CARIN Community Platform

Decentralized tools for neighborhood-level crisis response, coordination, and mutual aid

CARIN, short for Community Action Response and Information Network, was a rapid-response software initiative launched in March 2020 during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The goal was to help communities self-organize when existing systems were overwhelmed, unclear, or too slow to respond. CARIN was built around a simple idea: neighborhoods should have accessible tools for sharing information, coordinating volunteers, tracking needs, and supporting each other without waiting for top-down infrastructure to catch up.

The platform was built with WordPress, membership tools, and a custom GIS integration using OpenStreetMap. It allowed neighborhoods and local communities to create live, place-specific dashboards for crisis response and resource coordination.

Each dashboard could show local businesses, service availability, resource requests, volunteer support, and community updates. The system also included built-in social tools such as direct messaging, calendar sharing, forums, and member-based access controls. Privacy and visibility were structured around roles and community membership, so someone could belong to a neighborhood group, a citywide community, or a more specific volunteer network.

A major design priority was accessibility. The system was intended for community leaders, mutual aid organizers, and neighborhood volunteers who might not have much technical experience. CARIN included implementation guides and low-tech onboarding paths so local groups could launch and manage their own support systems quickly and independently.

The platform saw limited adoption during the pandemic, but the work was still foundational for me. It gave me hands-on experience in civic design, decentralized coordination, GIS-based interfaces, mutual aid modeling, and building software around real community needs instead of abstract product ideas.

For this work, I was awarded the Ken Gass Community Builder Award.

Core Features

• Preconfigured dashboards for neighborhoods and cities
• Live status maps for businesses, services, and resource requests
• Volunteer and resource request matching system
• Built-in social tools: direct messaging, calendar sharing, forums
• Tiered privacy based on user role and community membership (i.e., member of Columbia neighborhood, part of Bellingham Community)
• Implementation guides for low-tech onboarding and independent setup

Project Media

Project Details

Role: Project leader, developer, designer
Built with: WordPress, MemberPress, OpenStreetMap
Scope: Crisis response infrastructure, neighborhood dashboards, mutual aid coordination
Status: Complete
Duration: Approximately 7 months