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Habits of Heart and Mind: How to Fortify Civic Culture

How to Fortify Healthy Civic Culture

 

Practice Civic Love and Joy

The cliché is true: “democracy is not a spectator sport.” In a thriving democratic society, citizenship comes with the expectation of joining. And what people join is more than electoral campaigns or policy advocacy. It is the making of public life itself.

But in every quarter of civic life today, participation is receding. At the turn of the millennium, Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone described the decades-long decline of association in American life.9  More recently, we have seen spikes in political burnout and apathy.10 Rates of volunteerism have fallen.11 According to polls, Americans today value community involvement less than they did twenty-five years ago.12 A toxic political climate, economic pressures, time poverty, and daily reminders of existential crises have left many Americans feeling unable to affect the state of the world. More are disengaging altogether.

Troubling as this trend is, Americans cannot be scolded into reversing it. They must be invited into something better. They must see ways of participating in civic life that speak to their deeper needs. While participation is a responsibility, it need not be a chore. Joining in civic life can and should be full of joy and full of love.

Civic joy is a commitment to creative possibility in the face of pain and struggle. Civic love is the bond of trust and affection that turns strangers into neighbors and place into home. To practice both is to establish rituals or shared activities of play and creativity that highlight each person’s dual role as a civic catalyst and collaborator.13

Social cohesion is forged through close friendships and so-called strong ties. It is also created through weak ties: chance encounters, conversations with strangers, casual friendships. Whether through food, music, art, dance, or sports, communal experiences that center joy move people to leave their homes and get to know their neighbors. Joyful experiences—from a neighborhood block party to witnessing a solar eclipse—bind us together. When we encounter others and share a joyful experience with them, it allows us to feel connected to something larger than ourselves. We are reminded of our love for community.

A civic catalyst does not leave such experience to chance. Ritual is central to the practice of civic love and joy. And it is embodied. Online social interaction, civic or otherwise, has many benefits. But it also shatters the public into a million curated private domains lacking common reference points, common language, and common experience. It makes us, in the words of scholar Sherry Turkle, “alone together.” The more online we become, the more valuable face-to-face experiences become for sustaining a sense of shared humanity—and the greater the power of in-person civic rituals.14

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City recently transformed its iconic plaza into a living public stage for rituals of civic renewal. Lincoln Center has hosted a series of gatherings to encourage people to dance, love, celebrate, and reclaim what was lost during the isolation and unacknowledged sorrow of the pandemic. In one event, hundreds of community members walked alongside jazz musicians for a New Orleans–style Second Line processional to grieve and to recommit to life.15 Afterward, participants were invited for a night of dancing in the plaza. In 2023, Lincoln Center held a group wedding for seven hundred couples with backgrounds and traditions as diverse as New York. And their 2024 summer festival invited people in the city to sing, dance, speak, act, and drink at a pop-up speakeasy under the banner “Life, Liberty, Happiness.”

In small rural towns and big cities across the United States, another ritual, called Civic Saturday, is taking root. Civic Saturday is a civic analog to a faith gathering. Its goal is to invite people to rekindle their faith in democracy, which it accomplishes through peer-to-peer welcomes, poetry, group singing of American songs, readings of civic scripture, and a civic sermon to connect the events of the times to the needs of the community. Citizen University created this ritual after the 2016 election and has trained hundreds of catalysts to lead Civic Saturdays that are of, by, and for the people.16

The community service corps City Year, which operates across the country, uses the same public rite of passage everywhere: a ceremony in which young people don the recognizable red City Year jacket when they join the corps.17 City Year corps members can often be seen doing jumping jacks and singing with high spirit in public squares before they disperse to serve as tutors, classroom aides, or eldercare providers.

And though civic culture extends beyond elections, it does not exclude elections. Recipes abound for making voting feel not like a grim duty but a miraculous opportunity. Puerto Rico, for instance, has long had festive traditions of fairs, food markets, and parades on Election Day. Caravanas of cars, marching musicians, and dancers bring people to the polls—sometimes in support of a candidate and sometimes simply as a celebration of democracy. On the mainland, When We All Vote is a national nonpartisan initiative that works to transform the culture around voting.18 Their Party at the Polls program shows how participating in our democracy is something worth celebrating. In 2022, more than one hundred bikers with Black Bikers Vote joined When We All Vote for a motorcycle ride that stopped by drop boxes and polling places in Philadelphia.19 The community ride ended with a party featuring food, music, and entertainment to celebrate the West Philadelphia community voting together. These parties are designed to transform the voting experience into a memorable and joyful community celebration, to increase turnout, and to reinforce the importance of voting.

At the end of the day, people want to be happy. They can do so in a way that also rejuvenates communities. This is not superficial happiness. The examples above show Americans of various political persuasions coming together to face the times—and choosing hope.
 

Principles for practicing civic love and joy
 

  • Bring your civic culture initiative to life by creatively using public spaces, play-making, art, and cocreation. The goal is to show, and not simply tell, Americans how to build civic love and joy, so creating an environment that is as joyful as it is educational is critical. People want to join initiatives where they see other participants having a good time. For instance, consider participatory examples such as community heritage pride celebrations (like St. Patrick’s Day parades and LGBTQIA+ Pride marches) that generate joy among those participating.
  • Make your civic culture initiative fun by including food, song, dance, and other forms of expression. Delicious food and engaging entertainment can help family, friends, neighbors, and strangers come together and make your civic culture initiative a time of community. By fusing the theatrical and the civic, you can draw out people’s public role as both citizen and civic catalyst.
  • Provide meaningful in-person opportunities to engage across difference. Design activities that cultivate feelings of belonging and agency. Encountering someone in a physical space makes it easier to form a deeper connection with them—and harder to think of them in terms of identity categories. Take a look at the Tallahassee Village Square’s Speed Dating with Local Leaders for some inspiration.20
     

Questions to spark civic love and joy
 

  • Think about a fun activity/experience that you participated in away from home (for instance, attending an improv show). What were the specific elements of this activity/experience (audience participation)? How were these elements used to enhance the activity’s significance and enjoyment (performers relied on suggestions from the audience to initiate scenes, create characters, or explore different settings)?
  • How might you integrate the principles of civic love and joy into your daily environment, such as your workplace, school, or community?
  • Think about a place in your community that offers art, theater, music, or food. What makes this place stand out? How is this place important to your community?
     

Endnotes

Promote Habits of Service

Service has always been central to American life. From the volunteer soldiers of the Revolutionary War to participants in modern-day community service initiatives, generations of Americans have chosen to assist fellow citizens.

Americans often take for granted this deep strain of service in our civic culture. In recent years, however, service and volunteerism rates in many places have begun to decline. Now is the time to elevate anew the importance of service as a mindset and habit.21

Everyday acts of service are glue for communities. In The Quest for Community, Robert Nisbet writes about the vital importance of strong communities, including the role of local volunteer groups, in a healthy American society.22 A generation before Nisbet, philosopher John Dewey argued that when service is embedded in people’s daily routines, particularly when those acts of service are connected with their own values, they develop an enduring sense of duty and civic responsibility.

Service takes many forms, from formal national organizations to local volunteer initiatives. When we think of service, we often think of the military, which has seen over eighteen million Americans serve, including Native Americans who serve at five times the national average. Another example is Ameri­Corps, a national service program launched in 1993, in which more than one million Americans have participated. Other notable entities include the Partnership for Public Service, which promotes service within the federal government, and Points of Light, a nationwide initiative that fosters a spirit of local service and volunteerism.23 Americans also serve in much more informal ways. Picking up the trash, checking in on an elderly neighbor, building homes, sharing food with others, mentoring young people, assisting fellow passengers with luggage—all are manifestations of a positive, thriving society and culture.

Acts of service, large or small, coordinated or not, are crucial for healthy civic culture. They create thicker bonds among families, neighbors, and communities, and they invest people in one another’s lives. Service can also have a snowball effect: as more people perform more acts of service, acts of service become the norm, encouraging more people to do the same and creating more opportunities to serve, all the while building a more resilient civic culture.
 

“I didn’t have any experience in electoral politics at all growing up or even any time before I went on the bench. When I was growing up, I don’t ever recall talking about politics at dinner or having a yard sign for a candidate. But my parents were very invested, very civic-minded. When I was a child, I don’t remember why our precinct lost its polling place, but it did, and so my parents volunteered our garage. This was in New Orleans. And so for many years our garage is where people came to vote. This wasn’t a convenient thing for my parents. But they saw a need and so they volunteered their home to fill it. . . . When [my parents] saw these needs they filled them. The elderly in my neighborhood—my mom was bringing them food, my dad was checking in on them, and they were dispatching my siblings and I to go visit them and have conversations with them so that they would not be lonely. . . . That kind of engagement in the community that’s not governmental or political but that’s rooted in our community, that’s what self-government requires. It requires working together as a community just because you’re people. You see needs and you fill them. Those are the kinds of things that knit us together as a community.” 

– Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, 202424

 

In an era when technology makes it easier than ever for birds of a feather to flock together, service also brings Americans out of their comfort zones. It offers opportunities to engage in a shared mission with people of different races, ethnicities, ages, backgrounds, geographies, and beliefs. In this way, service enables us to convert our differences from potential liabilities into potential strengths. Crucially, it also fosters a mindset that it is possible to engage across difference and indeed fruitful to do so. When people come together to accomplish shared goals, they are less likely to default to harmful stereotypes and more appreciative of our common humanity.

The power of service to bridge divides has been well-documented in studies of AmeriCorps and other national service programs.25 The same is true for the robust culture of volunteer groups throughout America. In 2023, more than eleven thousand Americans volunteered with Samaritan’s Purse, helping communities in fifteen states rebuild following wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and flooding.26 The United States is distinctive for its ecosystem of humanitarian aid organizations, whether faith-based like Samaritan’s Purse or not. When natural disasters strike, Americans from all walks of life—young and old, Republican and Democrat—travel to the disaster zone to help rebuild, share resources, and console those in need.

In a healthy civic culture, it does not take a crisis for people to cross lines of difference to serve. Rather, service is a deep habit. Such is the spirit of the social impact organization CoGenerate, which brings older and younger Americans together to address challenges facing their communities. “We focus on the intersection of proximity, purpose, and problem-solving,” says CoGenerate co-CEO Eunice Lin Nichols. “We can have different identities. But there are spaces where we can feel proximate to one another and have a shared purpose to do something together. This requires seeing our challenges as shared, and the possible solutions as something we can achieve together.”27
 

Principles for promoting habits of service
 

  • Make sure anyone with an instinct to serve does not face obstacles to do so. Identify underused places, resources, and people within a community that can plug gaps where there is a need.
  • Organize activities that give people agency. Enable people to be effective and impactful by engaging their passions, values, or communities.
  • Encourage working toward a common goal. The act of building or making something together forges tighter bonds. Endeavors in which participants are held accountable for their work are optimal.
     

Questions to spark habits of service
 

  • How did you last serve your community? What inspired you to engage in that act of service? How did you feel afterward?
  • How is a culture of service fostered in your home, workplace, or community? How often do people volunteer acts of service without being prompted?
  • How can you participate in acts of service in the coming six months? What opportunities are available to you?
     

Endnotes

Create Space for Free Exchange of Ideas and Model Being Unafraid

The United States was founded on dissent and argument. Before the American Revolution of guns and gunpowder came the revolution of ideas and ideals, as enshrined in documents such as Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence. Little surprise, then, that the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution enshrines a right to free expression. While many Americans have seen their rights to free expression constrained over the last two-and-a-half centuries, the ideal remains a bedrock of American life. Americans have long believed that the nation is better for its diversity of opinion and that just as debate helped birth this nation, it can also continually make it better.

Ensuring that debate is possible and meaningful, then, is vital for the future of the nation and for fostering a healthy civic culture.

Free expression and free exchange are not identical. Free expression is what is usually meant by freedom of speech: the ability to express oneself without state interference. Free exchange is more than expressing oneself; it is engaging with others’ viewpoints and responding to their ideas. Free expression is a necessary precursor to free exchange. But free exchange is the reason we protect free expression: to ensure that our society can benefit from the trading, testing, and sharpening of ideas. Free exchange is vital for unlocking one of America’s not-so-secret strengths: pluralism, the recognition of our differences and that we all benefit from those differences. Free exchange both requires and fosters empathetic listening.

The distinction between free expression and free exchange is not merely an academic one. American civic culture today valorizes free expression as its own end. And online life, especially social media, creates a habit of speaking without listening. What is shorthanded as “cancel culture” is a manifestation of a declining commitment to free exchange. What makes cancellation rather than curiosity the first reflex of so many Americans is the fact that leaders and educators across many settings have themselves stopped modeling the skills of free exchange.

Exchanging views in a healthy manner is a learned skill. Especially in times of polarization, we cannot take for granted that people know how to disagree with one another or even to stay in the presence of people whose views discomfit them. Society is evolving in such a way that physical presence in shared spaces is no longer a necessity, at least for those with ample resources, to engage in discourse with those holding differing viewpoints. Our dependence on others for survival has been significantly reduced, becoming more transactional in nature. For instance, those with means can now have groceries delivered at the push of a button, a stark contrast to the past, when neighbors would collaborate to harvest the crops essential for winter survival. This shift has also enabled us to access information and connect with individuals who reinforce our worldviews, eliminating the need to grapple with conflicting opinions. Consequently, the rising trend of quick-action advocacy often bypasses in-depth discussion.

One place to learn or relearn these skills is the Pluralist Lab at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.28 The lab brings together students of different ideological persuasions to talk about difficult topics, including immigration, guns, abortion, and health care. Participants commit to the principles of respect, authenticity, and curiosity outlined at the outset. Through a method known as “triadic illumination,” they learn to articulate the what and why of the views held by participants before engaging in discussion. Subsequently, participants spend time digesting what they have experienced in real time by journaling their thoughts, reactions, and sentiments to share with other participants, allowing the group to engage in introspection to develop their skills for listening and reflecting as well as listening and responding. The program is an effort to foster open-mindedness while demonstrating how to exchange ideas and coexist across deep divides.

The Pluralist Lab program is animated in part by the idea of modest unity. Rather than setting consensus as the goal for the discussion, the lab prioritizes engagement among people of diverse identities and divergent ideologies—and teaches the power of a precommitment to such engagement. Once developed, the skill of constructive debate can be brought out of the lab and applied in all facets of life.

Under the leadership of Utah Governor Spencer Cox, the National Governors Association (NGA) initiated a campaign called “Disagree Better” in 2023 as a response to the increasing hyperpartisanship and polarization in America. The objective of this initiative is to equip everyone, from students and citizens to elected officials, with the tools necessary to discuss divisive issues in a civil manner. The campaign emphasizes the need for constructive disagreement, for fostering solutions and problem-solving rather than endless bickering. By showcasing governors modeling healthy conflict, public debates on college campuses, service projects, public service announcements, and various other tactics, the campaign pre­sents a more optimistic approach to resolving problems.29 In 2023–2024, the NGA organized four convenings across the country to engage governors in conversation about successful projects underway and to connect them with leading organizations to amplify such projects in their respective states.

The Better Arguments Project at the Aspen Institute similarly starts with the goal of having not fewer arguments but less stupid and destructive ones.30 The Better Arguments Project teaches community members, small businesspeople, military officers, classroom teachers, faith leaders, and many others to ground their arguments in local history, emotional intelligence, and an honest reckoning with power.

Each month, the Better Arguments Project hosts workshops that reinforce five principles:

  • First, take winning off the table. Arguments should be about the robust exchange of ideas, not defeating the other side.
  • Second, always prioritize relationships and listen passionately. Maintain a positive rapport, even in the face of disagreement.
  • Third, pay attention to context. Typically, the issues that divide people build up over long periods of time. The more participants can appreciate that, the better they can understand why a person holds their belief.
  • Fourth, embrace vulnerability. Instead of aggression, toughness, and defensiveness, arguers should be open about their uncertainties. Doing so can turn arguments into avenues for connection.
  • Finally, make room for transformations. Changing someone’s mind is difficult if you are not willing to have your own mind changed. The Better Arguments Project asks participants to identify their most deeply held views and then create mental space for the possibility that their mind might be changed.

The American Exchange Project (AEP) empowers young Americans to explore the diversity of their nation firsthand.31 The organization provides high school seniors free trips to visit another student in a community that is completely different from their own geographically, demographically, politically, and so on. By facilitating local learning experiences and cultural exchanges, AEP encourages high school seniors to step out of their comfort zones and engage directly with peers from different social and political backgrounds. This exchange of ideas requires courage, as it often involves challenging preconceived notions and embracing unfamiliar perspectives. However, this courage is more accessible when young people unite in the spirit of curiosity and mutual respect. Through these shared experiences, participants not only develop a deeper understanding of their fellow citizens, but also forge bonds that transcend geographical and ideological divides, fostering a more cohesive and empathetic society.

Across the political spectrum, PEN America notes, appetite for free expression appears to be waning.32 Indeed, PEN itself—an organization of authors and journalists that fights against repression of speech—has contended with the challenge of sustaining cross-ideological coalitions in support of free expression. Promoting free exchange of ideas should be a core civic purpose of all kinds of organizations—in the arts, the sciences, business, and government.

Free expression is a necessary ingredient for a healthy civic culture. Of course, the First Amendment protects free speech. But Americans should have more than a legal right to speak their mind. A healthy civic culture requires a vibrant, open discourse about every­thing from sports to politics. The point of living in a self-governing democratic republic is that the nation is able to tap the broadest range of ideas from its diverse residents. Residents should not just be allowed to speak their piece; they should actually do so. And they should not just have an opportunity to make their voice heard; they should have the confidence that somebody might listen to them.
 

Principles for creating spaces of free exchange and modeling being unafraid
 

  • Embrace modest unity. Rather than attempt to enforce uniformity, acknowledge that it is our duty to contest what it means to be American and that arguing, done well, helps us come together.
  • Promote “confident pluralism.” Establish that it is OK to have different opinions and that it is OK to argue. Normalize the expectation that you will, especially in public spaces, have to engage alongside people of diverse identities and divergent ideologies.
     

Questions to spark the free exchange of ideas and model being unafraid
 

  • Think about an argument, debate, or disagreement you had recently. What elements made it either a productive or counterproductive exchange? (Did each person have the ability to speak without interruption? Was a positive rapport maintained even in the face of disagreement?) How did these elements enhance or hinder the exchange?
  • How might you integrate the principles of creating space for free exchange into your daily environment, such as your workplace, school, or community?
  • The next time you are engaging in debate, pause and check how it feels. Are you stressed? Tense? Or is your body open and relaxed? Paying attention to your physical state can help you learn about your state of mind. When the debate is over, ask: What did I learn from this encounter? Has my understanding of this person, this issue, changed in any way?
     

Endnotes

Engage People in Codesign and Decision-Making

Americans face many practical barriers to civic participation: time, money, access to information, lack of requisite skills, competing priorities, and so forth. But a more fundamental barrier keeps Americans from participating in public life: skepticism about their ability to effect change.

Only 35 percent of young people report having people, organizations, or resources in their community that can help them take action on issues they care about.33  This lack of access creates a vicious cycle: people disengage, which leads to fewer opportunities, which leads to even more disengagement. Every step in the process further erodes civic culture.

This cycle can be reversed. Involving community members in decision-making processes can foster a sense of ownership. This allows more people to feel they can contribute ideas and solve problems, which helps create more opportunities for more people to get engaged. Helping more people solve problems not only solves problems, but it also empowers other people to become problem solvers.

Codesign is an approach to problem-solving that involves people in decision-making processes. Proponents of codesign for public projects argue that community members should be collaborators in the development of programs or policies that will directly impact them. When community members help make decisions, studies show those decisions more closely address community concerns.34 Additionally, codesign helps people develop trust in their neighbors and local institutions. And when people are encouraged to bring their skills and perspectives to the table, they are emboldened to find even more ways to contribute to civic life.

Two organizations that exemplify the benefits of building civic skills for codesign are GenUnity and the Kansas Leadership Center. With a mission to build a diverse civic leadership pipeline, GenUnity runs ten-week civic leadership programs focused on housing and health equity in Boston, Massachusetts.35 For two to three hours per week, program participants meet with experts, policymakers, and practitioners to discuss how they can effect change. Since 2020, GenUnity has brought together more than two hundred people and one hundred partner organizations. After participating in the programs, 97 percent of members felt more prepared to drive systemic change and have become more involved in their communities.

Like GenUnity, the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) focuses on building leaders and creating a culture in which ordinary citizens feel emboldened to take on tough challenges.36 KLC runs leadership workshops that train Kansans in strategies to build trust with those with whom they disagree. KLC brings together citizens, local officials, and subject-matter experts to share information and brainstorm solutions to local challenges.

While GenUnity and KLC focus on building the individual skills needed for codesign, program design can also expand civic agency through mechanisms like citizens’ assemblies and participatory budgeting.

In a citizens’ assembly, people come together to deliberate about a given issue. For example: Should our town invest in a new recreation center? What guidelines can we adopt to reduce our community’s carbon footprint? After deliberating, citizens provide recommendations or a collective decision to the convening body. These gatherings can be national in scale. In 2010, AmericaSpeaks organized a citizens’ assembly on debt and the national deficit. Linked by video, three thousand five hundred Americans in fifty-seven locations were invited to deliberate on America’s fiscal future. Their recommendations were submitted to the Senate and House budget committees and were critical to the work of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a bipartisan presidential commission on deficit reduction.

With participatory budgeting, volunteers brainstorm ideas for possible funding projects and vote on the best proposal, which is then funded by a government or other institution. Over three thousand cities around the world have allocated some portion of their budget through participatory budgeting. In the United States, nearly five hundred thousand participants have allocated $280 million through this method.37 Some, like the programs organized by the Center for the Future of Arizona, started small and have since expanded (see Arizona).38

Codesign processes are about more than short-term policy impact. They are about alerting citizens to their power to shape their communities. This awakening leads to a greater likelihood of sustained civic engagement. Codesign also reinforces social cohesion: taking action with fellow community members builds relationships that can become the foundation for community health. Finally, participatory processes facilitate communication between elected officials, community leaders, and constituents. Communication builds trust, an essential building block for a healthy civic culture.
 

Principles for engaging people in codesign and decision-making
 

  • Identify target stakeholders. Who will be most affected by a project, program, or policy? Remove barriers to participation for those stakeholders.
  • Emphasize people’s agency and efficacy. People will be more enthusiastic about participating if they see the results of their actions.
  • Make participatory processes time bound. People are busy. They need to know what their time investment will be. These processes should be quick sprints rather than long-winded marathons. Invitations to participate should clarify what the commitment will be: how many sessions, how many hours, any work between the sessions?
  • Enable participants to stay in touch. Give participants a chance to continue engaging even after the formal end of the participatory process.
  • Identify project leadership. Cocreation still needs leadership. Who will facilitate the process? Who will take the ambiguous pieces after each session and try to integrate them into the next draft? 
  • Many municipalities and organizations have hired directors of public or civic engagement to build meaningful opportunities for civic voices to be heard and to foster government responsiveness.
     

Questions to spark codesign and decision-making
 

  • How might you integrate the principles of codesign into your daily environment, such as your workplace, school, or community?
  • The next time you are developing a program or policy in your workplace or community, pause and consider: Who will this decision impact? Do they have a voice in the decision-making process? How can I encourage greater participation among those who will be directly impacted?
     

Endnotes

Practice Mutualism and Mutual Aid

In times of division and disconnection, mutual aid offers a way to reconnect. Mutual aid starts with the idea that everyone has something to offer and everyone could benefit from some help. It is not community-based giving, crowd-sourced from within a particular neighborhood or group. Neither is it charity, in which one party gives and the other receives. Instead, mutual aid allows all participants to both give and receive resources, ranging from material goods to ideas to moral support. Practices of mutual aid represent bold ways to knit communities together and remind people that we are all in this together.

Mutual aid has gained prominence in recent years, particularly in response to natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. This aid takes various forms, such as neighborhood care networks in which neighbors assist one another by running errands, providing transportation, or sharing meals. For instance, TimeBanks USA facilitates the exchange of services and skills for time credits instead of money.39 In this system, each hour of service earns one time credit, which can be redeemed for an hour of service from someone else within the network. Another initiative, Eldera, connects seniors with younger individuals to foster meaningful intergenerational connections through a mentorship program.40 This program encourages sustained relationships through regular communication and provides social opportunities for participants. Such programs not only combat isolation and loneliness among seniors, but also allow young people to gain wisdom from elders.

Principles of mutual aid can also be applied on the individual level. Some teachers organize informal tutoring for students outside class time. They provide academic support while also gaining insight into the challenges their students face. Some students later tutor younger children, extending the cycle of mutual aid. Accountability also factors in: all participants are responsible for following through on their commitments.

One example of mutual aid in a network format is the Civic Collaboratory.41 This model, developed by Citizen University, helps community organizations gather individuals from various sectors to build relationships. Civic Collaboratory gatherings are structured to build bonds of trust and affection among members. Those bonds are foundational to the ongoing circulation of mutual aid. Members make commitments to support other members’ projects and initiatives. Such a dynamic cultivates a culture of trust, mutuality, and accountability, in which members commit to their promises and circulate resources to drive societal transformation. For instance, the Atlanta Civic Collaboratory brings together more than one hundred civic leaders quarterly. At a recent gathering, the group discussed strategies to address homelessness. Members committed resources like volunteer hours, fundraising support, and collaboration on policy proposals. This mutual aid approach fosters cooperation between nonprofits, businesses, and government.

For details on an example of a local Civic Collaboratory in action, see Atlanta.
 

Principles for practicing mutualism and mutual aid
 

  • Create opportunities for building reciprocity.
  • Establish accountability measures. A healthy civic culture requires accountability from its members. This principle involves taking responsibility for our actions, being transparent in our dealings, and holding ourselves and others to high standards.
  • Promote mentorship and guidance as pathways for mutual inspiration and personal growth. Encourage individuals to share their knowledge, skills, and experiences with others while remaining eager to learn new things themselves.
     

Questions to spark mutualism and mutual aid
 

  • Consider a recent time when you mentored or offered guidance to someone in your community (neighbor, friend, coworker). How did you offer your guidance (for example, informal conversation, a class, an email)? What prompted you to offer this mentorship? How, if at all, was it reciprocated?
  • Do you have opportunities to provide more support and mentorship in your community or workplace?
  • How can you promote mutual aid in your community with an emphasis on building solidarity rather than charity?
     

Endnotes

Spread Narratives of Common Purpose

As a creedal nation, the United States is founded on storytelling. At the heart of our constitutional democracy is not a single language, ethnic origin, or religion but a sense that all Americans are part of a set of shared stories. What these stories look like, and who gets to tell them, has changed over time. Yet one of the constants in American civic life is the belief that each of us has the chance to add to a narrative that began centuries ago.

Today, a single, unifying American story seems largely out of reach. Stories are supposed to be complicated, to make room for nuance, the kind of nuance that, in times of polarization, is hard to come by. Modern tellings of the American story tend to focus either solely on our tragedies—enslavement, Native American genocide, Japanese internment—or on our triumphs—pioneering rights-based constitutionalism, creating a high standard of living, military victory over fascism.

It is vital that American civic culture create both metaphorical space for contested narratives and literal space to contest them. Doing so will allow Americans to find narratives that both celebrate our nation’s accomplishments and reckon with the shortcomings of the American story.

Uncovering the narratives that invite Americans in is an integral aspect of a healthy civic culture. Such narratives bind people together. Whether bridging the gap between longtime residents and newcomers in a town, rallying support for a local cause, or creating a new national holiday, the “story of us” is a potent tool for building consensus toward a common purpose. In America’s ongoing debate over identity, these stories can help citizens shift from inaction to common action.

The opinion research organization More in Common seeks to understand societal fragmentation, find common ground, and bridge divides. Their research reveals that most Americans value narratives that acknowledge both the triumphs and shortcomings of our nation. According to More in Common’s 2022 report Defusing the History Wars, a striking 92 percent of Democrats agree that students should learn about the contributions of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to freedom and equality. However, only 45 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of unaffiliated voters believe that Democrats hold this belief. Conversely, 93 percent of Republicans affirm the duty to learn from and correct past mistakes, yet merely 35 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of unaffiliated voters acknowledge this Republican perspective.42 These findings suggest that partisan biases distort the public’s perception of shared values. Americans agree on a lot more than they think they do—and a lot more than the media tells us we do.

Other organizations use narrative tools more directly. Founded by Matt Kibbe and Terry Kibbe, Free the People champions individual liberty, economic freedom, and peace through the power of storytelling.43 Through original documentaries about everyday Americans, educational videos, and other digital content, Free the People articulates the virtues of a free society and the benefits of voluntary cooperation over government intervention. Through these stories, Free the People engages citizens in thoughtful dialogue about libertarian ideas on the right and the left alike, inspires civic action, and builds a foundation of mutual respect and collaboration amid difference.

A culture change organization founded in 2011 by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, Define American is rethinking the portrayal of immigrants in the American narrative.44 Its mission is to reshape immigrant stories and integrate them authentically into the national conversation. One strategy entails monitoring media representations to counter stereotypes and affirm immigrants’ roles in American entertainment. In 2022, in collaboration with the University of Southern California’s Norman Lear Center, Define American published Change the Narrative, Change the World: The Power of Immigrant Representation on Television.45 The report analyzes 167 characters across 169 episodes of 79 scripted shows aired from 2020 to 2022. A key finding is that 40 percent of the immigrant characters were linked to crime, a significant increase from the 2020 report. Surveys conducted by Define American reveal that viewers exposed to nuanced immigrant storylines tend to recognize the value of diversity, gain a deeper understanding of immigration issues, and are more likely to take supportive actions for immigrants. Because Hollywood has historically influenced the American story, Define American’s work is crucial to ensuring that immigrant narratives are conveyed with accuracy and empathy.

The Field Museum in Chicago embarked on a transformative journey with the creation of the “Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories” exhibit. This collaborative project involved more than 130 Native community members, educators, tribal curators, and museum curators, representing more than 105 tribes. The aim was to link museum artifacts with contemporary themes and artists, thereby reminding visitors that Native communities are not merely historical relics but continue to flourish in today’s context. The initiative also served as a platform for the museum to acknowledge its problematic past, specifically its unscrupulous collection practices in Indian Country and its exploitative portrayals of Native people. This admission marked the beginning of a healing process to mend its strained relationship with the 574 sovereign Native nations in the United States. The project has been a resounding success, and the Field Museum is now applying this approach of honest dialogue and community involvement to all its exhibits.46

Organizations like Free the People, Define American, More in Common, and the Field Museum demonstrate how narratives can shape culture, unite people, and invite them to become part of a collective journey. These narratives are not just about who leads but about who we are as citizens and who is included in the effort to define the nation’s narratives.
 

Principles for spreading narratives of common purpose
 

  • Personalization is a powerful on-ramp. Meet people where they are, with entry points that matter at that moment.
  • Acknowledge our differences while articulating an identity that unites us. Identify our “why”—our common ground and the way we stitch together a sense of “us-ness.”
  • State that we are a creedal nation. Embedded in our creed are the concepts of life, liberty, and happiness. It may be necessary to incorporate new terms—equality, equity, and inclusiveness—that foster a broader civic culture that can be embraced by more people.
  • Encourage pluribus. Local organizations know their communities and have a record of trust. Decentralize the narrative-writing effort to invite broad participation.
     

Questions to spark narratives of common purpose
 

  • In your workplace, community, or school, how do you talk about America and what it means to be American? How do you address both the extraordinary aspects of our inheritance and our shortcomings?
  • How might you integrate the principles encoded in narratives of common purpose into your daily environment, such as your workplace, school, or community?
  • Does a particular holiday, place, or event make you reflect on what it means to be American? What is special about that occasion? How do you celebrate it? (Do you gather with others? Do you participate in rituals on this occasion?)
     

Endnotes

Root Activity in Shared Place

Civic culture is about how we live together, so the places where that togetherness happens are a crucial part of that culture. Communities with places to come together will not automatically boast healthy civic cultures, but it can be almost assured that communities without such places will not have a healthy civic culture.

What do places that foster togetherness look like? How can places be made or remade to nurture civic culture?

Civic places are sites where people can come together. What they do when they are together is up to them, but a place is “civic” when it offers chances for people to participate in activities, tell stories, and bond with one another. Libraries, parks, community centers, and riverfronts can all help Americans connect. Some civic places are intentionally built to foster civic life. Others are not oriented toward political life in any way. Still others become civic places only gradually, through acts of ritual.

What civic places look like and how they work can vary wildly. The civic-ness of a place is determined by the specific circumstances in the surrounding community. The cities of Washington, D.C., Washington, Indiana, and Washington, Utah, each boast civic places, but those places look very different from one another. In one Washington, a public park may serve as a gathering space and meeting ground. A similarly designed park in another Washington may not play this role, because residents congregate instead at a nearby community center.

So, while places shape their community’s civic culture, how civic culture varies between communities is also important. The nation as a whole boasts a distinctive civic culture. But individual communities—neighborhoods, cities, states—do so as well. Acknowledging the differences between places is vital for tailoring efforts to improve civic culture so it can meet the needs of each community.

In Chicago, artist Tonika Lewis Johnson turns the history of race, segregation, and development on its head, using the organization of space as a way to organize new relationships. In the Folded Map Project, residents from the city’s North Side and South Side are paired with their “map twin,” the person who has a parallel address on the opposite side of the city (for example, someone at 1000 South Main Street is map twins with the residents of 1000 North Main Street). In a city with stark disparities along neighborhood lines, Johnson brings pairs together to talk about their neighborhoods and to have tough conversations about the social, racial, and institutional investments that shaped each community. Participants are brought together not only by their interest in getting to know people from different neighborhoods, but also by Chicago’s urban layout. Taking advantage of the city’s design, Johnson is able to make the divisions between places a unifying feature of the Windy City landscape.

Public spaces are not necessarily designed with the public in mind. Libraries, parks, and other spaces can bring communities together, but they do not do so automatically. Sometimes, leaders need to take action to turn a community space into a space that is truly for the community.

In 2017, Shamichael Hallman became the senior manager of Cossitt Library in Memphis, the city’s first public library. Hallman recognized that the library was underutilized as a community space. During a 2020 TED Talk, he expressed a desire to transform the library’s traditional quiet atmosphere into a hub of interaction and engagement. Supported by philanthropy, including contributions from The Rockefeller Foundation and others, Hallman spearheaded a multi-million-dollar renovation to reposition Cossitt Library not just as a library but as a cultural center bridging socioeconomic divides.

Completed in 2023, the renovation has redefined the library. The new space includes an open landscape with public art, a café offering fresh food, and a vibrant children’s area. It also features coworking spaces, private meeting rooms with free Wi-Fi, and a performing arts space for various activities. Outdoor areas host yoga and reading sessions, enhancing the library’s community role.

Hallman encourages patrons to engage actively with the revamped library. He suggests contributing to the library’s community by participating in the setup for events, sharing skills, and welcoming diverse groups into the inclusive environment. This approach aims to foster a sense of ownership and community among all library users.

The kinds of changes Hallman is making in downtown Memphis are also happening in rural America in part through the support of the Trust for Civic Life.47 The Trust is a grantmaking collaborative that bolsters place-based, local initiatives in small towns and rural communities across America. It empowers residents to address the challenges they perceive as most crucial for their community’s prosperity. In its inaugural round of grantmaking, the Trust awarded grants ranging from $250,000 to $500,000, over a three-year period, to establish rural “civic hubs.” The organizations in these civic hubs are the heart of vibrant civic ecosystems, promoting a community-wide vision, coordinating various civic efforts, and nurturing necessary community resources. They serve as incubators of social trust and daily democracy across the country. Recipients include an Appalachian network of employee-owned companies and frontline workers who are reimagining the industrial economy to better serve the working class; a Mississippi town using history, culture, and food as rallying points to foster local pride, promote health equity, and support rural artistic voices; and a digital music community leveraging local radio to enhance connections among residents.

In Denver, Warm Cookies of the Revolution reimagines civic engagement by infusing it with creativity and warmth. Central to their mission are “civic health clubs,” communal gatherings where community members connect and deliberate on important local issues. Since 2019, their signature series “Own This City: A Live Instruction Manual” has sparked dialogue on communal ownership, tackling themes like education, justice, and public amenities. The series, crafted by artists and locals, includes sessions like “How to Own: The Government,” where political hopefuls and citizens build Lego models of their ideal city while comedians add levity to the discourse. Guided by principles that question the status quo, advocate for civic action, and emphasize fun, Warm Cookies of the Revolution transforms civic participation into an inviting and meaningful endeavor, knitting together a community that is engaged, informed, and united.

Civic Season is a place-based annual tradition, established by Made by Us in 2021, that spans Juneteenth and the Fourth of July. From local cultural institutions to ordinary citizens, everyone is welcome to engage in this tradition in ways meaningful to them. By encompassing America’s oldest and newest federal holidays, Civic Season underscores how civic participation enables us to continually work toward the democratic ideals that America aspires to. Ultimately, it demonstrates that, by learning America’s shared history and uplifting one another’s voices, everyday Americans can collaborate to guide the nation’s unfolding story.

Civic Season was celebrated for a second year in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 2024.48 The event provided community members with an opportunity to deepen their engagement with their collective history. The activities began with a lively festival featuring local musicians, speakers, and information booths from civic organizations. This marked the start of two weeks of Civic Season events, sponsored by Wyoming Humanities, designed to make civic engagement accessible and enjoyable for all.

Events fostered meaningful dialogue around important issues and offered constructive ways for community members to get involved. A “community conversation” organized by the local chapter of Braver Angels brought together diverse perspectives to productively discuss solutions to homelessness. Other activities, such as playing Jenga and debating state politics, demonstrated that democracy is a work in progress and that we all have a role in shaping it. The grand finale featured a talk by a historian on “The Wyoming State Flag and the Women Who Made It Fly,” accompanied by trivia games and free pizza.49 All these events took place at local institutions like the Wyoming State Museum, highlighting how civic participation is intertwined with our local culture and identity.

If civic culture is a meal, places are the pots or pans we use to make it. The choice of cookware matters immensely for some dishes. For others, just about any pot or pan will do. But knowledge of the recipe and the ingredients is crucial for determining the cookware. Civic culture practitioners should pay attention to place—their specific context—and ensure it helps rather than hinders their efforts. Where people live, what that community looks like, and where they convene shapes their ability to live together. Those spaces might look very different between communities. And they should. Civic places should be built—or rebuilt if need be—with the goal of fostering togetherness.
 

Principles for rooting activity in shared place
 

  • Accessibility: Places should be open, inclusive, and accessible. 
  • Purpose: Places should be sites that bring people together for a common purpose.
  • Proximity: Spaces should bring together people who might not otherwise find each other. While purpose helps people forge relationships, proximity gives them the first step of coming together to do so.
     

Questions to spark rooting activity in shared place
 

  • What are the civic and cultural spaces in your local context: your hometown, your neighborhood, or your block? How are they set up? How are these spaces emblematic of your local context? How do they relate to the civic culture in your specific context?
  • How could you integrate the principles of shared place into your daily environment?

Endnotes

Project
Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship
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Building Communities of Practice: Case Studies
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