On January 20th, we wrote a joint blog post with Technologists for Public Good and We the Builders highlighting the impact of the Trump administration’s first year on public interest technology. The numbers that we’re looking at are striking, as hundreds of digital service experts were kicked out of government alongside nearly 300,000 federal employees. The United State Digital Service was transformed into the United States Department of Government Efficiency Service (DOGE).
Lambert: I believe the above is the United States DOGE Service Temporary Organization (and not the United States DOGE Service).
DOGE was then subsequently responsible for not only dissolving civic tech teams across government, but the dissolution of entire departments and agencies such as USAID. 18F was dissolved after 10 years of helping governments purchase, build and improve their technology through a focus on human centered design, agile and open source practices.
It’s been rough, but now is not the time for doomerism. We’ve seen an uptick in states and cities expanding their digital service roles and we saw an uptick in volunteer civic engagement across the board. We’re finding that civic technology volunteering these days looks less like building an app and looks more like grunt work. This could be helping a street level non-profit with their spreadsheets or teaching immigration attorneys the basics of cybersecurity.
For 2026, the three priorities that our three organizations identified were investing in the people behind the work, fighting the unethical uses of technology, and preparing to rebuild. The fundamental question facing civic tech in 2026 isn’t technical—it’s political and moral: Who should technology serve?