What It's About

The Make It Your Own Awards^TM came about in response to research showing that many people feel disconnected from public leaders and institutions and don't believe they have the power to make a real difference in their community. These findings were the reason for a paper we released last fall, Citizens at the Center: A New Approach to Civic Engagement* by Cynthia Gibson, which suggests that if people are actually going to get engaged and stay engaged in their communities, one thing has to happen first -- they must have more chances to connect with one another (including those they might disagree with) and figure out how they can work together for the common good.

This kind of "citizen-centered" approach represents a subtle, yet powerful, shift from asking people to simply join official programs or campaigns whose goals, agendas, and outcomes have already been identified by others, usually experts or outsiders. Instead it encourages people to create new spaces where they can come together, become connected to each other, and make a difference as a community working toward the common good.

Fortunately, this is happening more and more across the nation, but it tends to take place with little notice. That's because these kinds of citizen-centered approaches are not easily grouped as something that's Democrat or Republican, rich or poor, rural or urban, or black or white. They're also tackling a broad set of issues -- from school reform and the environment to graffiti and urban sprawl. The difference is that diverse groups of citizens are deciding that these are the issues that they -- not outsiders, campaign directors, or experts -- want to address. 

This isn't a "bottom-up" or "top-down" approach.  It's a combination of both.

On the one hand are citizens who feel increasingly hard-pressed to affect even the most basic quality-of-life issues in their communities and who feel even more powerless when it comes to influencing larger issues such as the quality of their schools, decisions about land use, or how public dollars are spent. 

On the other hand are elected officials, community leaders, businesspeople, school administrators, and others in charge of community institutions who are frustrated by trying to solve tough public problems without the same levels of funding, public trust, and authority they used to enjoy. And they're realizing that to be successful, they need not only public buy-in at the end of the process but public weigh-in throughout.

The Case Foundation believes that this trend is one that deserves more attention, based on our belief -- and the belief of a growing number of scholars and practitioners in the civic engagement field -- that the key to revitalizing civic engagement is to create more opportunities for both citizens and leaders of institutions to wrestle with issues that cannot and will not be resolved by experts alone. As citizens, we need to "own" the challenges and opportunities in our communities -- not leave them for someone else to tackle.

When these kinds of processes occur, they have the potential to become habits, values, and attitudes, and, ultimately, create or renew local civic cultures. In turn, these new civic cultures will lay the groundwork for creating a deeper ethic of civic engagement that becomes part and parcel of everyday life, rather than a periodic activity such as volunteering or voting that's squeezed between work or school and family and perceived somehow as less important. 

To encourage and advance this process, the Case Foundation has launched a pilot grantmaking initiative -- the Make It Your Own Awards -- to encourage citizen-centered civic participation. This initiative will identify some of the nation's best examples of citizen-centered approaches, provide them with funding and other resources, and help promote these efforts to a broad audience. 

We've heard a few stories about how this citizen-centered approach to problem solving is happening across the nation. Today community members gather in parks and on baseball fields, on blogs or in chat rooms, over breakfast or in somebody's basement to grapple with issues that cannot and should not be resolved by experts alone. Together they decide what issues matter and what they're going to do about them. We want to hear more of these stories.

We created the Make It Your Own Awards to uncover and recognize some of the nation's best examples of citizen-centered change, and in doing so, create a momentum for more.

Ultimately, we hope this grant program will:

• Inspire people to take charge of their communities, and gain back the sense of leadership and power that is rightfully theirs.
• Encourage existing civic engagement and service initiatives to see the power and value of including and involving a wide cross-section of citizens in developing and implementing these programs.
• Support people who want to get and stay involved in their community, whether it be through volunteering, voting, activism, service, or any other activity they choose.
• Test a relatively new approach to philanthropy that involves the public in helping us shape the grant program and choose who receives grants.
• Support efforts to create long-term public spaces and structures that support ongoing civic engagement where people have opportunities to be involved -- in ways they determine appropriate. We recognize that improving our communities does not happen overnight. It takes ongoing commitment and persistent action.
  
• Promote "citizen-centered" approaches as important processes that can complement existing community problem solving, democratic governance, service, and civic engagement programs.