| Founder Names: | John Handelaar, Sabrina Dent |
|---|---|
| Startup Name: | KildareStreet.com |
| Website: | Kildarestreet.com |
History of your startup
KildareStreet.com is a non-partisan website which makes it not only easy for people to keep tabs on their elected representatives in the Houses of the Oireachtas, but actually possible for them to do this – quickly, clearly, and electronically – for the first time ever in the history of the Republic.
Since launching in April, we’ve helped nearly 55,000 people in 77 Irish citites to read and search through the workings of the Dáil and Seanad. The site currently receives more traffic than the official Orieachtas site, serving approximately 1 in every 25 Irish voters. It also sends over 350 email alerts on most sitting days and more than 1,200 people are following TDs, Senators or search queries via email alerting.
All of this is cheerfully provided to the public at no cost and ad-free, and to date, Kildare Street has been built entirely from volunteer efforts. In order to continue to provide services and add new features, we need income. But we are not asking you to donate Outvesting funds; instead, we’re asking you to invest them in new civic services and in a viable commercial revenue stream to generate future income for the site.
KildareStreet is based on the UK website TheyWorkForYou.com, whose open source code allows for third-country projects like ours. Unfortunately, while the back-end tools are first-class, the web interface is so tightly coupled to Westminster that porting the app to Ireland was a huge and Byzantine task. The barriers to adoption of additional modules are large as the project now stands.
Investment from Outvesting would mean a new platform for the site, new services for the public, and new revenue streams for the organisation – all of which will significantly help to secure the growth and future of Kildare Street.
Why do you deserve to win?
Our goal is to make Government accessible, accessible and transparent to voters and constituents in Ireland. Sites like ours are not produced by any arm of the Government itself, and none of these facilities existed before we started to build them. In Ireland there isn’t even anywhere you can go online right now and discover who your own TDs an Councillors *are* without requiring you to have detailed knowledge of the electoral system, let alone sites which put local communities directly in touch with the people who are supposed to be working on their behalf.
Opening up the processes of democracy to ordinary people is our contribution to the civic areana. It might be a sad fact that this should be innovative, but it is a fact nonetheless. Kildare Street provides a service that is fundamental to a free and open democracy, and is the only such service in Ireland.
In October, we were honoured to win the 2009 Irish Web Awards award for Best New Web Application or Service. We’d like to continue to improve what we can offer with your help. And, in terms of bang for your buck, we think Kildare Street is a great investment. We’ve achieved a huge amount with absolutely no funding at all; with €5,000 we can deliver significant new services very quickly and bring on board a commercial revenue stream that will continue to fund the site into the future.
What you’ll do with the money?
We want to port KildareStreet.com to a new, future-facing framework so we can add new tools to the site, make it much better looking and more user-friendly, and make that happen much more quickly. Part of your €5,000 will buy new civic services like expenses for TDs and the ability to use your address to find out who your representatives are and contact them online. (We’ll even track responses and produce scorecards for TDs, showing who is responding to constituent questions and who isn’t.)
We are painfully aware of the urgent need to develop revenue streams for Kildare Street to secure its financial future. Accordingly, we need investment to fund two commercial projects that will generate significant revenue for the site.
First, we’re looking to create an extremely dull but high-value service for solicitors and barristers allowing them to compare changes in legal statutes that have been amended through new legislation. Essentially we can tap data we already have and present it in a way that solves a significant marketplace problem.
Secondly, we are planning to create and sell a print directory of politicians using a slightly expanded data set. While not particularly sexy, the information we would be able to provide in our directory would form a canonical reference volume and be of interest to anyone with an interest in politics and public affairs, including lobbyists, PR companies, journalists, Ireland’s 359 public libraries, and law libraries.
Without investment, none of this will be possible – but with Outvestment, we can make a lot happen with your money. Thanks for your time!