As part of The Arizona We Want initiative, citizens have been submitted questions to all candidates for elected office across the state. The Center for the Future of Arizona has undertaken a new study to help bridge the disconnect between Arizonans and their elected leaders.
“Civic Engagement and Recent Immigrant Communities,” a new guide developed by the National League of Cities, presents local officials with the first steps and directions for efforts toward integrating immigrants into the civic life of the city.
The guide aims to help leaders (including leaders who are themselves recent immigrants) set goals, agree on expectations, and decide what kinds of engagement will work best for their community. While it looks at public engagement through the lens of immigration, the planning recommendations and meeting agendas may be useful for leaders working on a variety of issues.
The mission of our 65-year-old institution has always been to promote active citizenship, and we have often built atop that foundation to focus on specific strategies from time to time. In our current venture to define modern citizenship, we have noticed that promoting civil dialogue is critical and much more necessary now than it was 65 years ago.
NCoC is proud to work with efforts like The Democracy Project, encouraging leaders of our Republic to serve as examples of civil servants. Perhaps this leadership will be welcomed, rewarded, and imitated by the rest of our citizenry.
In this guest post, Karen Baker explores the important role each sector can plan in tapping individual civic energy for social good in communities.
“A multi-sector approach is based on the idea that each sector will collaborate to find a solution to a problem based on its own strengths with the end goal of offering people a pathway to engagement. It is simply the idea of letting each sector play to its strengths, with a resource broker making the connection.”
The Congressional Management Foundation’s report, “Communicating with Congress: How citizen advocacy is changing mail operations on Capitol Hill” found that communication to congressional offices has increased four times between 1995 and 2004. Nearly half of constituents have communicated with Congress in the past five years.
In a piece originally appearing on the Huffington Post, NCoC Advisory Board Chairman John Bridgeland discusses the importance of moving government from status quo funder to catalytic partner of social invention.
Bridgeland suggests the Administration could catalyze civic invention through development of social innovation offices in government agencies, bipartisan agenda support, and signature summits, among other actions.
Associated Press article notes the ways government officials can use social media to organize and train
As the government mounts a full-scale effort to respond to the oil spill in the Gulf Coast, there are ways that volunteers can help. The response to this spill will be a long-term effort, and as the situation evolves the roles for volunteers are expected to change. You can find volunteer opportunities by entering your zip code below or by coordinating with one of the organizations listed.
Last April, President Obama signed a large piece of federal legislation to support service and civic engagement initiatives, the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. The Act received truly bi-partisan support and is meant to support programs and initiatives that help communities better harness the civic power of their citizens in order to solve social problems.
To celebrate the anniversary of the Act’s passing, our friends at Service Nation asked individuals everywhere to submit videos about what the late Senators service meant to them.