NEW YORK — A well-connected, privately-funded initiative sees small, low-barrier acts of community outreach as the key to fostering civic engagement among young people.
The nonprofit C&S — previously known as the Institute for Citizens & Scholars — is inviting schools, employers and other partners to encourage young people to lead activities such as calling elected representatives, volunteering locally or hosting public conversations with neighbors of differing backgrounds. The goal, announced Wednesday, is to empower 20 million people between ages 14-24 to take some sort of public-spirited action over the next three years.
“You’re not going to immediately go to a gym and try to bench press 325 pounds. You’re gonna start easy, simple, something you can do — both to affirm and start to build your muscle,” C&S President Rajiv Vinnakota said. "That’s what these civic actions are all about.”
The effort counters popular narratives that members of Generation Z, born roughly between 1997 and 2012, are unengaged or resigned. It's one of several pushes tied to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence's signing that is aimed at uniting Americans to address shared challenges.
Civil society has also seen a greater push to promote "informal volunteering" among Gen Zers. Jennifer Sirangelo — the president and CEO of Points of Light, a nonprofit that wants to double American volunteerism by 2035 — finds that younger people tend to embrace service opportunities that aren't affiliated with institutions. Instead, she said, they are helping their neighbors or asking birthday party attendees for donations to a cause.
“Gen Z wants to do it fast, they want to do it authentic, they want to do it right now,” Sirangelo told The Associated Press last month. "They don’t have time -- no patience for institutions or signing up.”
Informing the C&S approach is internal research that suggests young people will get involved if they see their participation will have a meaningful impact and are given the opportunity to develop solutions themselves.
The biggest barriers to civic participation, according to C&S, are that young people don't know where to begin and don't believe they can make a difference.
“This is a generation that actually sees the problems and actually wants to try to solve them," Vinnakota said. "And we need to create the means, the tools and provide the capacity for them to do it.”
Much of the goal will depend on a participation platform launching this summer as part of their recognition of the U.S. semiquincentennial. Inspired by movements such as GivingTuesday, Vinnakota aspires to reach 15 million young people through an online campaign highlighting how their small actions, together, catalyze national impact.
Current partners such as YPulse, a market research provider specializing in young consumers, and DoSomething, a youth social change platform, will promote the civic actions to their audiences.
But Vinnakota emphasized that these actions can't come from the “top down” and that older leaders must let their younger counterparts' ideas percolate.
“Some of them will work. Some of them won’t. That’s fine," he said. "By bringing all those ideas into the common arena, seeing what happens, I think we’re actually going to be a richer society. We’re probably gonna have a greater chance of binding our democracy together.”
Select young people are getting more specialized support through an existing leadership program funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. C&S recently provided stipends and coaching to 500 young changemakers with projects ranging from removing nonbiodegradable glitter from a river to improving ballot access to hospitalized voters.
The nonprofit is also tapping its network of colleges. A 135-member consortium is working to instill college students with what they consider three essential skills for democracy: having productive conversations, finding agreed-upon sources of credible information and working together to solve problems despite differences of opinion.
Another avenue will be a new, workplace-based initiative with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. They are currently enlisting 25 companies for a pilot program teaching young professionals how to become better teammates and citizens.
The intent, whether it's in the classroom or at work, is to bring interested young people together in-person — not remotely — and show them that their peers share a desire to deepen their community commitments.
“Civic actions that don’t take a lot of effort initially but start to build something that we call agency,” Vinnakota said, "and start to get the flywheel moving. That’s what this is about. How can you create the spark?"
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