Decisions that communities can live with
Civic Lab helps councils and public organisations make decisions that are socially robust, politically realistic, and operationally implementable. We ground decision-making in the reality of community sentiment and values, stakeholder power and influence, media dynamics, political constraints, competing expectations, and the real trust environment.
Decision readiness through civic intelligence, backed by a framework that keeps decisions defensible, auditable, and implementable.
Why this exists
Councils and public organisations operate in the highest-friction environment imaginable. Limited funding. Infinite expectations. Pressure from organised stakeholder groups. Loud minorities versus silent majorities. Emotional responses to rational trade-offs. Historic grievances. Complex iwi relationships. Misinformation and online narrative storms.
Even the right decision can fail if the path to it is flawed. Civic Lab makes sure your decisions can withstand the real world.
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Powered by the MOI Decision Framework
Civic Lab is powered by the Ministry of Insights Decision Framework — a structured system designed to improve decision quality (less guesswork, more clarity), auditability (traceable rationale that holds up later), governance confidence (trade-offs made explicit), and implementation confidence (reality-tested pathways).
The framework operates behind the scenes so clients don’t have to “learn a methodology.” You get the benefit: evidence before conclusions, traceability end-to-end, and scenario testing where it matters.
AI is used to accelerate synthesis and scenario comparison, but judgement remains governed and human-owned.
What it does
Civic Lab helps you understand your civic landscape before you commit. It surfaces hidden legitimacy risks, helps you avoid engagement that increases resistance, and designs engagement that builds trust rather than backlash. You create decision evidence that holds up later, both internally and publicly.
We don’t just ask what people want. We map what they value, what they fear, and what they will accept.
How it works
Civic Landscape Mapping
We map public sentiment drivers, stakeholder groups and influence networks, trust levels and legitimacy
conditions, historic sensitivities, and narrative risk triggers. You get a clear picture of the terrain you’re actually
operating in.
Civic Constraints and Pressure Points
We identify the non-negotiables—what the community will not accept, where narratives can flip from neutral to
hostile, what language will inflame versus clarify, and what evidence will be seen as credible.
Engagement Architecture
We design a real engagement approach that identifies who must be engaged (and who shouldn’t drive
outcomes), what good engagement looks like, how to prevent theatre, and how engagement converts into
decision evidence.
Decision Support and Audit Trail
We produce a civic intelligence pack supported by explicit assumptions, traceable evidence, scenario
comparisons, and governance-ready rationale. This is what makes decisions defensible months later when the
heat rises.
What it doesn't do
Civic Lab is not a survey tool, tick-box consultation, PR spin, generic comms templates, or an attempt to
manufacture consensus.
It exists to help you make decisions with integrity and durability.
Problems this solves
You’re worried this decision will blow up publicly. You keep being accused of not listening. You can’t tell which stakeholders matter most. Engagement is expensive and doesn’t reduce risk. People are angry and you don’t know why. You have to proceed but can’t afford to lose trust. The story is getting away from you. Elected members are split and anxious.
Not anymore with the Civic Lab
When you use this
Water reform impacts, rates and funding decisions, service level changes, facility closures or upgrades,
community strategy and LTP inputs, transport and roading decisions, district plan changes, climate adaptation decisions, iwi partnership models.
Any decision, strategy, plan, implementation.
What you get
- Civic Landscape Map
- Stakeholder influence model
- Narrative risk assessment
- Engagement approach and facilitation plan
- Trust safeguards (principles, behaviours, evidence rules)
- Decision evidence dossier (traceable, auditable, governance-ready)
Civic Lab FAQs
When should we use Civic Lab instead of traditional policy analysis
Civic Lab is useful when you want to explore how different groups and systems might respond to a proposal, beyond what static impact tables can show. It complements, not replaces, traditional policy and legal analysis.
Do you model individual citizens
No. We work at the level of segments, scenarios and system patterns, not individual profiling.
What inputs do you need to run Civic Lab
We typically use a mix of existing strategies, demographic data, stakeholder maps and previous engagement findings. We do not require perfect data to run useful scenarios.
How do you ensure Civic Lab simulations are credible
We validate assumptions with your subject matter experts, stress test extreme scenarios and sense check outputs against known realities before presenting them.
Can you focus Civic Lab on a specific community or issue
Yes. We can build scoped civic models around targeted issues such as transport, housing, environmental change or specific localities.
Can Civic Lab be used for political campaigning
Civic Lab is intended for policy, strategy and investment insight, not for microtargeted campaigning. However, it can simulate sentiments and responses from the simulated civic community for specific political views, communications and messaging.