The Burg is now available for download on iOS and Android!
The day is finally here: The Burg is LIVE!
We are proud to announce The Burg is officially available for download on iPhones and Androids across Los Angeles County.
It has been a long, arduous process but we spoke it into existence, literally.
The idea was born a little less than 2 years ago when we were watching the reality TV show that was the 2016 Presidential Primaries. Politics consumed our social feeds and most of it was, to put it frankly, just energetic noise. We were blown away and decided to start a podcast to discuss this absurdity. The podcast may have failed (👀 more on that later) but it caused us to ask ourselves, why isn't there a place where voters can speak with those they vote with? Why can't we redirect some of this energy and get people involved in the issues that impact their daily lives AND that they could have a tangible impact on?
Our answer was building The Burg. Truth be told: politics works best from the bottom-up, not top-down & we decided to build a platform to reflect that.
We wanted to build a space for all things community:
where our real life communities could come together, organize, and stay informed
where being a voter was a sign of your integrity (rather than a 'Twitter checkmark') and you could congregate with the people you actually vote with
where local news was easily accessible and you could learn the ins-and-outs of your neighborhood, with your neighbors
where voters could find out who their local representatives are, engage with them directly, and hold them accountable.
We're proud to say we talked the talk, AND we walked the walk (go go go download Los Angeles!!)
We want to give a big thank you to the 85th Annual U.S. Conference of Mayor's who invited us to pitch in front of hundreds of mayors in Miami last year.
That was monumental for us. It gave us the confidence to persevere and push forward. It showed us that The Burg was needed and could become the online community for voters & representatives.
Lastly, we're proud to announce that we received a grant from the Long Beach Community Foundation's Knight Donor Advised Fund to facilitate our pilot launch. We're so excited to launch in Long Beach, and collaborate with the @LBCommunityFdn & the Knight Foundation #knightfdn.
Go out there, hop in The Burg, and invite all of your friends/family/community/cats/dogs in Los Angeles County to join your digital public square. Don't forget to use the hashtag #theburgLA!
This is your communities platform, help us build it. Do you have a feature idea or a way we could spread The Burg word to people? Our door is always open, please feel free to send all of your feedback, thoughts, opinions, puns to the.team@burg.community.
We are just getting started and can't wait to see what you make of it.
See you in The Burg :)