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FEATURE

Civic Investment Needed to Support a Healthy Democracy

Stephen Heintz, co-chair of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, writes about the importance of establishing a Trust for Civic Infrastructure (Recommendation 4.1 ) in his opinion piece, "Philanthropy Can Help Build a Thriving Democracy by Building Up Programs and Places That Fuel Civic Involvement" for The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Stephen B. Heintz

"Foundations and philanthropists across the ideological spectrum can establish a collaborative basis for partnerships with local governments, community foundations, library systems, and other networks nationwide. They can fund research on the need for civic institutions and projects to help remedy the country’s democracy crisis and make the case for massive public investment in community-led civic initiatives that contribute to the common good. Most importantly, they can move resources to the American communities that need them most to expand their civic infrastructure."

- Stephen Heintz

American Exchange Project featured on PBS NewsHour

On January 10th, PBS NewsHour aired a story on bridging America's divides and highlighted the efforts of OCP Champion, American Exchange Project (AEP). Be sure to check it out on the NewsHour website or YouTube.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center Presents
Salons at Stowe: Telling Our Nation's Story - Women and Democratic Citizenship

This virtual event, inspired by OCP Recommendation 6.2 (Telling Our Nation's Story), will be hosted by the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center on Thursday, January 27 at 7:00 p.m. EST. The event will feature Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs, author of The Three Mothers, in conversation with Janée Woods Weber, Executive Director of Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund (CWEALF).

Find out more and register for this free event.

Language Justice and Ranked Choice Voting: Lessons Learned from NYC, New Mexico, and Utah

Join a virtual briefing on Wednesday, February 2 at 1:00 p.m. EST to learn about messaging research to educate immigrant communities on the use of ranked ballots. With more jurisdictions around the country opting to implement ranked-choice voting, elections administrators and civic engagement groups need to effectively communicate about how to express their preferences with a new ballot design. More Equitable Democracy and Democracy Rising worked with partners in three states to conduct focus group research in multiple languages. The final reports detail findings about how immigrants view representative democracy, understand the process of ranking preferences, and how to produce engaging voter education materials. Click to RSVP

GOOD TO KNOW

Libraries as Bridges - on December 3, a group of twenty-eight library-affiliated professionals from across the country joined a virtual conversation around the challenges and opportunities for libraries in the democracy space. This was the first event in a multi-part series to advance the role of libraries in creating civic infrastructure and sustaining a healthy democracy.

The Case for Enlarging the House of Representatives Report launch event was hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on December 16 and aired on C-SPAN 1.

Prioritizing Achievable Federal Election Reform, a new report from OCP Champions Issue One and Unite America, along with the Bipartisan Policy Center, R Street and AEI, was released on January 20.

Be sure to check out these op-eds about OCP efforts:

Lee Drutman and Yuval Levin, “One way to reform the House of Representatives? Expand it,” The Washington Post, December 9, 2021
Miles Rapoport and Alex Keyssar, “How to boost turnout to nearly 100 percent,” The Boston Globe, January 8, 2022
Kevin Kosar, “Should we expand the House of Representatives? The Founders thought so,” The Hill, January 10, 2022

Find Our Common Purpose on Twitter @OCP_Amacad

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

136 Irving St

Cambridge, MA 02138-1929

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