Interest in civic engagement is surging.

At PACE, we’ve seen growing interest and urgency around efforts to expand civic participation, strengthen civic agency, and foster a healthy civic culture. Funders are eager to better understand the civic engagement field and the role they can play in shaping its future. Common questions include:

• • – What is civic engagement? 
  • – How is it defined and what does it look like in practice?
  • – How does civic engagement relate to my work?
  • – Where do I start and who can I learn from?

To begin to answer these questions, PACE developed the Civic Engagement Primer—a resource to help funders deepen their understanding of civic engagement and integrate it into their work.

Civic Engagement Primer

The Civic Engagement Primer is intended for:

• – Funders thinking about civic engagement for the first time
• – Funders that are not new to civic engagement, but have yet to invest in it
• – Funders that are already investing in civic engagement, but seek common language and shared tools

It should take users about 20 minutes to work through the Primer. At the end, we hope funders will:

• – Have a foundational understanding of civic engagement philanthropy
• – Know if pursuing civic engagement philanthropy is right for them
• – Have resources at their fingertips to share with colleagues and explore further

To supplement this tool, we’ve developed three additional resources, illustrating key civic engagement concepts:

What is Civic Engagement? (pdf)

Approaches to Civic Engagement (pdf)

The Civic Engagement Spectrum (pdf)

If you have questions, feedback, or suggestions on how we can improve this resource, please email us at info@PACEfunders.org.