Nick Troiano - Blog - Recap: Civic Innovators Forum

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Sep172010

Recap: Civic Innovators Forum

Friday, September 17, 2010 at 01:47AM

Today was the National (pre-)Conference on Citizenship - a "Civic Innovators Forum" hosted at the beautiful Newseum in Washington, DC. It covered a host a topics, from citizen-centered civic engagement to corporate philanthropy. It was a pleasure being in a room with so many great leaders and visionaries. Here are the top five key ideas I took away from the day:

1). Democratization of philanthropy

There was a lively and fascinating discussion about the role of online competitions and challenges (i.e. Pepsi Refresh, Chase Community Giving, America's Giving Challenge). Some organizations think it's great because it gives them access to funding they otherwise might not have. Others think it is a flawed system and a detrimental exercise for non-profits to have to compete against each other in such a way.

My takeaway from this conversation was a mix: yes, there is a lot than can be done to improve how online competitions are run and are structured (such as creating value for organizations that don't win), but there is no escaping the fact that new technology will and should transform this space as it has every other by empowering the crowd and shifting power from a small group of self-appointed elites. As the Global Giving CEO put it, it moves decisions about the allocations of resources from the experts to the beneficiaries, the latter of whom may be better in tune with what is needed. This democratization is the future – and in all likelihood will probably emerge as some sort of hybrid model.

2). Government and citizen co-creation

Two points generally agreed on: One, Government is slow to move and is often ineffective in developing new ideas to solve perennial problems. Second, civil society is strapped for resources and does not have the same legitimacy as a representative government to set the public agenda.

So a new model of government + citizen co-creation can combine the strengths of each sector - because in the end, there is a shared vision of solving society's toughest problems. The new Social Innovation Fund is a perfect example. As the White House's Sonal Shah explained, its purpose is not to test new ideas (that's the role of the civic sector) but to bring to scale those with proven outcomes. Last week, the federal government launched Challenges.gov to serve as a one stop shop for all challenges offered by government agencies for citizens to compete in. This is another example of both sectors working together.

3). Need to link local best practices to federal level

Many speakers alluded to the corrosive state of our politics today - the polarization and the partisan bickering. The Tea Party was the elephant in the room. There seems to be a general frustration that the best practices of civic engagement and citizen participation in government developed and successfully executed at a local level are unable to be scaled to the federal level. Everyday Democracy's Martha McCoy suggested that we lack the "civic infrastructure" to do so.

The one solution talked about (which does not seem feasible) is increasing the number of non-partisan elections. One audience member Tweeted, "Non-partisanship is not bubbling up from local politics, instead partisanship seems to be trickling down." To me, this remains one of the greatest challenges facing the field because when our federal government is paralyzed, and incivility takes over public debates, it undermines everything else we are working on.

4). Continuing evolution of government support

Active citizenship is in the lifeblood of the country, and throughout our history, Presidents have connected with this identity by leveraging citizens to identify and solve social challenges. Between two panels, we heard from represenatives from the last four White Houses and how they each built off of each other in the way they supported and expanded civic engagement and philanthropy. [Someone accurately pointed out how refreshingly bipartisan these efforts have been.]

From George H. W. Bush's inaugural address in which he spoke of a thousand points of light, to Clinton's championing of AmeriCorps, to Bush 41's Volunteer Service Awards to Obama's executive order on citizen participation and collaboration - each president has had a unique hand in fostering a more active and engaged citizenry.

In a new paper for PACE, Brad Rourke writes of four themes of the last 20 years:

Recognition of service as connected with civic engagement and healthy civil society
Leveraging technology to drive innovation
Focus on emerging generation of Millennials
Use of partnerships to carry out initiatives

5). The role of the Millennials

While underrepresented in physical presence, Millennials were not absent as a topic of conversation. It was reassuring to hear how many leaders recognize the vast potential of the Millennial generation. Mobilize.org's Decker Ngongang (a Millennial!) suggested that Millennials just don't want to be part of outcomes, but part of the process - to which Jean Case of the Case Foundation agreed, "if we're planning for the future we can't just do it with people from the past." And in good fashion, the day ended with an inspiring presentation and launch of a new platform, Splashlife.

Overall, it was a fantastic day, and I'm looking forward to the Part 2 tomorrow. There isn't a more important time for a discussion about Big Citizenship because the country faces enormous challenges from a high school dropout crisis to near historic levels of poverty.

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