Connecting to an idea of something bigger than yourself — The basic premise of Politicolor is that we can make it easier to see what active citizens do, how they push against opposition or the status quo and connect with allies, and that showing our work will improve the likelihood that our communities will overflow with good work. At the…

(And have nothing to do with who the President is) — John Dickerson made a simple statement on Slate’s Political Gabfest. It sounded like a public service announcement: There are narratives about who we are in the U.S. that have nothing to do with who the President is. 😱 These other narratives have their sources of power, difficulty, and all kinds…

We believe reading is a civic duty. The titles getting the spotlight in our #CitizensRead Book Club make their own case for what we can accomplish by reading together. For one of our first books, we chose Paul Woodruff’s book First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea. While turning…

I don’t know where to start. News goes by at a staggering pace. This past week has included shootings in public spaces, a showdown between the Executive and Legislative branches, a new “religious freedom” rule for healthcare workers, and a list of dangerous individuals banned from Facebook. “I don’t know…

How to engage the ideas of good government — The questions we ask often say everything about the answers we expect. What passes for political discussion today rarely escapes the smallest questions of self-government — who will win and what will they do with that new power? With every iteration of this discussion, we grow more comfortable with the…

A popular refrain of the moment is that we need civics education in classrooms again. More civics. New voices join that chorus without offering ideas about what that civics might look like. …

There has been a lot of hand-wringing over whether or not Americans can still talk to each other. Online or off, political discussions are rarely civil. I knew Ben Franklin Circles sounded like a good idea, but I still didn’t know what to expect from our first meeting. We met…

For October 24, 2017 Casual news-watchers might think the controversy over the attack in Niger started this week. The attack, however, occurred at the beginning of October. …

A seemingly simple question refuses to settle on a fixed answer. The most recognizable names in civic tech all have their own answers to “what is civic tech?” …