The Civic Commons is a new way to bring communities together with conversation and emerging technology. We provide the place and tools for citizens to connect with and inform one another and to take action. It’s a bit like a virtual pub or coffee house, where citizens and officials can gather to talk about community issues, brainstorm solutions, coordinate plans —  and maybe even have fun and meet new people along the way.

We take some of our inspiration from Clay Shirky’s book, Cognitive Surplus, which explores how communities of people can pool small amounts of their spare time, say 10 minutes a week,  to accomplish great things.  With this in mind, we’ve constructed our website to enable our community members to leverage their efforts into collective greatness.  Wiki-greatness, if you like.

We want to make civic involvement easy and fun, something you can do after you put the kids to bed or get home from the gym. Something you want to do as much as checking Facebook or — checking Facebook again.

We’d like you think of the Civic Commons as social media for stuff that matters. The place that allows greatness to fit into your busy schedule.

If you’re not a video-lovin’ citizen, you can just jump in and join the passionate Civic Commons community, whose contributions are grounded in our founding principles. A number of community partnersshare our commitment to those principles.

Funding support

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Technical support

The Fund For Our Economic Future