Goals

At CityClub, we believe knowledge, trust, connectedness, and action are the key ingredients of civic engagement. Our mission is to advance these assets so that King County residents can find common ground and achieve their visions of the common good.

CityClub’s fall Community Matters Campaign (CMC) presents a portfolio of programs and tools to motivate individual and communal civic engagement around a selected annual theme.  Public forums, small group dialogues, and election debates are organized to educate participants about the focus theme and motivate their involvement as voters, volunteers, philanthropists, neighbors, teachers and workers. CMC educational programs are complemented by on-line civic engagement tools and invitations for individual commitments to civic expression and action.

Elements

The Community Matters Campaign opens with United Way’s Day of Caring (September 11, 2009) and ends with Election Day (November 3, 2009). It includes the following program elements:

• Education – In-depth, non-partisan information and opinion on the current state of education and economic opportunity in King County offered by experts, community leaders and policymakers. Presented as web resources and 5-8 live public forums and candidate debates, each of which will be rebroadcast on cable television statewide and is also available for podcasting.

• Dialogue and Deliberation – 25-35 free facilitated conversations—conducted live at diverse community gathering places. Citizens are invited to weigh in on their personal observations and recommendations for improving education and economic opportunity as related to the findings of The Seattle Foundation’s Healthy Community Report.

• Call to Action – Opportunities to “learn more,” “connect,” and “take action” through web resources and the construction of a personal engagement plan. Each plan includes strategies to become informed, mentor, volunteer, give to charity, work, collaborate, express political opinion and vote.

• Community Report – A report to the community—policymakers, press, and the public—summarizing common ground observations and recommendations from participating individuals and organizations over the campaign’s duration. Documented and archived on CityClub’s website and disseminated to journalists, community leaders and voters.

History

Winners of the 2008 CMC People's Choice Awards. To learn more, see our final report.

The Community Matters Campaign (formerly knows as Civic Participation Month) has been a pivot of CityClub’s annual programming since 2001. Opening with United Way’s Day of Caring in September and ending with Election Day in November, the campaign promotes personal engagement and organizational collaboration across a full spectrum of civic activity including voter preparation, volunteerism, philanthropy, public dialogue, deliberation and community building.  In 2008, the Campaign’s focus was Re-imagining Civic Engagement.

You can read our 2008 CMC Final Report by clicking here.

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