Chicago resident Grace Del Vecchio has sat in on enough community development commission meetings to know how they go. A journalist and community activist who studied urban planning, she would watch as developers pulled out maps and construction plans, using terms like “lifestyle hub,” while residents raised concerns about affordable housing.

During these meetings, Del Vecchio, who’s originally from Philly, didn’t just develop a firm belief in residents’ “right to say what happens in their community, what’s built in their community, and who comes into it.” She also developed a side hustle she’s turning into a career.

Del Vecchio is part of Documenters, a network of individuals paid to attend and record public hearings. The idea behind Documenters: Give people who can’t make it to meetings a complete log of what happens there, and you’ll give them an opportunity to have a say in their communities.

In 2016, City Bureau in Chicago launched Documenters to increase transparency in local government and fill gaps left by vacancies in newsrooms. Since that time, Documenters has expanded to 31 cities across the country. The nonprofit Resolve Philly launched and ran the program’s Philadelphia chapter from 2023 to 2025, when funding challenges forced them to shut the program down.

This year, good governance watchdog Committee of 70 swooped in to give Documenters new life, starting this coming Wednesday at the Philadelphia Ethical Society. Folks are welcome to come out, learn more about the program and meet veteran Documenters.

“We’ve been championing open, honest government and active citizen engagement for 120 years, and that’s basically what Documenters is designed to do,” says Heather Bowlan, Documenters program manager, with Committee of 70.

The challenge of covering public meetings

Resolve reached out to Committee of 70 (C70) prior to sunsetting its Documenters program to see if they’d want to take on the initiative, because C70 had held trainings for Resolve Documenters in the past — and the group’s missions felt like a natural fit, Bowlan says.

“Government works best when the public is in the room,” she says. “Documneters is designed make local government more transparent, accessible and accountable.”

The City of Philadelphia holds approximately 50 public meetings per month. In these meetings, decisions are made on issues ranging from public safety to zoning permits and variances, and residents can voice concerns about prospective City policies or relay their support or opposition for building development projects in their neighborhoods.

Despite the real impact these meetings can have on the lives of Philadelphians, they can be difficult to attend. Daytime meetings exclude people who work 9-to-5s. Evening meetings make it harder for parents of young children or other caregivers. Then there’s the issue of getting there, and getting inside.

Resolve Philly originally joined Documenters as part of its Shake the Table initiative, which aimed to hold public officials accountable to underrepresented Philadelphians. In the past, journalists covered these kinds of events. But with newsrooms shrinking both locally and across the country, many didn’t have the resources to send reporters to every meeting.

What if, the Resolve Philly team thought, they could help more people engage with public meetings by removing the barrier of physical attendance? What if one person who attended the meeting took notes, so others could read the summaries … and take action? They soon realized they were essentially trying to replicate what already existed, in Documenters.

The history of Documenters

Documenters trains and pays ordinary citizens to cover public meetings. Inspired by a Smart Chicago Collaborative program created to cover a two-day conference in 2014, Documenters began as a way to cover Chicago’s Police Accountability Task Force’s public hearings and lengthy (and wonky) reports after Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shot and killed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Chicago’s City Bureau trained Documenters then dispatched them to take and publish notes from the hearings. Documenters also learned to annotate their reports to provide historical context and other information they thought would be helpful to general readers. They are also paid.

During this process, City Bureau discovered something amazing. “Community members were interested in participating in the reporting process,” says Max Resnik, director of growth for the Documenters Network with Bureau. So, they expanded the program to cover other meetings in the city, including those about the development of the Obama Library. (Today, Documenters range in age from high school through retirement.)

Soon, other cities noticed — and wanted in. Documenters’ Detroit chapter launched in 2018. Cleveland followed in 2020. Every city enrolled shares one website and identical training materials, so it’s easy for a new city to start a chapter.

Today, the program has trained 6,000 people, covered more than 14,000 assignments in its various locations — and paid out more than $1,500,000 to its workers.

Ideas we are stealing: Philly Documenters

Different cities have different protocols for how Documenters publish their coverage. Some publish notes after meetings occur. Others use a mix of multimedia methods, including live tweeting, to help get the information out. Before Resolve Philly’s iteration shut down, local Documenters covered more than 300 public meetings. Grants from the Scattergood Foundation and the Lenfest Institutes’ Every Voice, Every Vote funded the program.

Now that it’s under C70, Bowlan hopes to work with at least 25 different Documenters this year and to post at least one story per week for at least 40 weeks in its first year. Documenters will be paid $17/per hour.

They’re partnering with Temple’s Klein College of Media and Communications on the program, working with Professor Sarah Alvarez to encourage Temple students and faculty to become Documenters. Alvarez, the founder and former editor-in-chief of Outlier Media, the outlet that housed Detroit’s Documenters program, will advise C70 on sustainability and innovation with the goal of increasing public meeting transparency and, ultimately, launching journalism careers.

It’s happened elsewhere. In Detroit, the program Documenters on the Bus looked at the city’s transit system through interviews with bus drivers and commuters. In Cleveland, Documenters partnered with the Marshall Project on Testify, an in-depth reporting project that examined Cuyahoga County’s court system.

For Del Vecchio, Documenters has helped identify stories to pitch to publications. She has used Documenters’ database to cover the budget process, and started editing reports for City Bureau — and now works full-time as their editorial program coordinator. She believes Documenters is a great way for reporters to learn more about their cities and to give communities a voice in how they’re covered.

Committee of 70 plans to build out media partnerships to ensure the Philadelphia Documenters’ notes are useful for newsrooms.

People who are interested in becoming Documenters can sign up for a one-time remote training session. (Yes! Just one!) After that, they take a brief quiz and can start receiving assignments. The sessions cover website navigation, the assignment process, what to include in notes, and participants’ legal rights at public meetings. The next one is September 30.

“We want to make sure Documenters notes are really high impact, that they give the broader community the information that they should have to hold government accountable,” Bowlan says.

PARTICIPATING IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT FROM THE CITIZEN