Sometime ago
I found myself standing in front of a thousand
people giving a speech and saying that I had
banned the phrase ‘civic engagement’ from
The Harwood Institute’s work. The phrase has
become a catch-all, a kind of Good
Housekeeping seal that we’re doing honorable
work in the name of community and the common
good. But what I find is that the phrase gets
in the way of our very goals.
As soon as the phrase ‘civic engagement’ enters a conversation people become activity happy. Right away, you’ll hear them launch into an animated discussion of how many forums they want to hold, the number of flip charts they need, how many different color magic markers they want (and whether they are scented!), and concern over what to do with all the pages of newsprint they put up on the wall. It’s enough to drive me crazy.
Somewhere in the litany of
activities we lose sight of our real purpose
and the real people that we profess to care
about. We push aside what we must actually
learn from people; what we’ll do with what
we learn; and the kinds of pathways into the
community people are seeking to create for
themselves. Instead, “people” become props
in our process. For me, the point is people –
their aspirations, their concerns, their
fears, among other things – and the kind of
community they seek to create. Our engagement
efforts are mere supports in their unfolding
narrative.
So, on the one hand the work is
about people; on the other, it is about impact.
That is to say, our task is to figure out how
to help improve, even transform people’s
lives and their communities. But too often
‘civic engagement’ is more like a badge we
wear to a cocktail party or conference, where
we find ourselves boasting about the
extraordinary engagement process we cooked up
and implemented. People and impact take a back
seat. We produce events not impact.
Meantime, we find ourselves in
endless, mind-numbing meetings where we examine
every element of our civic engagement work.
But the real work doesn’t happen in our
conference rooms, but in communities. And yet
such navel gazing can blind us to the
realities of communities, the challenges we
must take on, and the true power we must exert
to create a new force for change in
communities. Endless talk and countless
deliberations won’t get us there.
In my own work, the focus is on
deeply understanding about people’s lives and
the context of communities so people can be
more strategic in their efforts to spark and
mobilize change. It is about the dynamics of
communities and the very conditions that
enable or stymie change – such as the
leaders, networks, relationships, norms, and
boundary spanning organizations that underpin
change. It is about how each of us must step
forward to root our efforts in community and
stay true to ourselves.
This isn’t about civic engagement;
it’s about how we see and engage with the
world around us.
So you won’t find the term
‘civic engagement’ on our web site, in our
literature, throughout our work. I don’t
talk about it in speeches anymore. I’ve
banned it, plain and simple. For too
often our obsession with ‘civic
engagement’ causes us to take our eye off
what really matters: people and impact.