2023/2024 Citizen Connect Overview and Priorities

Mission:

Get millions of Americans right, left and center participating in efforts to address political polarization and gridlock by making it dramatically easier for them to find and act on nonpartisan civic engagement opportunities.

Approach:

We host an online platform that puts hundreds of organizations working to heal divisions and fix our political system in one place, thereby providing a single “front door” to America’s civic renewal movement. Citizen Connect dramatically streamlines the process by which citizens find, learn about, support and join these important initiatives. There is an incredibly innovative, diverse and welcoming group of Americans already taking on these challenges, but they need more mainstream citizens leaning in to successfully change our toxic political dynamic. We also make our database and search capabilities available to strategic partners and the media to ensure we reach the broadest possible audience.

Where We Stand Now:

Citizen Connect has made enormous strides since it launched in 2021. By coordinating our first release with the landmark America Talks/National Week of Conversation initiative, we were able to sign up hundreds of organizations, display hundreds of events and host thousands of users right out of the gate. Since then, we have substantially upgraded our search and navigation capabilities based on user feedback and usability testing. We have also implemented a social media program that leverages the aggregate reach of our members – totaling approximately 4 million Americans. In addition, we’ve seamlessly integrated our civic engagement database into third party media platforms so that events and content – immediate opportunities for positive action – appear right next to relevant news stories. Citizen Connect currently has over 550 active member organizations led by Republicans, Democrats and Independents dedicated to prioritizing our nation’s strength, competitiveness, and security above partisan warfare. These organizations, their content and the events they host span the full range of civic renewal priorities from electoral reform to civic education to interpersonal bridging to public policy.

What’s Next:

We’re off to a strong start but recognize the urgent need to build on that momentum. Below are our plans for 2023:

1. Enrich Our Member Community. We have an excellent group of civic renewal organizations in place but will continue to make our community richer and more diverse. This effort will include proactive outreach to organizations led by conservatives, persons of color and residents of rural communities. We are also pursuing additional members from the faith-based community, think tanks, universities and foundations.

2. Audience Development. Realizing our mission necessitates building a large and engaged audience of mainstream Americans who reflect this nation as a whole. Reaching this audience is inherently a multi-faceted effort that will leverage all the approaches outlined below:

   a. Communications and PR – We are honored to be working with Nevins and Associates on this aspect of our audience development strategy. They have an amazing track record and a deep set of relationships in the media space. For example, we are currently exploring partnerships with the Ad Council and Public Relations Society of America to develop large scale promotional programs. We have a comprehensive plan in place that we’d love to walk through with any interested party.

   b. Social Media – This is a cornerstone of any effort to reach scale and we’re blessed to have extremely experienced and talented people assisting us. In addition to Nevins and Associates, we’re drawing on world class expertise from the social media team behind the Aspen Institute’s #WeavingCommunity and America Talks, industry leader RebelMouse and the formidable in-house capabilities at the Bridge Alliance that run the largest social media player in the entire civic renewal space (Coffee Party USA). Pairing the depth and breadth of the Citizen Connect database with micro-targeted audience development presents an amazing opportunity to reach and engage Americans at scale. We have already completed four research programs to finetune our messaging and maximize user engagement across the political spectrum. These insights will guide our next phase of paid, earned and owned social media initiatives. This will include an innovative program for Citizen Connect members to systematically amplify each other across social media platforms and the development of compelling proprietary content including livestreaming.

   c. Events – We successfully launched Citizen Connect by supporting a major national event (America Talks/National Week of Conversation) and see that approach being part of our engagement model going forward. By combining customized landing pages with the ability to host and filter Citizen Connect content on their own online platforms, we give national event hosts the tools they need to maximize reach without having to reinvent the wheel. In addition to supporting 2023 America Talks and National Week of Conversation we have also established a partnership with the National Day of Dialogue. There are a number of other large-scale events in the planning stage for which Citizen Connect is committed to playing an important role in engaging literally millions of Americans. One example is the Democracy Roadshow that is planning to tap into the passionate fanbase of established musicians and host concerts to bring attention to the civic renewal movement.

3. News Integration Strategy. This capability is the cornerstone of Citizen Connect’s database syndication initiative. We’re very confident that our audience development efforts above will gain traction through a combination of earned, owned and paid social media - plus support for signature events. However, we see these initiatives as necessary but not sufficient to reach our ambitious 2023-24 growth goals. That’s why news integration and the strategic media partners we’re working with to bring it to life are so critical. The crux of this initiative is matching our member’s events and civic resources with relevant news content on third party sites. This will allow citizens to sign up for events, access on demand content and utilize tools that are directly related to what they are reading about or viewing in real time. The core business model for all online market leaders is based on putting contextually relevant content at a user’s fingertips - and this is a powerful way to get the civic renewal community in on the action. We’ve already launched this program with two leaders in the field. AllSides and The Fulcrum. Together they reach millions of Americans every month - many of whom have a demonstrated interest in finding common ground and working across differences. We intend to add several large, mainstream media partners before the end of 2023 which will dramatically expand the reach and impact of this program.

4. Longer Term Vision: Over the next 12-24 months we intend to:

   a. Solidify Citizen Connect’s role as the universally recognized “front door” for all Americans seeking to explore the dynamic, innovative and welcoming civic renewal movement.

   b. Become an invaluable partner to our member organizations in their efforts to engage mainstream citizens as supporters, donors and volunteers.

   c. Build a network of corporate sponsors as both a sustainable funding source and a means to reach their employees and customers.

   d. Significantly advance knowledge about what it takes to get mainstream Americans excited about and participating in civic renewal work. Citizen Connect offers an unprecedented opportunity to test and evaluate messaging and engagement techniques across the entire movement. The best practices that will inevitably emerge will be shared with our entire community and should play a major role in bringing citizen engagement to critical mass.

   e. Continue to enrich the user experience on Citizen Connect. This will include pursuing personalization capabilities to ensure that Americans visiting our site are systematically offered content and engagement opportunities that are aligned with their personal interests and priorities.

What We Need In 2023 To Scale Up:

We have a great core team, a strong membership network, a scalable technology platform, and world class audience development expertise. What we need now is the funding necessary to make Citizen Connect fully ready to scale. For 2023 we will be focused on three things: increasing our mainstream citizen audience, refining engagement best practices and securing additional media partners for the news integration program. Fully realizing these goals will require an incremental $500k above and beyond our current 2023 operating budget. $250k will be invested in audience development, $150k in user engagement enhancements including personalization and $100k in expanding the news integration program.

What We Need For 2024 To Maximize Traction:

Going into 2024 we will have a strong and resilient platform capable of dramatically increasing its reach and impact. In order to reach literally tens of millions of Americans and get millions of them to act we will require $2.0 million in incremental funding. This will include $700k for core operations, $600k for paid promotion, $300k for systems development, $200k for news integration and $200k for content development. With that level of investment, we plan to reach 70 million Americans and have approximately 3 million engage with Citizen Connect and its member organizations. We don’t think there is a better philanthropic opportunity for individuals and institutions committed to addressing U.S. polarization and political dysfunction. Please contact us today to learn more about how you can join in and make a profound difference.

Link to Plan Document