Managing organizations

An organization on CivicOS is a public body, agency, NGO, or utility that citizens can hold to account. Once created, an org can post announcements, run projects, and take responsibility for issues that citizens have reported.

This guide is for organization owners and admins.

How an organization comes to exist

Organizations are minted by applying at signup and getting approved by a platform admin. There is no in-app "New organization" button — neither citizens nor admins can create an org directly. The application is the only door, and admin approval is the only key.

Step 1 — apply at signup

On /register, choose account type = Organization and fill in the organization block of the form:

Field	Notes
Name	The org's public name
Slug	URL-friendly identifier, lowercase and hyphenated (e.g. enugu-water-corp) — must be unique
Kind	GOVERNMENT, AGENCY, NGO, UTILITY, or OTHER
Jurisdiction	NATIONAL, STATE, LGA, or COMMUNITY — dictates the geographic scope of what you can act on
State / LGA	Required for STATE / LGA jurisdictions
Description	What the org does
Contact	Public email, phone, website — how citizens reach you
Logo	Public logo URL

Submitting creates an OrganizationApplication with status PENDING and a user account that can log in but is limited to citizen actions until approval lands.

Step 2 — admin review

A platform admin sees your application in the admin console's Applications queue. They can approve, request changes, or reject with a note. When they approve, a single database transaction:

• Creates the public organizations row using your submitted details
• Adds you as the OWNER in org_members
• Sets your platform role to NGO (or GOVERNMENT_ADMIN for government kinds)
• Sends you an in-app + email notification

Step 3 — you're the owner

After approval, your organization already exists — there is no separate "Create org" step. Head to your org-owner surface:

• My organization in the sidebar (visible only to OWNER/ADMIN members of any organization), or directly at /org/<your-org-id>

From there you manage announcements, projects, consultations, assignments, and members — the rest of this page walks through each.

Fixing details after approval

Something wrong in the approved details? A platform admin can PATCH the organization via the admin console. Members with OWNER or ADMIN role can also edit the org's public-facing fields (name, description, contact, logo) from the org-owner surface. The slug is fixed after creation.

The verified badge

Organizations start unverified. A platform admin can grant a verified badge — a citizen-facing trust signal that says "this really is the body they claim to be." The badge toggle writes a separate audit-log entry (org.verified / org.unverified) so trust decisions are reviewable.

If you believe your org qualifies, contact the platform admins with your proof (registration certificate, staff directory, etc.).

Your team

A utility or agency has many people doing different jobs, and CivicOS records two separate things about each of them.

Role is what they may do on CivicOS:

• OWNER — full control, including members and payout details.
• ADMIN — commits the organization: publishes announcements, creates campaigns and consultations, accepts issue assignments, manages the team, edits the org.
• STAFF — does the work: moves an assignment along (RECEIVED → IN PROGRESS → COMPLETED) and posts progress updates on issues and projects. Cannot publish announcements, cannot run campaigns, cannot manage members, and cannot post a campaign update — that one reports to people who gave money.

The line between ADMIN and STAFF is reporting on a commitment versus making one. A field officer saying "we're on site, the main is repaired" is recording work the organization already took on. Deciding to take the job on in the first place, or asking the public for money, is a commitment the organization makes.

Job title is their actual job — "Head of Distribution", "Field Officer". Free text, optional, and shown next to their name. A citizen reading an update wants to know they're hearing from the Head of Distribution; that is a different question from whether that person is allowed to publish.

Inviting someone

1. Go to My organization and scroll to Team.
2. Click Invite someone.
3. Enter their email address, an optional job title, and a role.

They get an email with a link. They do not need a CivicOS account — the link opens a page showing who invited them and to what, and they can create an account from there. The link is good for 14 days.

Invitations you have sent but nobody has accepted appear under Team, so two admins don't invite the same person twice. If a link expires it says so — send another, which replaces the old one and stops the previous link working.

You can withdraw a pending invitation at any time.

They must accept with the invited address

Accepting requires being signed in as the address the invitation was sent to. A forwarded link does not let someone else in — organization admins can publish in your name and run fundraising campaigns, so the invitation grants access to the person you chose, not to whoever opens the message.

If someone signs in with a different address, the page tells them which one to use.

Platform admins can add existing accounts directly from the admin console's organization page, which also shows each member's current platform role.

Any platform role can be added, including representatives. A councillor sitting on a water board's oversight committee is both an elected representative and a member of that organization — the two are independent, and being on a utility's team does not make someone an elected official (or vice versa).

Member changes are audit-logged.

Announcements

Announcements are the org's public voice — updates you want the community to see in the feed and on your org page.

To publish an announcement:

1. Go to Announcements → New announcement.
2. Enter a title and body.
3. Either save as draft (only members see it) or publish immediately.

Announcements move through DRAFT → PUBLISHED → ARCHIVED. Publishing and archiving both write to the audit log.

Projects

Projects are the "here's what we're building" primitive — a rehab, a programme, a rollout. They carry:

• Title + description
• Status: PLANNED / ACTIVE / PAUSED / COMPLETED / CANCELLED
• Start and expected-end dates
• Optional budget (in kobo — ₦1 = 100 kobo)
• Optional community link

Citizens see the project on your org page. Post progress updates to keep them informed as work moves forward.

Assignments — receiving issues

An assignment records that your org has taken responsibility for a citizen-filed issue. Assignments work in two directions:

• You claim an issue — go to the issue page, click Take responsibility, add an optional note. The issue's assignments list now shows your org.
• A platform admin routes an issue to you — you'll see it in Your organization → Assignments with status RECEIVED.

Once assigned, move the status through IN_PROGRESS → COMPLETED (or REJECTED with a reason). Every state change is visible to citizens.

Assignments are members-only reads — a curious user can't enumerate another org's inbox, but the list of orgs assigned to a given issue is public. Citizens deserve to know who owns their report.

Progress updates

Progress updates are the "respond publicly" primitive. They hang off either an assigned issue or a project.

To post an update:

1. Go to the issue or project page.
2. Click Post progress update.
3. Write the body (2 characters minimum — usually a sentence or two).
4. Choose public (default) or internal (members only).

Public updates are readable by anyone. Internal notes are only visible to org members.

Who can post one: any member, STAFF included. This is the operational record of work in progress, and the person who actually did the work should be able to say so.

Campaign updates are the exception. An update attached to a campaign goes to everyone who donated and forms part of the spend-accountability trail, so it stays with owners and admins.

Running a fundraising campaign

Community Funding lets a verified organization raise money for a specific piece of work. Before you start, one thing is worth being clear about, because it shapes everything else:

CivicOS never holds your money. Donations settle straight into your own bank account through a Paystack sub-account. The platform cannot release funds, cannot hold them back, and cannot see what you spend. What it provides is a public record — and it will hold you to it.

Before you can take a single naira

Two things must be true:

1. Your organization is verified.
2. You have connected a payout account — bank and account number, confirmed with Paystack. You enter these once; CivicOS passes them to Paystack and does not store the account number.

Until both are done, campaigns can be drafted but not published.

The lifecycle

1. Draft. Create the campaign with a title, summary, description, category, goal and location. Edit freely.
2. Spend plan. Add milestones — the stages the money will be spent in. Their totals cannot exceed the goal. You cannot submit for review without one.
3. Submit for review. A platform admin reads it.
4. Approved, or sent back. An admin either approves, rejects, or returns it with needs changes and a note saying what to fix.
5. Publish. Approval does not publish — you choose when.
6. Funded / Completed. Mark it complete when the work is done.
7. File a final report. The closing account.

Once you publish, the content is locked. Title, description and goal can no longer be edited. A campaign is a promise people gave money against, so it stops being a document you can revise.

While it is live

• Publish spending as you go, itemised against your milestones. The campaign page shows what came in, what you say you spent, and what has not been accounted for.
• Post updates for the people who donated. Lead with what has been done, and say what has gone wrong or been delayed — donors find out eventually, and hearing it from you is better.
• CivicAI can draft both. See CivicAI for organizations.

Everything you publish here is a claim by you. CivicOS cannot check it, and every page says so. That is not a slight on your organization — it is the honest description of a platform that never touched the money.

The final report

When the work is finished, file a closing account: what was achieved, what the money went on, and what was not achieved.

If money you raised is still unaccounted for when you file, the page will say so and name the amount — permanently. That figure is frozen at the moment you file. Publishing more spending afterwards updates the live accounting, but it does not change the verdict on the report. A thin report cannot be fixed later, so file it when you can account for the work.

If a concern is raised

Donors, and people who live in the LGA your campaign serves, can raise a concern about it. Concerns go to CivicOS staff, not to you, and nothing happens to your campaign automatically — a person reads every one. Only a platform admin can pause a campaign, which stops new donations and takes the page down.

The most common cause of a concern is silence. An organization that raises money and then publishes nothing for months looks the same from outside as one that has taken the money. Regular updates are the cheapest protection you have.

Funding analytics

The Analytics tab on your dashboard shows how your campaigns are doing: what you have raised, giving over time, repeat donors, average donation, and a per-campaign breakdown.

Two rates sit below the chart, and each states its denominator on screen because neither means anything without it:

• Completion rate — how many of the campaigns you published are finished.
• Final reports filed — how many of your finished campaigns came with an account of the money. This is the one worth watching. It is, in effect, the question a donor deciding whether to give to you again is asking.

Three things to keep in mind reading them:

• None of it is a balance. Every figure is money that settled through CivicOS. Donations go straight to your own bank account, so CivicOS has no idea what you hold or have spent.
• Donor counts are a floor. Someone who gave while signed out cannot be linked to any other donation, so your unique and repeat donor numbers are a lower bound. The page tells you how many of your donations can be attributed.
• "People helped" is not shown, on purpose. Nothing in the record measures it, and a number you typed in would be a claim sitting among figures taken from a ledger.

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Related:

• Running consultations →
• CivicAI for organizations →
• Representative dashboard →