PolitiCraft Inc
Let's Play Civics
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
“Students lack essential skills for life, work, and civic engagement" It's a fact, 60% of businesses don't feel students are prepared for the workforce while 58% of our youth are unable to cite two forms of political engagement that they have taken part in. Currently, just 10% of high school seniors are proficient in U.S. History, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
To deeply engage young people in the power of democracy and help them realize their role in shaping public policies that improve the lives of others, students must experience lively and meaningful civic-engagement opportunities both inside and outside of school. By investing in students' potential through hands-on, direct interaction with peers and by deeply engaging them in civic and interpersonal processes, issues such as political disconnect, lack of empathy, and ineffective communication skills can be resolved and the cycles.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
PolitiCraft Card Game
PolitiCraft is a narrative-based ACTION CIVICS card game that guides students through varying levels of civic engagement. Through game play, students are guided by the deck to craft narratives based upon civic issues of their choosing (e.g., personal, local, national, etc.). Doing so informs students of the multiple pathways available to them to achieve real change in their community.
Where we work
External reviews
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of distribution outlets for products
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
PolitiCraft Card Game
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
The product is currently distributed on our website and on Amazon.com.
Number of copies of work distributed/sold
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
PolitiCraft Card Game
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Units have now been sold in 44 states.
Number of products distributed
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
PolitiCraft Card Game
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We are currently on distributing the Base Deck of PolitiCraft, but a middle school version of the game is in development for release in 2019. An elementary version is also planned.
Number of people on the organization's email list
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
PolitiCraft Card Game
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of states where the game is being played
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
PolitiCraft Card Game
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Our primary focus today towards achieving this mission is PolitiCraft,
a narrative-based ACTION CIVICS card game that leads students
through varying levels of civic engagement. Through game play,
students are guided by the cards to craft narratives based upon
a selected civic issue, informing them of the multiple pathways
available to achieve real change in their school and community, while
fostering greater civic participation nationwide. Our aim is to not
only empower students with the knowledge of our political system
and how it works, but to also give them a safe space to practice
what it would mean to engage in bringing about a change in their
community.
Students who approach problems by thinking through the entire
system and then designing new, relevant models are poised to
discover innovative solutions. The PolitiCraft platform creates this
opportunity, producing a future generation of driven thinkers with the
experience required to successfully address challenges in college,
career and civic life. Students have historically felt disconnected from
the political process, making it difficult to express their views in a
constructive or empathetic way.
Providing students with the opportunity to explore real-life civic
scenarios is critical and empowers them with an improved sense
of political efficacy. The variety of interactions presented by the
PolitiCraft card deck cultivate diverse student perspectives, while
enhancing socio-emotional, systems thinking, and collaboration skills.
PolitiCraft helps students to both understand challenges in today's
society and play through our current system to solve them.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Goal One: Maximize the Number of Classrooms Playing PolitiCraft
With the product now available, our top priority
now is distribution to the classroom, both directly
and through partnerships. Accordingly, we will
be exploring a number of strategies to blanket
classrooms throughout the country with PolitiCraft
decks.
Goal Two: Develop a Middle School Edition of PolitiCraft
The initial Base Deck of PolitiCraft was designed for students ages 13 and up, but in our initial testing we have played the game in middle school classrooms. We discovered that while it works for most students in that setting, there are enhancements and adjustments that can be made to enrich the experience of middle school students.
Goal Three: Research and Analyze Classroom Outcomes
As our classroom base grows, we believe the ability to develop research that quantifies results and outcomes related to game play is critical to both improving the game and increasing classroom penetration. We recognize that this a significant undertaking,but believe our alignment with the NCSS C3 Framework has laid the groundwork for collecting meaningful research.
Goal Four: Facilitate Community Conversations Using PolitiCraft
We believe PolitiCraft can play a valuable role outside of the classroom as well. The
core social-emotional and communication components of the game are valuable in any conversation or discussion, and the game play mechanisms could make the facilitation of difficult conversations less confrontational. We have many difficult issues and problems that confront us in every community, and the polarization of positions between individuals and groups has never been greater. Discussing these issues through the lens of PolitiCraft allows for the creation of a more positive space in which to have these conversations.Goal Five:
Goal Five: Build Regional and National Partnerships
We are incredibly fortunate that PolitiCraft shares its universe with a wealth of amazing organizations and individuals, and one of our top priorities is to foster relationships with as many of them as possible, thereby enhancing our programs reach and impact, while hopefully doing the same for our partners.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
PolitiCraft will draw upon its staff, volunteer Board of Directors, community partners and relationships with other organizations in the profit and nonprofit sector to meet its goals. Our affiliation with the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) provides us access to teachers across the country at their annual convention, where we have presented two years in a row. Feedback from those sessions has been invaluable in the development of the product. We have contacted a number of other local and national organizations proposing partnerships, and the results have been very positive. In Baton Rouge, we work with City Year Baton Rouge as an example. These types of partnerships allow us to expand our reach beyond what could be accomplished alone.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
As of 03/14/19, we have hundreds of PolitiCraft decks being used in 44 states across the US. We continue to work to more effectively market the product at a grass-routes level, doing SEO work, utilizing free Google ad-words, requesting reviews, a social media posts. We have begun work with a marketing firm to do targeted email marketing to promote brand awareness. We are enhancing both our own website, as well as our store at Amazon.com, to attempt to maximize exposure. We have been very encouraged at early results of some marketing on Amazon. We strongly believe based on reaction so far, that if we can get the product in front of more people, the positive word of mouth and posted comments will dramatically improve the reach of the game, so we are focusing resources on these efforts accordingly. In addition, we have begun work on building the community conversations aspect of our plan, soliciting potential partners, identifying qualified entities to evaluate the results, and securing funding to make the project a reality.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
PolitiCraft Inc
Board of directorsas of 09/17/2019
Steve Brown
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes