Equipping Local Leaders to Improve Civic Health & Transform Systems of Governance

The National Civic League and the Bridge Alliance are proud to announce the “The Healthy Democracy Project. This joint effort will work with two communities to build the skills of civic leaders and equip them with the tools they need to address important civic challenges. Through one year of work, these communities will have increased capacity for solving community problems through inclusive civic engagement.

Background

People have the capacity to work together, address their differences, make good public decisions, develop plans, and solve problems. This fact is not always apparent in the national headlines, but it is clear to many people who are active in their communities, and it is on display in the presentations every year at the All-America City Awards.

Unfortunately, our systems of governance currently make it harder, not easier, for people to work together, and they typically fail to engage all populations. Civic health is based on the quality of civic opportunities and the strength of civic infrastructure. When these supports are weak, people of different backgrounds and political perspectives are less likely to communicate or work together, which exacerbates partisan polarization. When these supports are distributed inequitably, they deepen economic and social inequities.

Civic health matters in other ways, too. Strong, ongoing connections between residents, robust relationships between people and public institutions, and positive attachments between citizens and the places they live are highly correlated with a range of positive outcomes, from better physical health to higher employment rates to better resilience in the face of natural disasters. In most places, there are a range of opportunities for people to engage, but they are often undervalued, overlooked, and disconnected from one another.

Many kinds of democracy innovations have emerged to transform systems of governance and, improve civic health, and engage a wider range of people. But most of them are temporary, ad hoc efforts – even when they are supported by public institutions, they are seldom incorporated into the official, ongoing ways that those institutions interact with citizens. In the world of civic innovation, a thousand flowers have bloomed; now, we need to do some gardening.

Project Components

The Healthy Democracy Project, which builds on the infrastructure provided by the Healthy Democracy Ecosystem Map, will support this civic gardening in communities across the country. Starting in two pilot communities, the Bridge Alliance and National Civic League will:

• Help identify and convene a set of civic leaders in that community, including people already in established decision-making positions and new leaders who are just starting to step forward. Each community cohort should be diverse in terms of age, race and ethnicity, sector, and political affiliation, with a particular emphasis on inclusion of underrepresented populations
• Conduct Civic Infrastructure Scans, using the Healthy Democracy Map as a starting point, to help leaders take stock of the history of engagement, levels of social capital and inclusion, and civic assets of their communities.
• Support skill development in collaborative leadership, deliberative dialogue, digital engagement, facilitation, civic measurement, relational organizing, cultural competence, outreach throughout the community, and other civic competencies.
• Provide training on and access to tools such as the Map, Engagement Scorecard, Text Talk Act, Civic Index, Perfect City’s participatory theater process, Better Neighbors Better Neighborhoods, Civic Health Action Guide, Guide to Local Civic Measurement, and other resources that help leaders understand their communities and engage fellow community members and regional partners.
• Assist leaders as they develop large-scale civic engagement processes that:
  • Tackle a major local problem or policy decision – creating agency and power for citizens on the issues that most impact them.
  • Build civic infrastructure and equity in the process.

The pilot communities will be chosen through a collaborative process, focusing on diverse mid-sized cities that offer the opportunity to engage distinct groups.

Outcomes

Through the Healthy Democracy Project, each community will have a stronger civic infrastructure, with a diverse cadre of community leaders who are better able to:

• Form and maintain cross-sector, multicultural leadership groups.
• Create investment strategies for sufficient local and national resources to scale and sustain the work in their community.
• Understand how media organizations can best engage and inform the public and reach all populations, and how the public can best support and engage media organizations ▪ Use the Healthy Democracy Map and other approaches to identify allies, survey their community’s civic infrastructure, and find compelling examples in other places
• Use attitudinal research tools to understand citizens’ preferences on ways to strengthen inclusive democracy.
• Engage large, diverse numbers of people in the development and implementation of plans to strengthen civic infrastructure and local democracy, with a particular emphasis on involving underrepresented populations.

In these polarized times, it is more important than ever for citizens to become engaged and feel they can make a difference. The Healthy Democracy Project will not only provide the tools needed to help civic leaders affect key issues facing their communities, it will also provide the inspiration, purpose, and belief they need to energize their fellow citizens.

Becvar is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and executive director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.