Community-Based Civic Engagement

It's a fact: Advocacy groups and political parties tend to bypass lower-density rural areas and invest the majority of the energy and resources in high-density urban and adjacent suburban communities. Not surprisingly, that's led to a damping down of civic participation in low-income rural communities, and a political vacuum in which intolerance and extremism can easily take root.

Main Street Project's Community-Based Civic Engagement program works to create a culture of civic participation in rural communities – giving residents of all ages, cultures, economic and immigration status the opportunity to more fully participate in all aspects of community life.

Our commitment to long-term relationships means that we invest ourselves in the goals of the community. Here's what each community we work with can expect:

• Recognition of and respect for rural context and realities

• Focus on community strengths and assets

• Use of culturally competent and language accessible tools and processes

• Respect for the knowledge and wisdom of community members – those with the most at stake

Our 2008-2010 action plan

• Identify, survey and prioritize target communities for concentrated organizing and civic engagement efforts.

• Identify specific partner organizations in each community and recruit and train volunteer organizers in each.

• Work with any existing state 501(c)(3) nonprofit coalitions to develop and implement appropriate voter file strategies for each community campaign effort.

• Develop and distributed state-specific civic engagement toolkits that are culturally competent and language accessible.