The Civic Pledge

Civic Trustees are people who have decided they want to be No-Blame problem solvers for their communities and our country. Using their No-Blame problem solving training and committing to work under the principles of The Civic Pledge, they work together in Civic Trusts to research and advance practical solutions to the issues facing their communities and our nation.

• I pledge to leave my community and my country better than I found them.
• To search for solutions instead of simply pointing out problems and assigning blame
• To work on solutions that are “doable”- that are Cost Effective and based on Evidence of Success

The Civic Trust presents a community-based opportunity for all Citizens to engage in Public Service. Civic Trusts function as new “intermediary democratic institutions.” Their purpose is to provide a No-Blame environment that allows Civic Trustees to work together toward the betterment of their communities by searching the nation to identify successful solutions and adapting those solutions for adoption in their own cities.

Civic Trustees commit to a minimum of a year of service and meet in monthly Solution Sessions. They identify issues that affect the community as a whole and ones they believe are important to address.

In addition to their service finding and promoting evidence-based, cost effective solutions for their city, they foster the values of The Civic Pledge as guest lecturers in high school Solutions Civics classes and as speakers at Power Civics community forums. They also organize Solution Forums on key issues for government decision-makers and host No-Blame candidate debates to improve political discourse.

Here are just a few of the practical policies developed by Civic Trustees:

• A community-based student discipline policy
• A “mutual respect” policy for police/community relations
• A cost effective policy to buy carbon-free electricity in bulk for cities and their residents