Knight Foundation

Photo: Knight Civic Innovation in Action Studio, May 2014 in Miami. Credit: Tom Clark. Kate Catherall is vice president of 270 Strategies, and a recent attendee at Knight Foundation’s Civic Innovation in Action Studio, which explored ways to harness talent, advance opportunity and promote robust engagement.  “I know it when I see it.” This is the typical response to the question, “What does robust engagement look like?”  Evidence of a disengaged citizenry is all around us in the United States. One need only look at voter registration and voter turnout rates to conclude that a culture shift is in order. Americans are fed up with Congress. They don’t know their neighbors. They too often feel that they have little power in shaping their country, their city, their neighborhood. Their democracy. Academics, designers, elected officials and practitioners have identified various barriers to a culture of engagement: physical, socio-economic, psychological. We’ve begun to uncover effective ways of breaking down these barriers. We’ve learned it’s important to meet people where they are. We’ve gone online. We’ve begun to invest in infrastructure. We’re seeing big returns on investing in public spaces. But we haven’t solved this problem. Volunteers, advocates, people who show up to community meetings, and those who write their elected officials and legislators are still the exception to the rule. We do know what robust civic engagement looks like when we see it. Or at least we think we do. We catch glimpses of it. We’ve identified some of the ingredients, but we don’t yet have a recipe.