(Illustration by Hanna Barczyk)
Since the 2016 election, many philanthropic organizations have invested in programs that promote democracy, including work to improve civic organizing, government transparency, and community-led public participation in policymaking. These programs have the laudable goals of combating rising polarization, reducing social distrust, and disrupting the widespread social isolation that hamper our collective ability to exercise self-government.
The work to date, though important, has not succeeded in countering these troubling trends. We must do more to bring Americans together to heal as individuals, as communities, and as a nation.
Specifically, we must meet people where they are, in their daily lives, in ways that invite them to participate in civic life, by creating spaces for them to come together. In 2016, a group of funders, including Knight Foundation and the Kresge Foundation, partnered to form Reimagining the Civic Commons to transform public spaces in multiple cities nationwide. The initiative supports community-led teams of public-sector leaders, nonprofit advocates, and residents investing in and creatively managing public spaces to promote greater civic engagement.
Public spaces are physical representations of local government. When civic assets are high quality, they spark a new appreciation for what is public and reinforce the value of active participation in civic life. Because public space is visible and tangible, it can engage people who might tune out more abstract discussions of political ideas or the concept of democracy.
Through this work, we funders have continually asked ourselves an audacious question: Can strategic investments in local public spaces increase trust, engage people more fully in their communities, and connect Americans of different backgrounds to each other? We believed then, and know now, that these investments can turn the tide, in ways that have implications for future philanthropic efforts to promote democratic principles across diverse communities.
Creating Community
For the last 10 years, some cities in our initiative, including our home cities of Detroit and Akron, Ohio, have tracked and reported their progress. All report encouraging results. These communities have seen more people visiting public spaces (and visiting them more often). More people are connecting to each other across differences of income and race; more people are engaging in community activities; and people have measurably greater trust for each other, for local institutions, and for local government.
These results should encourage any philanthropic organization that aspires to create more vibrant, safe, and prosperous communities to support democracy. Our work demonstrates how to create the building blocks of healthy civil society: trust, connection, and collaboration for the common good.
Here are five lessons we’ve learned along the way:
1. Agree to shared outcomes that cultivate trust. | Social connection, trust, and hope are the bedrock of a strong democratic society. To build them in community, committing to measuring specific outcomes of public-space work, is an important first step.
Reimagining the Civic Commons requires participating cities to commit to outcomes including civic engagement and socioeconomic mixing, the act of bringing people from different socioeconomic groups together in public space. Achieving these outcomes means that funders and practitioners on the ground must ask new and different questions about their public-space work: How can these spaces generate more social capital? How can they build trust across differences?
Answering these questions requires that practitioners measure their work differently. Rather than simply capturing attendance numbers—often the only data used to evaluate public space—Reimagining the Civic Commons city teams conduct door-to-door neighborhood surveys and interview visitors to hear their experiences and beliefs about public space. Residents and visitors answer questions about trust and social connection, including how much people socialize with nearby neighbors, whether they have met someone for the first time in public space, and whether people and local government can be trusted. Teams also observe their public spaces to understand the kinds of people who visit and their behavior, such as whether people come into conversational distance with each other. Over time, this measurement system enables teams to understand progress on outcomes like trust and social capital.
In Detroit, our project in the majority-Black neighborhood of Fitzgerald included a brand-new park, a greenway, and a transformed commercial corridor, all remade in partnership with neighbors. Data show that the project is working as designed: 82 percent of parkgoers have met someone new, residents are socializing more with their neighbors, and the percentage of residents who say most people can be trusted has grown from 13 percent to 34 percent.
Residents are also feeling positive about the trajectory of their neighborhood, with 94 percent saying the neighborhood has changed for the better in recent years—an increase of 60 percentage points since 2017, a time when the city was stabilizing after bankruptcy.
2. Invest in tangible things that visibly improve people’s everyday lives. | Efforts to support democracy can seem distant from people’s everyday lives. Investing in public space provides an avenue for making democracy more visible. The transformation of public space in Akron’s Summit Lake neighborhood offers a powerful example.
Once a neglected glacial lake, today’s Summit Lake is a popular public space that offers fishing, canoeing and kayaking, community gardens, cultural programming, a beachhead with grills and porch swings, a picnic pavilion, a farmers market, a nature center, and a multiuse recreational trail. The project, begun in 2017, was conceived entirely in collaboration with the community. Residents in the Summit Lake neighborhood have reported a 22 percent increase in socializing with neighbors at least once a week, with nearly a quarter of residents saying they interact with their neighbors every day. Residents also reported a 28 percent increase in trust for local institutions to do what is best for their community.
3. Recognize the unique value of that which is truly public. | The United States has a long history of creating vibrant public spaces that are maintained and open to all. At the beginning of the 20th century, President Theodore Roosevelt persuaded Americans to preserve the most beautiful of our wild places in our national parks, forests, and monuments. Yet today, we too often allow what is “public” to be relegated. We’ve lost the idea that what is public can also be exceptional.
Downtown Akron’s Lock 3 park exemplifies how a public space can serve both small groups looking for everyday relaxation and big crowds during evenings and weekends. For decades, the park was basically an open lawn that drew thousands for special events, but nearby residents didn’t feel drawn to the park during the day—no one was using it. Several years ago, downtown residents, businesses, and community stakeholders collaborated to reimagine the park. Project leaders learned what people loved about the park and suggested a variety of amenities that could enliven the space. The reimagined park includes ice skating and a state-of-the-art performance pavilion. Lush landscaped gardens, shaded seating, and public art make the space welcoming all year round.
4. Support authentic, local work—and stay the course over time. | While Reimagining the Civic Commons is a national initiative, the work is inherently local. The initiative’s flexible funding allowed each city’s cross-silo team to determine the public places upon which to work and develop transformational strategies in partnership with community members.
In Detroit, the initiative built a multisector coalition of partners working together to advance quality of life, increase civic engagement, and cultivate public trust. A commitment to shared staffing across the partner organizations—including hiring a coordinator who splits time among the city of Detroit, local CDFI partner Invest Detroit, and nonprofit community-based organization Live6 Alliance—has resulted in a network of close partners and a leadership pipeline of champions. Nine years later, these organizations are still collaborating to transform the Fitzgerald neighborhood for the good of residents.
5. Connect networks of people across cities and states to accelerate learning and support resilience. | Alongside investments in individual city teams, Reimagining the Civic Commons has consistently supported connecting the local cross-silo teams leading this work to each other. By meeting in person three times a year and holding monthly virtual gatherings, the teams have forged robust personal connections across individual cities and disciplines, resulting in a network that fosters resilience and generates ideas that can inform policy. For example, Akron’s Summit Lake was inspired by work in other network cities, including Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia and Tom Lee Park in Memphis, Tennessee. Learning about these public spaces shaped the Akron team’s resident-engagement strategies and investments in permanent capital improvements.
As funders, we know that supporting democracy is some of the most vital, important work we do. After 10 years of this work, we believe strengthening democratic society requires that philanthropy support people working together to rebuild civic life. That work can be done, side by side, in the parks, libraries, trails, and town squares that are shared, free, and welcoming for all Americans.
Read more stories by Alexa Bush & Kyle Kutuchief.