Beyond the Ballot Box: Takeaways from the National Conference on Citizenship
By: Allison Ralph
This week I was pleased to attend (for the first time!) the National Conference on Citizenship, which was held here in Washington DC.
Here are a few of my takeaways:
Get local and then get out of the way. In multiple panels, I heard funders, practitioners, and researchers note how important it is to get right down to the neighborhood level, and then to get out of the way of the people who live and work there. Local experience and shared interest were highlighted again and again. For funders, the call was to get out of the way; for practitioners, it was to support what Braver Angels NYC calls citizen-led solutions. I agree, see here.
Citizenship is more than voting. In addition to that, it’s citizens recognizing and using their own agency, negotiation, and problem-solving skills to tackle problems in their own neighborhoods. I was particularly struck by something Viney Orekondy of Better Together America shared. I wasn’t quick enough to capture an exact quote, but it was along these lines: “Advocacy is influencing decision makers over there. That’s disempowering to citizens because it says they are not and cannot be decision makers.”
The Bridging field is evolving into the Acting Collaboratively field. Ok, I made this name up, but it was clear from several speakers (including from Braver Angels) that bridgers are increasingly becoming doers. This resonates with a piece I wrote for Democracy Takes: dialogue is good, but not sufficient to reduce polarization or to create durable, local policy change for the common good. Acting collaboratively with people who share a local concern or issue area, like in Citizens Assemblies, does both.
Scaling is hard. While this collaborative action thing is great, pushing it down on local communities rarely succeeds. Valerie Lemmie of Kettering Foundation reminded us that peer-to-peer learning is more effective than relying on “experts.” And this resonates with something Daniel Stid wrote this summer – that funding networks of leaders is a force multiplier.
Funders need to adapt, and fast. There’s lot of big challenges: short-term grants won’t succeed at long-term solutions, boards are forever shifting strategies while still being agonizingly slow to get money out the door, and philanthropy itself is coming under attack. I was interested in structural reform suggestions from Kumar Garg who argued that funders should approve amounts for topics and let mediators move more quickly (though experts in the audience were skeptical). There were also calls to shift away from purity tests (here, here!).
What’s the bigger ROI for bridging? First, Manu Meel put it something like this: “We need to invest in pluralism not because of some kumbaya, but because it is the foundation for our next 250 years.” But secondly, I was interested in an argument that Mike Carney said about investing in civic infrastructure: “for every dollar you invest in civic infrastructure, that saves $13 in recovery after a disaster.” That made me wonder: might the same be true for investments in local bridging orgs, since they also build deep, durable, community-based relationships? Hm, someone should research that …
I didn’t get to go to all the panels of course, so I’m curious what themes popped up for other #NCOC2505 attendees. Message us if you want to join the conversation.
And, if you’re going to be at the Bridging Movement Summit next week, get in touch! We’d love to see you there.
Here's the link for a free 20-minute intro or consult: https://calendly.com/allison-cohesionstrategy/free-consult