Navigating the Pathways of Civic Engagement

Harnessing the many expressions of civic engagement

1 Finding Civic Engagement Patterns That Advance Your Mission

Organizations often depend on civic participation to advance important dimensions of their missions. To strengthen those dimensions, they need to answer a key question: Which groups of people are most likely to engage in the behaviors needed to support the civic dimensions of their missions? Organizations already understand their purpose: a relief organization coordinates aid, a faith-based organization supports its ministry, and a health nonprofit advances its cause. What often remains unclear is how people differ in their patterns of civic participation and which groups are most likely to engage in the civic behaviors needed to advance those efforts. The Civic Navigator addresses this question by identifying civic classes (groups of people who share similar patterns of civic participation) and showing how these patterns align with different civic actions. The four scenarios that follow illustrate how organizations with different missions can use the Civic Navigator to better understand the civic engagement patterns that can help advance their missions.

2 Targeting Specific Civic Behaviors

Some organizations begin with their mission or the civic dimensions and seek to identify the civic classes most likely to engage in the behaviors needed to advance those efforts. Others begin with a specific civic behavior they want to encourage, such as voter turnout, charitable giving, or volunteering for a particular cause. For these organizations, the question becomes more focused: Given a specific civic action, which civic classes are most likely to engage in it? The interactive chart below answers that question. Hover over any point to see the probability that members of a given civic class engage in a specific behavior, based on a national survey of nearly 5,000 respondents.