March 2003

Hello, and welcome to the March issue of the National Civic League's email newsletter. This monthly communication will provide information on the activities and accomplishments of NCL and links to information on a variety of topics relating to NCL's mission.

The National Civic League is a 108-year-old non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to strengthening citizen democracy by transforming democratic institutions. NCL accomplishes its mission through technical assistance, training, publishing, research, and the All-America City Award. The National Civic League is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, and has an office in Washington, D.C. For more information, call 303-571-4343 or visit www.ncl.org.

This newsletter is by subscription only! You are receiving this newsletter because you requested a subscription on our website or because you are an NCL member. If you would like to unsubscribe, look for instructions at the end of this newsletter.

1. All-America City Awards Announcements
2. Students Grill All Nine Candidates at Denver Mayoral Forum
3. Community Services Updates
4. New Issues of National Civic Review Online
5. Grant Opportunity from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
6. ANR: Things You Can Do For Your Community
7. Civic Index Feature: Community Vision

On June 12-14, 2003 the National Civic League will bring more than 2,000 community and business leaders, governmental officials and private citizens from across the country to Washington D.C. for the 54th annual All-America City Awards. Delegations include mayors, council members, C.E.O.s from local chambers of commerce, agencies and community foundations.

Advertising and Exhibiting Opportunities

This year, for the first time the National Civic League is offering two high visibility vehicles for nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and businesses to showcase their programs, products and services: setting up a booth in the All-America City Awards Exhibit Hall or taking out an advertisement in the All-America City Awards Program Book.

The All-America City Award Exhibit Hall is open for all three days of the competition, and will be situated in the site's highest traffic area. Conference registration, coffee stands, and the morning breakfast cart will all be located in the Exhibit Hall. Rates for a 10' x 10' booth are just $1,000 for for-profit enterprises and $800 for non-profits and government agencies.

Advertising space in the All-America City Award Program Book is also available. The on-site program is distributed to all 2,000 conference attendees, and posted on NCL's web site which averages 200,000 hits per month.

NCL is offering a 25% discount to our members who wish to exhibit or to take out an advertisement!!

To purchase exhibition space or take out an ad in the program book, please visit http://www.ncl.org/aac/information/sponsors.html and then fill out the appropriate form and return it to the National Civic League, 1444 Market Street, Suite 300, Denver, Colorado 80202-1717. If you have any questions, please call 303-571-4343 or email aac@ncl.org.

Join us at the All-America City Awards - America's premier civic event!

Join the National Civic League June 12-14 in Washington, D.C. as we honor 30 exemplary communities at the 54th All-America City Awards - the nation's most prestigious community recognition program

• Learn from communities facing similar challenges
• Share ideas, experiences and successful approaches
• Gain inspiration from each other's work
• Make important connections with community problem solvers

All attendees have access to workshops, exhibits, entertainment, and two days of community presentations at a joyous celebration of civic involvement in America's communities. Celebrate the spirit of community at a Welcome to Washington Reception, the Civic Action Fair and Cultural Entertainment Showcase, and the Awards Ceremony.

Registration for all three days is just $99 - $85 for National Civic League members, youth, students, seniors, and AAC Alumni.

You receive one free registration for each three paid registrations.

To register or for more information visit www.ncl.org or call 303-571-4343.

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Written by Ron Nirenberg
March 5, 2003

"The world is run by people who show up," said one mayoral candidate at the Denver Student Voices Mayoral Forum. On Tuesday, many showed up-- hopeful leaders of Denver, their future constituents, and most major media in the area.

With all nine mayoral candidates present and 1200 of their classmates in the audience, 18 Denver Public Schools students took turns questioning the mayoral hopefuls about the important issues facing youth in the city. The forum, held at the University of Denver's Richie Center and moderated by former Denver Broncos running back Reggie Rivers, featured topics such as gang prevention, the drought, teen pregnancy, and the recent "spy files" controversy.

After two-minute opening statements by all of the candidates, each candidate in turn drew a student name from Rivers' Broncos helmet. The students, representing one of the 18 classes participating in Student Voices, then posed their question, agreed upon by the entire class, to the candidate. Each of the mayoral hopefuls had a chance to respond to one randomly selected question in both of two rounds of questions. Responses were limited to two minutes. After the question-and-answer rounds, the candidates gave one-minute closing statements.

Early in the first round, East High student Susan Smith posed the issue of public transportation to Don Mares, asking if he would consider lowering fares for students. "I think that's a great idea," Mares responded. Candidate Elizabeth Schlosser added support to the idea when she was asked in a later question about how to improve under-funded schools. In addition to seeking funding from the corporate sector, Schlosser said, lowering transportation fares would also help students in those schools.

The issue of jobs was also an important topic of the day. Several student questions highlighted the economy, and the candidates who answered these questions noted that the creation of jobs would help ease problems of homelessness and gentrification. Candidate Jeremy Stefanek said that jobs would be his number one priority if elected. Candidate John Hickenlooper, citing his business experience, said that creating jobs would also help lower the number of people left homeless. Still, he added, it would take a lot of community involvement. Candidate Dwight Henson, a homeless man who has centered his campaign on this issue, said that in addition to jobs the city would need to provide more low-income housing.

Student questions also focused on the topics of crimes and gangs. Candidate Ari Zavaras, a former police chief, said that he would redirect the police department to focus on gang prevention. Candidate Hickenlooper noted the need to provide more adequate police protection in underserved areas, not just affluent neighborhoods, to fight crime in general. Candidate Sue Casey pointed to the school system and the need to provide more opportunities for youth to stay off the streets, especially through after-school programs. Candidate Phil Perrington also cited the need for more youth programs and extracurricular activities as an effort to combat the alarming dropout rate. And candidate Penfield Tate reaffirmed the need to "invest in youth" when asked which programs he would protect from budget cuts.

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Since May of last year, the National Civic League has been working with the Denver Public Schools to implement Student Voices, a program funded by the Annenberg Center for Public Policy in Philadelphia, PA. Student Voices works to increase civic engagement among young people by introducing a curriculum in the classroom that teaches the students the skills and abilities they need to be civically engaged.

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The Forum for Civic Advancement
Colorado Springs, Colorado

The National Civic League, in partnership with El Pomar Foundation, has developed a civic engagement initiative that builds upon the successes and resources of the current leadership training programs in the Pikes Peak Region of Colorado. This initiative, called The Forum for Civic Advancement, works with the distinguished leadership of the Forum Chairpersons (Former Colorado Speaker of the House - Chuck Berry, Former CEO of the Urban League of Colorado Springs - Jerome Page, Mayor of Colorado Springs - Mary Lou Makepeace, and Former Governor Richard Lamm) to produce a series of engaging sessions led by the chairs and NCL to help graduates from leadership programs apply their new skills in both elected and volunteer public service. This program has received rave reviews from participants for its practical information and engaging format.

In 2003, a series of six forums will be held. In February, Christopher T. Gates, President of NCL led a discussion on "Politics and Community in America Today". On April 15th Arturo Vargas, Executive Director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) will deliver a presentation on race and local politics, which will look at recent research conducted by NALEO on expanding the Latino electorate as well as case studies on sharing of power by minority communities.

Civic Indicators: Quantifying Our Civic Health

The National Civic League with the generous support of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, is in the last year of a three-year project to develop a set of community indicators that focus on civic health. These "civic indicators" will assist communities in measuring, tracking and enhancing the civic health of their town, city, county or region.

During the three years of this project, NCL has been working in conjunction with an advisory committee of national experts and our community partners to develop a set of indicators that can serve as the initial foundation for a community to track and monitor their civic health. Our community partners and indicator organizations, include - Baltimore, Maryland (Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance); Charleston, South Carolina (Community Benchmarking Collaborative); Routt and Moffat County, Colorado (Yampa Valley Partners); and Jacksonville, Florida (Jacksonville Community Council Inc.).

At the conclusion of the Civic Indicators Project, the National Civic League will create a civic indicators handbook. This handbook will document the need for civic indicators, the process for developing these indicators, a recommended list of civic indicators, lessons learned from this project, and a resource list of contacts, data sources, surveys and bibliography. The handbook will also include stories from the four participant communities about their experiences with this project and their efforts to enhance their community's civic health.

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The National Civic League has put selective portions of the Fall and Winter 2002 National Civic Review online. The Fall issue of the Review analyzes the potential impact of New Urbanist design principles on the creation of social capital. The Winter issue is devoted to the issue of political reform.

The National Civic Review, the quarterly journal of the National Civic League, is one of the nation's oldest civic affairs journals, now in its 91st year of publication. NCL Members receive each issue of the Review free of charge.

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Pathways to Collaboration: A Knowledge-Building Workgroup
Due date for Letters of Intent from community partnerships: May 9, 2003

The Pathways to Collaboration workgroup, funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, will give up to 12 community partnerships from across the United States a unique opportunity to explore exactly what makes a collaborative problem-solving process successful. We are seeking Letters of Intent from partnerships that have a record of success in using collaboration to address problems (in any area) that are important to people in their community, a spirit of curiosity about what made those successes possible, and an interest in participating in a rigorous and provocative learning experience.

Successful applicants will receive $50,000 per year for three years to enable the entire partnership to participate in the workgroup experience. Working with other partnerships and a group of people with valuable technical skills, participating partnerships will: (1) understand and document what they are doing well and learn how to teach those skills to others; (2) go beyond their current achievements by learning from partnerships whose strengths are complementary to their own; and (3) create new knowledge and tools that will help partnerships everywhere become more effective in engaging many different kinds of people and organizations in collaborative problem solving.

The workgroup is being organized by the Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health at The New York Academy of Medicine. For more information, including the Community Partnership Application Guide, visit www.pathwaystocollaboration.net or contact the Center at www.cacsh.org or 212-822-7250.

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The Alliance for National Renewal is an intentional community of civic leaders and community builders who collaborate to learn and tell their stories to inspire creative problem solving, imitation, and innovation in pursuit of democratic revitalization and the renewal of civic life. The following ideas are an excerpt from their poster "100 Things You Can Do For Your Community In A New Century".

Things You Can Do For Your Community At Work

1. Encourage your employer to adopt a school or classroom.
2. Encourage your employer to provide meaningful paid internship opportunities to help re-skill unemployed adults.
3. Volunteer with your co-workers to help train a disadvantaged person in new job skills through Goodwill Industries (www.goodwill.org).
4. Collect and donate gently worn professional clothes for men and women moving into the work force.
5. Hire youth for summer employment. Contact Public Allies for a pool of talented and diverse young adults looking to improve their communities (202-822-1180 or www.publicallies.org).
6. Mentor a young professional in your work place. Contact Youth on Board for more information (617-623-9900).

To learn more about the Alliance for National Renewal, visit their website at www.ncl.org/anr.

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Community Vision: A shared sense of a desired future

Communities that deal successfully with the challenges they face have developed a clear picture of where they want to go and also have a clear sense of their past.

As the International City/County Management Association explains, "A growing number of places are using the term 'vision' to describe the first step of the long-range planning process. Starting with a vision implies seeking agreement about the desired outcome of the plan [and] visualizing and articulating the kind of community residents want in the future, which might be defined as five or ten or even twenty years hence."

A community's vision should reflect the common values of that community; at the same time, however, it needs to be inclusive of the diverse populations which make up that community. Moreover, a community vision is not a "cookie cutter" type of document. A vision should reflect those qualities that make a community unique...

Read more of this article by NCL's Derek Okubo...

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