Pioneer Press

September 17, 2010

On this day 223 years ago, the signers of the U.S. Constitution changed the course of history, creating a bold experiment in democracy and establishing the rights and freedoms we enjoy today.

The Constitution defined the balance of power between the government and the people, setting forth the notion that government can’t and shouldn’t do everything and that a democracy can’t survive without an active citizenry.

More than two centuries later, a new federal report on Civic Life in America shows the American people remain deeply committed to the principles of citizenship in ways big and small, formal and informal.

When Congress approved the bipartisan Serve America Act last year, it mandated that the federal Corporation for National and Community Service partner with the nonprofit National Conference on Citizenship to develop an annual assessment of the civic health of the nation.

The resulting data examine not just traditional aspects of community engagement like volunteering and voting, but also the more subtle aspects of civic life, such as doing favors for your neighbors, sharing and receiving community information, and participating in social networks.

The report shows that at a time of economic challenges, Americans are tilting toward problems instead of away from them. Volunteering is up, with 63.4 million Americans serving through an organization in 2009. Americans are also serving in less formal ways; last year 20 million Americans joined with others in their community to tackle problems, and 125 million adults — nearly 6 in 10 — exchange favors with their neighbors at least once a month.

The report demonstrates the extent to which everything is connected: people who communicate with their neighbors are also more likely to vote. Those who eat dinner with their roommates or family are also more likely to work with their neighbors to solve community problems. The report draws interesting conclusions about the Internet — people who have access to it in their homes are much more likely to be civically engaged than those who don’t.

While this report has good news about America’s civic health, it also shows us that we need more Americans to get involved. This research is a road map for national and local leaders to boost civic engagement and strengthen their communities. And communities with especially strong civic cultures hold lessons.

Perhaps not surprising to citizens in Minnesota, this state and the Twin Cities ranked at or near the top in nearly every category. The Twin Cities ranked first among the nation’s metropolitan areas in rates of volunteering, first in rates of voting, and fourth in membership in groups.

The Twin Cities has a credible claim to being the nation’s "most civically engaged" community.

The key is that people here see themselves as more than helpers or consumers who ask, "what can I get?" Twin Citians see themselves as co-creators, builders of a shared commonwealth of parks, libraries, learning opportunities, neighborhoods, arts festivals, and many other civic goods. As Ted Kolderie, a well known civic leader, puts it, people have a sense that "this place is made."

Productive citizenship in the Twin Cities builds civic confidence, ownership in a shared civic life, and a sense of empowerment. The tradition, dating from Statehood in 1858, has been embodied in a variety of paid jobs — citizen business-owner, citizen teacher, civil servant and many others — as well as unpaid labors that contribute to civic life. The special 75th commemorative issue of the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1933 detailed a myriad of such civic work efforts spearheaded by leading citizens to build libraries and schools, colleges and universities, orchestras, art galleries, theater and symphonies that complemented the growth of business and industry. Unheralded "rank and file" citizens also played crucial roles. Immigrants coming from many places described the "democracy in the new country."

Productive citizenship continues to be embodied in both paid and unpaid civic work. Educational occupations in the Twin Cities have once again begun to revive their civic dimensions, connecting teaching to community life. Less formally, in the fall a visitor sees posters everywhere for upcoming elections. The large number of drivers bringing leaves from their yards can create a traffic jam at compost sites. New immigrants catch the spirit of productive citizenship. Each July, the Hmong Freedom Festival brings tens of thousands of immigrants and their native-born friends together for three days.

In an era of growing anger at government, productive citizenship in the Twin Cities also sustains a crucially important sense that government is "us," our partner and meeting ground, not an alien "them."

This year – two centuries, one score and three years later – the framers would find reason for pride in the nation’s progress. But we still have much work to do if "we the people" are to reclaim government as our instrument for accomplishing shared purposes, as the Constitution’s Preamble enumerates, with active citizens at the center of the ongoing democratic experiment.

Patrick A. Corvington is CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service – the federal agency responsible for nationwide service and volunteering. Harry C. Boyte is co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College, and a Senior Fellow at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Key findings from the Civic Life in America report are at www.serve.gov/civic