Lessons Learned From 45 Years of Civic Engagement
Today I turn 66 and I realized that I’ve been doing civic work for 45 years.
My first voter registration campaign was organized at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, following the passage of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, which lowered the voting age to 18. (https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-xxvi)
That’s me from 1973!
Since then I’ve pretty much been on a tear to create civic stuff. I’ve started or led 15 nonprofit enterprises in the arts, community development and civic engagement.
I’ve had the privilege to work with an amazing range of talented and passionate champions for justice, equity, creativity and sanity.
I’d like to share some thoughts from these projects, campaigns and start-ups.
IT’S THE INFRASTRUCTURE, STUPID
It seems that the Left or Progressive America has not learned an essential lesson from our opponents on the Right. The radical religious fundamentalists have formed a perfect storm of civic effectiveness by aligning with the business class and the Republican Party. As a coordinated and coherent block of civic players this coalition has moved the country right and is rolling back the New Deal and shredding the public sector at every level of government. The Republican Party is returning America to the glorious 1830’s – seeking the return of slavery (OK, an exaggeration – but they are trying to get us to work for as close to zero dollars/hour as they can!), unregulated business, unchecked and untaxed wealth and a Manifest Destiny of imperialism and interventionism abroad. We are embroiled in wars and conflicts across the globe such that our security budget is approaching a trillion dollars annually. It’s war without end in the United States.
How did this happen? How can we – who seek justice, peace and equity – have been so feckless and unprepared? What did they do right and what did we do so wrong?
It’s about infrastructure. It’s about building, funding and maintaining a holistic eco-system that delivers civic results and changes minds and drives policy. This infrastructure’s net output is elected representatives at all levels of government who will drive this Rightist, 1830’s agenda forward without fear of defeat.
Civic infrastructure needs a blueprint – a guiding mind and hand. It lays out a path to sustainable operations. It speaks of coherence, coordination, collaboration and ongoing sources of revenue. Once in place, this civic infrastructure needs leadership and stewardship and re-freshing and maintenance.
If you DON’T have a sustainable civic infrastructure then you are doomed to re-invent the wheel over and over again, whacking moles of crisis perpetually and you will never have the funds and the time to reflect and prepare for the future. You are doomed to react and to fail in pushing your agenda. Consequently, your vision for civics and justice fails.
Sound familiar?
I would date the start of the rise of the current “Bring Back the 1830’s” crew from the circulation of the Powell memo in 1971. See https://tinyurl.com/Infrastructure-Part-1.
Since the writing of the Powell Memo we have seen the rise of a tightly interlocking set of players to articulate and activate the civic work Lewis Powell was calling for.
Their overall message goes something like this: Government is an evil – it constrains and compels. Government is a taker and an overreaching rule maker. Business knows best and must be unconstrained to deliver jobs and profits. Authority to decide what’s best resides principally with white, straight Christian males and the Christian Bible is the best source for morality and decency in public life.
We social justice champions and idealistic Progressives who believe in the Public Good and who still believe government can and ought to work for the betterment of all have no such guiding principal or play book or set of players who interlock to provide a similar robust infrastructure to grown, fuel and further our civic work.
MESSAGE, MEMBERS, MONEY
Part of the magic of civic infrastructure building lies with a very human response to calls for alarm and inspiration. But just getting people angry and outraged over and over again does not get the job done. It tends to exhaust your supporters and gives them no clear path to power, to victory, to the better country we all want.
I believe we serve our public and our allies and constituents best by planning, articulating and voicing a powerful and uplifting message of civic potential. A message that is positive, energizing, forward looking and breath-taking in its picture of what a better America looks like.
Once we have devised a play book that can compete with the message of the 1830’s crew – then – and only then – will we be able to gather members and, from them, resources to sustain our civic work.
People can and will enroll themselves in a fight against the 1830’s crew and their public policy agendas – but ONLY if we give them a powerful reason to do so.
ATTENTION GETTING
You might say that the major fight of the 20th Century and the 21st Century has been the fight for people’s attention. That is, how to get people to pay attention to what you are saying. Before people can act, they first must attend. This is true for America’s marketers and her industrial-entertainment complex. This has become increasingly true for our civic players and cause-fighters. How do we get the attention of people so they stop what they are doing and attend to our many calls for action and involvement? Why SHOULD they listen? Why should they act and do what we want them to do?
I can say that my experience in the arts and theater have helped me in my civic work. We know that the arts and performance have been part of America’s social change movements for centuries. Our connection to our creative brothers and sisters is a powerful weapon in our arsenal for justice.
The stronger and more potent our core message for change is, the more creative we can be in delivering that message to the public – and the more likely it will land, be attended to and trigger desired action for change.
THE LADDER OF ENGAGEMENT
In 1969 sociologist Sherry Arnstein wrote an article for the Journal of the American Institute of Certified Planners (later merged with the American Planning Association) entitled “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” In this now famous and oft-reprinted piece she articulated a spectrum of ways to engage people in planning and public work. She was looking at levels of authentic participation where folks have agency and authority.
At the bottom of this ladder is “Manipulation” where people who are included in civic efforts are mere rubber stamps for pre-ordained decisions.
At the top of the ladder is “Citizen Control” where people involved in planning and public work have authority over the matter or program being examined.
In our civic work we should always be working at the TOP of this ladder.
Many thoughtful practitioners have taken this idea of a ladder and extended it to bringing people as individuals along in their own civic journeys.
The way I approach civic work is this – think of a continuum of engagement – where at one end of the spectrum one is asleep and unaware and uninterested in public life – and at the opposite end is running for President of the United States.
As people move along this spectrum they step up and deepen their personal tasks and roles required for increasingly deeper and broader public activity.
Our goal is to move people along this personal civic engagement spectrum – from being unengaged and uninformed to being critically engaged, fully informed and super-engaged. We want to help people evolve from spectators to participants to leaders. So as more and more people move along the spectrum, as a whole, people in a given community move UP the ladder of civic engagement and are not vulnerable to being manipulated by outside agents.
CIVIC LITERACY AND MASTERY
I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the question of “What does it mean to have civic literacy?”
Thirty years ago, if you asked what it meant to be “literate” you might have been told it’s about reading a daily newspaper for comprehension or being able to follow directions on a medicine bottle or following a map. But today, with the Internet spewing data and fact-like statements in torrents – the bar has been raised for literacy. Today we think of a person with excellent literacy skills not just being able to read printed materials but to bring some critical intelligence to the material found on the Internet and, to an increasing extent, to be able to AUTHOR original content online.
Now, what about the definition of civic literacy?
I’ve taken my cues from the Civic Mission of Schools campaign. They look at civic engagement with a three-part lens: (1) Civic disposition & civic participation: What is your mindset or appetite for doing public work and civics? Are you generous and optimistic and likely to participate or are you cynical and selfish and disinclined to participate?, (2) Civic knowledge: What do you know about civics for your community, for the country?, and (3) Civic skills: what can you do that advances democracy and civic life in your community? [see https://civicyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/GuardianofDemocracy.pdf]
Our job is to get people to go DEEP on all three of these domains. Many people would say that they are doing good citizen work by voting every two years, paying their taxes and obeying the law. Others might add occasionally volunteering for a cause or donating to a cause or campaign. But there is MUCH more here and we need to give people hearty civic meals and engage them in all the manner and level of civic work.
I believe I have done pretty well at finding ways to reach, engage and activate people for justice. Since 2005 I’ve done over 150 public meetings and curated 100 workshops. Over 10,000 people have been impacted by this work. We launched the CivicLab and the TIF Illumination Project in 2013. We published “Chicago Is Not Broke. Funding the City We Deserve” in 2016. We launched the POWER Institute in 2017. This work has made some headlines and caused people to run and win elective office.
We are seeking to re-launch the CivicLab as a physical space in 2018 to deepen and expand this work.
I hope you will join me and my civic colleagues on this journey. Please consider:
- Purchase a copy of “Chicago Is Not Broke. Funding the City We Deserve” @ wearenotbroke.org
- Register for one or all of our upcoming “Civics 101” classes @ https://pi-summer-2018.eventbrite.com
- Make a (non-deductible) contribution to the CivicLab @ https://tinyurl.com/Support-CivicLab
- Sign up for the CivicLab email newsletter @ https://tinyurl.com/CivicLab-News
Let’s all move along on the civic spectrum!
Tom Tresser
July 10, 2018
April 2, 2009 in Federal Plaza, Chicago at the No Games Chicago anti-Olympics rally
