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The Alliance for Children and Families and its member agencies across North America are committed to advancing the rights and opportunities of the children and families we serve. Providing quality services is critical; as is the work we do to address the broader issues that affect communities in need. The Alliance provides member agencies and interested groups with technical assistance and program planning tools to help build and amplify their voices in the civic arena. Our vision is one of full civic engagement of individuals and communities, particularly those that are most vulnerable.

New Voices at the Civic Table focuses upon activating and strengthening the civic engagement of member agency clients and community members. The Alliance assists organizations in their efforts to facilitate community dialogues and problem solving sessions, provide training on legislative matters, and get out the vote. Features of New Voices at the Civic Table include:

• documented case studies and promising practices from agencies currently engaged in client civic engagement efforts.
   

• a training institute for human service program staff to augment their abilities to incorporate civic engagement strategies into the work of their organization
   

• grants and technical assistance to member organizations to support them in assisting clients to become engaged in the civic process.

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  2007-2008 New Voices at the Civic Table grantee partner updates

Learn more here

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PARENTS ACTIVE IN ADVOCACY

La Casa de Esperanza in Waukesha, WI, and their new parent committee recently co-hosted a Meet the Candidates event for the local school district. As part of their advocacy efforts, they’ve been working to assemble a group of parents who want to be more involved in the community and engage in some civic education opportunities. Over the past few months, the parents have met regularly to learn about the issues and the powers of the school board. Since many of our parents are new immigrants, the event was held in English and Spanish using interpretation equipment.

A group of seven parent leaders organized and moderated the event in March and did a fantastic job!

Visit this link for further details and view some photos of the event.

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NONPROFIT CIVIC ENGAGEMENT REPORT RELEASED

In March 2007, a group of people from around the country gathered in Detroit to discuss how to enhance the work of nonprofit service organizations in building democracy in the U.S. The purpose of the meeting was to:

• Bring funders and practitioners together to advance the dialogue on how social service providers can strengthen their role as sites of democratic practice.

• Identify strategies to promote and support a larger proportion of nonprofit service organizations to invest in long-term civic engagement work with their constituencies.

• Develop specific next steps to broaden the conversation and move this work forward.

The participants agreed that service agencies could be important sites of civic engagement based on their position as trusted institutions, their reach into communities, and their mission-driven work. We discussed a continuum of strategies for civic engagement that can be adopted by service providers and other nonprofit groups, especially in terms of how groups can significantly involve their client/constituents in their communities.

Read the full report.

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ALLIANCE FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
2007 CIVIC ENGAGEMENT TRAINING INSTITUTE
RECAP

The Alliance for Children and Families, with Alliance and UNCA member Family and Children's Service, held its first Civic Engagement Training Institute, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Twenty participants from around the country and the Twin Cities convened for a two-and-a-half-day training experience to learn new civic engagement strategies, visit with constituent-led community action groups, and network with colleagues committed to expanding civic engagement.

• Visit the Post-Institute Web Site for details and materials.

Human service organizations are often required to negotiate the intersection of service delivery and social policy; each impacts the other and the children and families being served. The challenge posed by the New Voices at the Civic Table (New Voices) initiative for service delivery organizations is:

How will the human services field and the people it serves find a voice within the civic arena?

New Voices is part of a long-term effort of the Alliance for Children and Families (Alliance) to promote action within the human services field by focusing on civic engagement and strengthening the voices of constituents.

The Alliance initiated the New Voices effort guided by some core assumptions about the civic arena and the human services field:

• public policy decisions affect everyone;

• people have the ability to shape and influence public policy;

• disadvantaged groups do not regularly engage in the democratic process;

• human service agencies, serving primarily disadvantaged groups, can facilitate and encourage civic participation;

• human service agencies, in order to more effectively support civic engagement, require external support in the form of funding, training and expertise;

• civic engagement can include any number of efforts to engage in the democratic process and become active in public affairs. These include deliberative dialogue, community problem-solving, organizing to affect change, and voting.

These core assumptions suggest that (1) civic engagement is not currently intrinsic to the mission of most human service organizations, and (2) if provided the necessary resources and guidance, that human services should make civic engagement a core aspect of agency mission and strategic vision. The assumed long term benefits behind New Voices are that the integration of civic engagement practices within human services will ultimately result in:

• more effective services;

• accountability in the public arena;

• improved quality of life for recipients of services.

In the first phase of New Voices, the Alliance provided technical assistance and mini-grants to six member organizations to support efforts aimed at educating, training, and providing opportunities for constituents to become engaged in the civic process. Each of the six organizations below designed and implemented efforts to help build civic engagement.

Please click agency names to read descriptions of each initiative.

• Council for Family and Child Caring Agencies, New York, New York

• El Centro, Kansas City, Kansas

• Family and Children’s Service, Minneapolis, Minnesota

• Family and Community Service of Delaware County, Chester, Pennsylvania

• Family Services of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

• Turning Point Center for Youth and Family Development, Fort Collins, Colorado

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These organizations with local partners have implemented programs to support the civic engagement efforts of the individuals they serve. New Voices at the Civic Table is an effort to build the capacities of agencies, so that the very individuals that seek assistance become effective agents of change in their own lives and the life of their communities. Support for New Voices comes from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

How does your community compare?
Click here to download a report by the National Conference on Citizenship, titled “Broken Engagement.” The report provides statistics and analysis on political participation and community engagement.

What is a “citizen-centered” approach?
Click here to read a paper by Cynthia Gibson, on citizen-centered civic engagement. You can also read comments from the Alliance for Children and Families on this site.

To review an IRS guide on what you can and cannot do as a 501(c)(3) organization during election years and with regard to political campaigns, click here.

New Voices Resource Library

For answers to frequently asked questions, click here.