Governments routinely turn to the public for help off and online. Federal agencies in the United States have run more than 450 challenges via Challenge.gov, a website which showcases requests to the public to tackle hard problems in exchange for cash prizes and other incentives. Yet as appealing as an open call might be for tapping into the ideas of smart and willing citizens, it is too “hit or miss” to transform how we govern. The typical crowdsourcing method fails to match the supply of expertise to the demand for it in public institutions.

To make all forms of engagement more effective — and to solve hard problems faster — we need to increase the likelihood that the opportunity to participate will be known to those with relevant know how. If a city really wants to craft a plan for bike lanes, it should be able to reach out to urban planners, transportation engineers, cyclists, and cab drivers and offer them ways to participate meaningfully. If a nation needs help battling a pandemic, it should be able to find those with credentialed expertise in public health or big data as well as those with experiential expertise in the region or with managing a crisis and to bring them together.

New platforms such as expert networks (think LinkedIn) and digital badges are helping to make what we know, what we can do and what we care about more searchable and could enable institutions to target expertise in addition to putting out an open call. Take the example of PulsePoint, a smartphone app created by the fire department of San Ramon, California. Now used by 1400 communities across the United States, PulsePoint matches those with a specific skill, namely CPR training, with dramatic results. By tapping into a feed of the emergency calls, PulsePoint sends a text message “CPR Needed!” to those registered members of the public near the victim. Effective bystander CPR immediately administered can potentially double or triple the victim’s chance of survival. By augmenting traditional government first response, PulsePoint’s matching has already helped over 8,000 victims.

What makes this kind of targeted engagement truly democratic – and citizenship in this vision more active, robust, and meaningful – is that such targeting allows us to multiply the number and frequency of ways to engage productively in a manner consistent with each person’s talents. Giving people outside as well as inside institutions opportunities to share their knowledge could save time, financial resources and even lives.