Code for Asheville is a unique nonprofit focused on designing and building civic technology applications. Their motto is “developing code that develops community” and they give back by building things to support the efforts of nonprofits, advocacy groups, and government agencies who do good. To date that means building applications as the NC Megaphone, which allows you to mass email every member of the North Carolina General Assembly and the award-winning Sunshine Request, a platform that lets you to submit, track, and gain official answers from public records requests.

In the wake of one of the biggest policing scandals in Asheville history, the brutal beating of an African-American pedestrian and fall out from the subsequent cover-up, the community rallied together to insist upon policy reforms that would work to end racial profiling. In response to national news coverage of the beating, Synergetic Strategies worked with Code for Asheville to create the “Petition for Police Accountability Through Data Transparency,” demanding greater transparency from the department through the public release of open datasets including use of force and citizen complaints. The proposal also called for the implementation of policy reforms proposed by the Asheville Buncombe NAACP and Southern Coalition for Social Justice such as eliminating regulatory and equipment stops, and requiring written consent to search a vehicle without probable cause. The petition was endorsed by over 30 organizations and received 1,000 individual signatures, resulting in the support of Asheville City Council and the creation of an ongoing working group that brings community members and City Staff together to release sensitive datasets to the public.