Act 2000, including the Have Your Say website.

More recently

UKCOD fell dormant around 1999, and was revived in 2003 by a new generation of trustees and volunteers, many of whom had previously worked together on independent online democratic projects such as Stand.org.uk and FaxYourMP, the predecessor to WriteToThem. In Autumn 2003, UKCOD started a new project called mySociety which aimed to build more sites in the tradition of FaxYourMP. Over the next three years, mySociety developed and launched a series of projects; ''see

''. In 2006, UKCOD established a subsidiary trading entity, mySociety Ltd, to manage commercial activity. UKCOD is the sole shareholder of mySociety Ltd and retains any surplus generated by mySociety Ltd.

Trustees

, the trustees and directors of UKCOD are: * Owen Blacker, a technologist in advertising * James Crabtree, a journalist for the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...

'' * James Cronin, a technologist and entrepreneur * Manar Hussain, a technologist * Stephen King, a partner at the

Omidyar Network Omidyar Network is a self-styled " philanthropic investment firm," composed of a foundation and an impact investment firm. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, Omidyar Network has committed over $1.5billion to ...

, a major funder of UKCOD Owen Blacker and James Cronin are, with mySociety CEO Mark Cridge (and

Tom Steinberg Tom Steinberg is a nonprofit leader and author, with a career history mainly in public interest technology, and in the profession of grantmaking. He is the co-author of the book 'Modern Grantmaking: A Guide for Funders Who Believe Better is Pos ...

before him), also directors of mySociety Ltd. Former trustees and directors include: * Amandeep Rehlon, an economist at the Bank of England * Jeremy Weinstein, a

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

academic at Stanford University

References

External links

UKCOD's website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Uk Citizens Online Democracy 1996 establishments in the United Kingdom Charities based in London