Acknowledgements
We would like to recognize the contributions of the thousands of people who have attended or viewed on livestream the CivicCon Speaker Series or participated in a CivicCon workshop, civic engagement course or one of the impact events that allows a hands-on opportunity to improve our community. Their participation shows community members willing to learn best practices from experts and to fulfill their responsibility to be informed and engaged to improve the quality of life where they live.
Special recognition Special recognition goes to the nearly 200 CivicCon Sustaining Members whose donations, participation and leadership have been essential to the first five years of CivicCon. They help identify the problems and opportunities that guide CivicCon’s efforts to provide community education that leads to public dialogue and ultimately actions.
We couldn’t do CivicCon events without the help of our many loyal volunteers. Thank you for the time and talent you give to CivicCon. And we are indebted to the many expert speakers who have traveled here to share insights and best practices on the myriad of complex issues facing our community.
Your efforts make CivicCon possible. You are the cornerstone of positive citizen-powered change.
Purpose Statement
Great communities begin with great public dialogue.
CivicCon is a project of the Center for Civic Engagement, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, with partnership support from the Pensacola News Journal. It aims to make a community a better place to live, play, work, and invest through smart planning and by driving unparalleled and continuing community engagement.
CivicCon is a proven platform for community engagement on a wide range of topics all related to creating a better quality of life in a community. We will continue to experiment in casting an ever-growing net to be inclusive of all the diversity represented in a community so that there is more participation in the conversation that leads to positive citizen-powered change.
A Community Dashboard, an annual Quality of Life Survey, civic engagement classrooms, town halls and speaker events with world-class experts sharing best practices all contribute to community members being informed of critical needs while providing knowledge, resources, and skills necessary to help citizens to be more engaged in the public process. They become their own best advocates to hold leaders accountable and to organize with their neighbors to shape the future of their neighborhood as well as the larger community.
The 2022 Quality of Life Survey shows that 46 percent of the greater Pensacola community is aware of CivicCon and what it does. The CivicCon 2022-2025 Strategic Plan lays out the next steps in engaging more community members to understand their role in shaping the community and inspiring them to be informed, to be involved in public dialogue and even drive the positive changes they want in the community.
The plan represents the expertise, insight, and input from many sources and individuals, including published best practices, residents, comments from speakers and participants in our world class expert speaker series, classes, discussion groups and community survey results.
Problem Statement
CivicCon was born from the notion that we all have a responsibility for the community where we live and that making it better requires us to be informed and engaged in public dialogue. We elect our local government leaders but that is not the end of our responsibility.
American society is portrayed as divided and unable to agree on how to move forward. Reading headlines about Washington and even at statehouses that seems to be accurate. But at the local level people find agreement so that things can get done that need to get done.
Community members need to see that and be a part of getting things done where they live. We believe that inspiring people to learn, be a part of a conversation and being involved in a positive accomplishment is powerful. And, like a virus, if enough communities are increasing community engagement and seeing citizen-powered change that this could spread and eventually overtake division and politics at all levels. People need to experience that community engagement can happen and that it can work. Continued community engagement – not just a one-off show of citizens at a public meeting – can reshape a community. Elected officials will bend to the will of informed and civil citizens that show up with solutions.
CivicCon stands for “civic conversations” and we see the opportunity to be a laboratory of democracy – a term James Fallows, author of Our Towns and national correspondent for The Atlantic, coined about CivicCon during his appearance in the CivicCon speaker series. We pledge to share with other communities what we learn about community engagement. And we will learn from other communities.
Our elected officials need to not only encourage civic engagement but more importantly, they need to be active participants. The mutuality, cooperation, and reciprocity of all stakeholders, when engaged in transparent, informed, and thoughtful decision making and planning, have the potential to transform a community into a better place that is more fair, equitable and where “the good stuff” that makes a community a great place to live is available to all.
Process
The process used for this strategic plan is a modified version of the “VMOSA;” planning system; that is Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies and Action Plans. The vision is a means of simply communicating the desired end-state we are seeking. The mission statement concisely describes “what” were going to do and “when”. The organization’s culture to be observed while accomplishing the mission are specified in value statements. Additionally, we have included our community platform and strategic priorities since they are reflective of our vision, mission, values, and culture. Objectives are developed focused on “how” to achieve the mission. Strategies are developed for each objective to accomplish the objectives. Strategies are the “how.” Action plans details “who” will do what by when. These action plans will be detailed in the 2023, 2024 and 2025 Business Plans for the CivicCon Center.
Vision Statement
To live in a community in which civic engagement drives community development, progress, and change, with elected officials following the will of educated and engaged citizens.
Mission Statement
CivicCon will create an opportunity for educated civic conversations that will lead our region to become a better place to live, grow, work, and invest. We will shed light on critical community issues and engage the community to learn best practices from world-class experts in the speaker series and then engage in workshops, neighborhood impact events and other learning experiences as well as be part of the public decision-making process. This will result in positive citizen-powered change. This model of civic engagement will be replicable and freely shared with other communities across the country on an ongoing basis.
Value Statements
• We enable civic engagement by facilitating public dialogue that is informed rather than self-serving on critical community issues with the singular goal of civic conversation leading to the right answers for our community.
• We power civic engagement by building citizen capacity through our expert speaker series, classes, volunteer activities, best practices, workshops, and events to challenge the prevailing social and economic inequalities that threaten our future.
• We provide proven best practices from world-class experts and create a safe place to have public dialogue among other citizens, including stakeholders and entities directly impacted by decisions that shape the future of our community.
• We help “connect the dots” so individuals and groups connect with each other to co-create community solutions through mutually respectful partnerships.
• We encourage efforts to realize a just, equitable and sustainable future for our community while encouraging equity and justice for less empowered elements of our community.
• We promote respecting and appreciating the perspectives and the life situations of others while being self-aware and being able to identify one’s own values and interests.
• We take responsibility to examine power and privileges and encourage civic conversation regarding the inequities in our community. This requires us to reflect, think critically, examine our implicit and explicit biases, and to seek exemplary examples from others.
• We value and respect every person, honoring their history, cultural values and community context and seek participation by all segments of our communities.
Community Platform
The Community Platform is intended to keep us focused on what is important. Shane Phillips, author of The Affordable City, told us at his CivicCon speaker event that no city can stay the same – it is either growing or declining. We choose growth but we want intelligent growth. We want an engaged community and informed residents to help guide that growth. We want good governance that is transparent and willing to seek community engagement. We want elected officials and local government leadership that seeks best practices from experts and the involvement of community members.
Intelligent Growth – We must start all growth and development conversations with one simple question – does it make that place better? This means not just jobs but the right kinds of private investment that contributes to the vision not only of the greater Pensacola area but the immediate place where the investment occurs. Intelligent growth needs a diverse and skilled workforce and an education system that supports the needs of all our community. We define Intelligent Growth as a partnership with those who live in the community. It provides choices in housing, transportation, jobs, and amenities accessible to all. Intelligent Growth is the development of mixed-use, mixed-income, livable communities where people choose to live, work, and play because they are attractive and economical options rather than forced decisions. Public investment into economic growth should require planning based on real numbers with measurable outcomes and based on a strategic plan for the greater community – we must be accountable to show we are making good investments with public money.
Engaged Community – Community conversation should be inclusive and constant through large gatherings such as CivicCon and small gatherings such as neighborhood associations, churches, and civic groups. These gatherings need to be encouraged and supported by elected officials and with participation by elected officials, and other government leaders, local business owners and developers. Downtown Pensacola has become a special place. As that work continues, we now need to discuss how we can lift neighborhoods across Pensacola and all area communities. The idea of a walkable downtown that is safe for pedestrians, bicyclists and as well as drivers should be extended to include neighborhoods. CivicCon provides a way to gather people to learn from experts and the experience of other cities. Through civic classrooms it can provide knowledge and teach citizens what they need to know to get things done and create real change. But even more it can be the connector between individuals, groups of citizens and neighborhoods along with business and government leaders.
Good Governance - The minimum standard for good government requires that an ethical code be adopted and that a high level of professionalism is maintained. But that isn’t enough. Transparency by elected and appointed government leaders is paramount. Elected and appointed officials must be willing to lead but also willing to be led by an engaged community and those business investors who buy in to the shared vision for Pensacola and the surrounding communities. We urge local governments to willingly think differently about what government can accomplish when it shares information and actively participates in community conversations that are currently happening. And we urge all government officials to go be part of the citizen conversation and don’t wait for it to come to you. It should be clear that the best governing occurs when the government is closest to the people. Elected and appointed officials should work with neighborhood associations to create safer neighborhoods and neighborhoods with character and charm – to actively participate in the effort to leave no neighborhood behind.
CivicCon Strategic Priorities
Public and Neighborhood Safety – Every citizen should feel that their neighborhood and other public spaces are safe for them and their family.
Education – Our community should have a range of educational opportunities to help students of all ages get the skills they need to win good jobs and support economic growth.
Preserving Community Character – Each neighborhood should have access to the same public assets and be able to protect and enhance its own unique character. We encourage and assist with the creation of new neighborhood associations where none exist.
Jobs and Economic Opportunity – Workers of all ages should have access to good-paying jobs and a pathway to economic security.
Environment and Infrastructure – Protecting and restoring our environment must be a priority to ensure that future generations have a healthy, clean and sustainable place to live.
Ethics and Accountability – Elected officials and public servants should commit to upholding, and being accountable to, the highest standards of integrity, honesty, fairness, and public good. They should be willing to sign an ethics pledge that is created by community members through public meetings.
Government Transparency – Citizens should have multiple ways to easily and quickly access their representatives, as well as policy, finance and safety information. And they should know their rights when that doesn’t easily happen.
Strategic Goals
Strategic Goal #1: Align, Convene and Facilitate Stakeholders to Positively Address Specific Pressing Needs for 2023.
CivicCon will review three main sources to determine engagement topics: the 2022 Quality of Life Survey, the 2022 updated Pensacola Metro Report and the suggestions from attendees of 2022 CivicCon events.
The Quality-of-Life Survey has been done annually beginning in 2008. It is a survey that Mason-Dixon Polling, Washington, DC, conducts in many communities across the country. In most communities the surveys are commissioned by city or local government or the local chamber of commerce. In our community, it has been supported by local philanthropists Quint and Rishy Studer. The survey is made up almost entirely of the same questions that have been asked every year since its inception to capture the perceptions/realities of our community about key issues and services.
Objective benchmarks are vital to gauging progress and identifying areas that need improvement. The Pensacola Metro Report is a dashboard of data collected from reliable sources and posted on the Studer Community Institute website. Since 2014, this dashboard has tracked and provides trends on 17 metrics. This includes public safety, education, economic and other key quality of life data.
After every CivicCon event in 2022, the attendees were asked to complete a survey that rates the event but also offers an opportunity to suggest event topics that would further engage and inform the community. These are the sources for community engagement topics, along with conversations with community members and any challenges and opportunities that present themselves to the community.
Strategic Goal #2: Champion Community Engagement and Civic Engagement with other communities by obtaining grants from national and regional foundations that share the mission of community engagement, civil civic engagement, and a better democracy.
The first five years of CivicCon and its events focused on Pensacola, Escambia County, and Santa Rosa County, all in Florida. As other communities learned about the CivicCon community engagement program, they began to reach out to learn more.
Most of these communities learned about CivicCon from one of our faculty of speakers or when someone in the community read the book, Building a Vibrant Community: How Citizen-Powered Change Is Reshaping America,” by Quint Studer, one of CivicCon’s founders.
We freely share what we are doing with those other communities. Several cities sent representatives to Pensacola to meet with board members and Center for Civic Engagement staff to learn more. We have hosted several cities, most notably Lafayette, LA, Mobile, AL, and Springfield, OH.
But due to relying on local funding, the Center for Civic Engagement has been limited in resources and unable to provide much assistance to those other cities that don’t travel to Pensacola to learn more. We need funding from foundations to provide tools and other assistance in mentoring other community members on how to engage key community stakeholders in a formal effort to create community engagement and raise the “civic IQ”.
Strategic Goal #3: Reimagine the content on the CivicCon web pages with an eye toward promoting civic engagement with our community as well as other communities.
While videos of CivicCon speaker events reside on the website of the Pensacola News Journal, we want to make it easier for anyone to find the topics that CivicCon has covered over the past five years. We will create a section of the website that lists every topic with links to every CivicCon news story and every CivicCon video that resides on the News Journal website that relates to a topic. We will explore many ways to make the content easy to find and usable for the community.
This will help our local community utilize the website as a library of “best practices” on improving a community as shared by our world-class speakers. It can also be a source for other communities when considering experts and topics for their own community conversation.
Strategic Goal #4: Attract and engage all the diverse communities in the greater Pensacola area to participate and invest time and talent in CivicCon’s civic engagement effort.
We know from the Quality-of-Life Survey results that 48 percent of greater Pensacola area residents are aware of CivicCon and what it does. That means a little over half the community doesn’t and it is obvious that is driven by a lack of diversity at CivicCon events.
Early CivicCon speaker events were focused on best practices to make better places and create economic development opportunities. The event audiences were primarily from the business community, active advocates, longtime residents, or retirees. And most were white.
The interest in public safety and DEI created the opportunity to bring speakers related to policing, bias, workplace diversity and equity in healthcare. This likely helped increase the number of young people and people of color attending and being part of the conversation. But our audiences do not yet represent the actual mix in the community.
We must try to some new strategies to earn engagement that results in a diversity in the community engagement at CivicCon that matches the community’s diversity.