Oorvani Foundation is a non-profit committed to civic engagement, citizenship and communities. Our mission is to connect people who want better cities with civic information, tools, networks and resources they need to make it happen.
Our Vision: Empowered citizens making cities and neighbourhoods sustainable, liveable and equitable
Why this initiative
India has 10 cities with 3 million+ population and 50+ cities with a million+ population. Our cities are marked by poor quality of governance, environment, civic provisions and lack of equitable access to resources. Bad public infrastructure and service delivery — be it transport, water supply, roads, or schooling — have made the everyday life of citizens painful.
These urban challenges need collective action to fix them, action that is based on a deep understanding of issues and root causes, and changemaking.
We work to bring information, understanding, capacity, tools and networks for citizens to become changemakers. Our canvas spans the breadth of urban living, including various issues which affect our quality of life, including water, commute, public safety, air quality, governance, education, environment, local economy and livelihoods and more.
The origin story
In 2008, Subramaniam Vincent and Meera K founded Citizen Matters as a local news magazine for Bengaluru under a small media startup called Oorvani Media. By 2013, this had evolved into a civic media platform under the non profit Oorvani Foundation. Citizen Matters has since expanded with local chapters in Chennai and Mumbai.
In 2016, Open City was started as a small side project to host public datasets. This has now become one of India’s leading urban data platform supporting a vibrant data community.
By 2020, we expanded into new programmes to bring capacity building and training to citizens and strengthened our community engagement initiatives.
Our work is now structured as a complementary set of knowledge platforms and on-ground civic engagement and capacity-building programmes.
Oorvani Foundation is funded by foundation grants, philanthropists, and individual donors.