WHAT IS CIVIC ENGAGEMENT?

There is no one set definition of "civic engagement." Raise Your Voice hopes to listen to the voices of college students to understand how young people define civic engagement based on your own experiences. 

Here are some ways civic engagement is currently being defined:

Adding one’s voice to community conversations. Advocacy on behalf of others. Participation in public life. Encouraging other people to participate in public life. Joining in common work that promotes the well being of everyone.

Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern. Civic engagement can take many forms, from individual volunteerism to organizational involvement to electoral participation. It can include efforts to directly address an issue, work with others in a community to solve a problem or interact with the institutions of representative democracy. Civic Engagement encompasses a range of activities such as working in a soup kitchen, serving on a neighborhood association, writing a letter to an elected official or voting.

Civic Engagement means an institutional commitment to public purposes and responsibilities intended to strengthen a democratic way of life in the rapidly changing Information Age of the 21st century.