Fundación Ciudadana Civio

Description

Fundación Ciudadana Civio is a Spanish foundation, based in Madrid, that combines journalism and civic action to monitor government and public institutions. It describes itself as a multidisciplinary team working to improve the quality of democracy in Spain. Its work combines information analysis and investigative journalism with software development and design, communication, institutional relations and business development. Its stated goal is transparent governments and well-informed citizens.

Civio was founded in 2012 by David Cabo and Jacobo Elosua. Cabo is an engineer with a background in software consulting for companies such as British Telecom and Accenture, and he is now co-director and lead developer. Eva Belmonte, a journalist formerly with El Mundo, is the other co-director. She designs and oversees Civio’s investigations.

The foundation has been registered in Spain’s national register of foundations since February 2012. Civio’s team includes journalists, data developers and designers. They work on investigative projects such as El BOE nuestro de cada día, which tracks Spain’s official gazette, España en llamas, and El Indultómetro, a database on pardons. They also build tools such as ¿Dónde van mis impuestos?, which lets people see how public budgets are spent.

The organization also runs training for journalists on investigative and data reporting. It works with lawyers on questions of intellectual property, privacy and data reuse tied to its projects. It publishes its own content under a Creative Commons By-SA licence. Civio is governed by a board of trustees, and it funds itself partly through donations and a community of members.

The pages read describe Civio’s activities, structure and history but do not state a specific budget, staff size, or country of operation beyond Spain.