Our cities, our schools, our elected officials cannot be responsive to the needs of our communities if our voices aren't being heard, if we aren't speaking in the first place.

Our mission is to ensure that everyone in their community has timely information about the forces shaping their lives, and to ensure that their voices are heard by the decision-makers at all levels of government.

How It Works

• InformUp reporters attend public meetings.
• We share the most important information needed to stay informed.
• With every article, we solicit your feedback.
• We share your feedback directly with elected officials.

Armchair Advocacy

There are too few opportunities for people to be meaningfully involved in their communities given the demands of modern life. Staying informed and engaging with our community organizations should be as frictionless as engaging with social media, while being far more constructive.

InformUp is dedicated to building the tools necessary to maximize our communities' engagement with their elected officials while minimizing the burden on any one person. If successful, we can restore the feedback loop of local journalism and local civic organizations that helped our communities thrive, while making them more inclusive and accessible than ever before.

Our Values

InformUp is an organization dedicated to advocacy journalism. While advocacy journalism typically focuses on reporting on a specific issue, InformUp advocates for the informed beliefs of a community, representing those beliefs to their elected officials.

With the decline of local journalism, communities are increasingly divorced from the actions of their elected leaders. Even informed members of a community lack well-practiced paths to engaging with their representatives. They may not know who their councilperson or school board member is (even if they voted for them), let alone how to contact them.

InformUp is dedicated to providing accurate and digestible information on the current actions of elected officials and soliciting readers' feedback on their desired outcomes. InformUp will communicate the community's preferences back to elected leaders in a manner that accurately reflects the community's preferences, however unified or fragmented.

Evidence-Based

InformUp has an obligation to accurately reflect the beliefs of the community. However, this obligation has limits. We will not advocate for the earth being flat, birds not being real, or the sky being green. We are committed to representing the views of our communities, even if they do not align with our own, as long as those beliefs are grounded in citable, reproducible evidence.

Journalistic Ethics

InformUp, an organization dedicated to advocacy journalism, is committed to amplifying community voices and ensuring their representation before elected officials. We strive to provide accurate and digestible information about the actions of elected officials and to facilitate an informed dialogue within the community.

Community Engagement and Feedback

InformUp actively solicits and incorporates community feedback to ensure that the representation of views in our reporting accurately reflects the diverse opinions within the community, whether unified or fragmented. We consider this feedback essential in maintaining transparency and integrity in our advocacy.

Ethical Guidelines

We adhere to strict ethical standards to maintain trust and accountability. This includes a commitment to transparency about our sources of funding and ensuring that our editorial independence is never compromised by external influences.

Advocacy and Representation

As advocates for our community, we commit to engaging with elected officials and other stakeholders to ensure that the community’s preferences are clearly and effectively communicated, informing public policy in a manner that reflects the genuine sentiments of the constituents.