Strengthening Kentucky’s Civil Society

By Peter Schirmer, Ryan Atkinson and Jeff Carroll

From Civil Society in Kentucky
pp. 29-35, published 1998

The results of the general population surveys suggest that Kentucky has a large stock of social capital. The numerous projects listed in Appendix: A Collection of Good Things Happening in Kentucky— projects that feed the homeless, educate children and adults, provide entertainment, protect the environment and do hundreds of other things—further make the case that civil society is alive and well in Kentucky. Yet few would disagree that Kentuckians would benefit from making civil society even stronger. This section examines ways to use leadership development training, government, and funding as points of leverage for strengthening Kentucky’s civil society.

Before we begin our discussion of policy options based on these three factors, we should note that one policy option is to do nothing at all. If civil society is, in fact, alive and well in Kentucky, then it might not need any help. If the most successful civic projects are ones that spontaneously grow from the desires and needs of individuals within a community, then perhaps there is little government or even the nonprofit sector should do to institutionalize programs or policies designed to strengthen civil society. Perhaps such programs would become more encumbrance than assistance. No doubt some people hold this view, and it does have some merit. Others, however, feel that the public and nonprofit sectors can and should play a more active role in civil society. For them, we offer the following policy options.

Leadership Development Training

Figure 1: Leadership Training and Household Income

Kentucky’s civil society would likely be enhanced if the state’s leadership development programs were to include more nontraditional leaders. As Figure 1 shows, people in the state who receive leadership training are not representative of the general population. This is not to say that the programs are purposely exclusive. But the considerable cost of some programs and their class schedule and structure might make it difficult for people with lower incomes and less flexible schedules to participate.

The Central Kentucky Community Leadership Program (CKCLP) is one example of a leadership training program that strives to include nontraditional leaders. The group of independent citizens and organizational representatives who helped start the CKCLP designed recruitment and application processes intended to "invite participation from persons of different walks of life, racial and ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic circumstances, ages and civic experiences." During the initial rounds of the participant selection process, only applicant responses to essay questions were considered. Applicant identity and background sociodemographic information were considered only in the final round to achieve diverse representation. The first class (1997-98) included nine blacks, eight whites, one Indian, and one Hispanic; their ages ranged from 15 to 69.

The CKCLP set out four goals for itself and its civic leaders:

These goals were incorporated into all aspects of the program and training. Consensus building and accepting different viewpoints were key elements of the leadership training. Members of the first class met locally almost once a week and attended two national conferences.

The CKCLP worked with participants to accommodate their varied needs and recognized at the outset that it had to be prepared to negotiate with employers and school administrators and to award stipends or reimbursements for child care, transportation and other necessities.

Clearly, the CKCLP has opened its program to a wide variety of candidates and attempts to meet their individual needs. This challenge was made easier by the fact that the CKCLP enjoys the financial support of The Pew Charitable Trusts, which is providing $40,000 for each of the first two years of the program. Many leadership programs, particularly smaller ones, no doubt lack the finances that the CKCLP has. They rely heavily upon local resources provided by other organizations and individuals. It may be easier to garner such support by emphasizing the benefits of leadership training discussed in this report and elsewhere.

Ewell Balltrip, executive director of the Kentucky Appalachian Commission, suggests that to attract more nontraditional leaders into the leadership pool (and thereby broaden the base of civil society), Kentucky needs a graduated system of leadership development and training—one that encourages upward mobility in the leadership structure. Such a system should provide opportunities to participate in civic activities that are consistent with people’s capacity and capabilities. Once people have achieved a degree of leadership proficiency at a particular level, they should be encouraged to move on to the next level of activity.

Broadening the base of community leadership deepens the pool of talent that local organizations can draw from. Cathy Curtis of Operation PRIDE in Bowling Green says her organization benefits tremendously by looking outside normal leadership circles for talent. Operation PRIDE, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and improving the city’s riverfront and surrounding greenbelts, draws extensively on the ideas and abilities of people Curtis characterizes as nontraditional leaders. "Nontraditional leaders," she says, "have nontraditional ideas." In fact, Curtis is a nontraditional leader herself. She began working for Operation PRIDE as a volunteer and today is the organization’s executive director.

Government

The CATO Institute’s Handbook for Congress (105th Congress edition) has 57 sections, with recommendations on everything from fighting terrorism to deregulating electricity. The authors deemed restoring civil society important enough to make it the topic of the first section following the introduction. Their recommendation to Congress is to "begin systematically to abolish or phase out those government programs that do what could be accomplished by voluntary associations in civil society, whether business enterprises, self-help groups, or charities, recognizing that accomplishment through free association is morally superior to coercive mandates and almost always generates more efficient outcomes."(1)

Others are more sanguine about government’s ability to strengthen civil society. Writes Harvard professor Theda Skocpol, "Contrary to the conservative view that federal social policies are harmful to voluntary groups, popularly rooted voluntary associations have often grown up in a mutually beneficial relationship with federal policies." She goes on to argue that government programs such as Social Security and the GI Bill aided the growth of national associations of the elderly and veterans, respectively. She portrays civil society as the "distinctively American social security state . . . hand in hand with locally and nationally vibrant voluntary civic activism."(2)

Scholars emphasize the importance of educating people and allowing them to make decisions. How can government do this? One indirect way is by supporting high school and college courses in philanthropic activities and organizations. A 1991 study published by Independent Sector, a national coalition of nonprofit and voluntary organizations, reported that colleges across the country have begun offering courses or inserting units in existing courses covering the topics of philanthropy and voluntarism. A survey of students, community members, faculty and college administrators found that students and community members were more likely to see the need for courses on philanthropy than college faculty or administrators. Twenty percent of college administrators said there was no need for such courses, compared with only 5 percent of students and 5 percent of community members.(3)

Such courses receive wide support. A survey conducted by the University of Kentucky Survey Research Center in the fall of 1997 found that 52 percent of Kentucky’s adults "strongly agree" that high school students should be required to participate in community service as part of their high school curriculum. Another 29 percent said they "somewhat agree." Less than 10 percent of parents with children under age 18 believe that high school students are being "very well prepared" or even "well prepared" in citizenship education.

Another way to encourage civic activism is to allow people to make choices about government services. For example, a comparison of parents in two similar, low-income New York school districts found "strong evidence" that participation in PTA membership and voluntary events at schools, communications with teachers, and trust of teachers were all higher in the district that allows parents to choose their children’s schools. The study was constructed in such a way to suggest a cause-and-effect relationship between school choice and other social capital measures, rather than a mere correlation. The authors’ conclusion: "School choice can help build social capital."(4) More generally, giving people choices encourages them to learn more about alternatives and to take more active roles for themselves and their communities.

The Aspen Institute’s Domestic Strategy Group sees the need for increased safety and aesthetically appealing neighborhoods as important to encouraging civic activity. City officials in Indianapolis, for example, work closely with neighborhoods to deal with nuisance properties, drug houses, deteriorating curbs and sidewalks, and traffic flow. The city commits about half of its budget and 60 percent of its work force to public safety.(5) The Aspen group also supports microenterprise lending, in which loans are made to people within a neighborhood and each borrower acts as coguarantor of the others’ loans. This technique can help foster very small businesses and has a fairly high repayment rate.(6) Government might also help community development corporations to set up such programs and work to eventually make them self-sufficient.

Some people have suggested that government must change policies that have negative consequences for civil society. Bruce Katz, director of the Brookings Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, criticizes federal and state policies that "continue to encourage exurban expansion—and with it the exodus of jobs and middle-class families from central cities and older suburbs." He specifically cites state spending on transportation, water, sewer and other infrastructure and state incentives for employers who locate to greenfields as contributing to urban sprawl and eroding community life within the cities.(7)

Social Capital Fund

Discussions of business formation in Kentucky frequently turn to the topic of a state venture capital fund, which could finance Kentucky’s business entrepreneurs. Similarly, officials from government and other organizations might consider a social capital fund, which could finance Kentucky’s civic projects. We found two possible models, one from Seattle, Washington, and the other from the Brushy Fork Institute in Berea, Kentucky. Seattle’s Neighborhood Matching Fund Program provides "over $1 million each year to Seattle neighborhood groups and organizations for a broad array of neighborhood-initiated improvement, organizing or planning projects." The Seattle program actually has five kinds of funds available:

For three years, the Brushy Fork Institute’s Teamwork for Tomorrow Program provided "mini-grants" of up to $2,000 to organizations within the Appalachian Regional Commission counties. Representatives from organizations attended a series of workshops to learn about proposal writing, tactical and strategic planning, and fundraising. They were taught how to write a mission statement, run meetings, and set agendas. Representatives from organizations that won mini-grants were invited back for more intensive, three-day workshops that focused on proposal writing and planning. Recipient organizations were required to have a bank account and an employer identification number so the deposits would be in the organization’s name. Perhaps most important, the mini-grants had to be matched by funds raised within the communities. In 1997, the last year in which the Teamwork for Tomorrow Program was in existence, 24 organizations received a total of $25,000. A sample of the organizations and their monetary awards appears in Table 1. Although the amounts listed below are small, they are not insignificant. Recall that approximately one in four civic projects has an annual budget of $1,000 or less, and many have no budget at all.

Table 1: Brushy Fork Institute's Teamwork for Tomorrow Program, Mini-grant Ricipients

"A Power Seen from Afar"

"Civil society" and "social capital" are prominent in recent public discourse. They are terms every politician has learned how to use and are the subject of numerous studies, opinion pieces and news stories. Yet the politicians, journalists, academicians and everyday citizens who talk about civil society have not discovered a new phenomenon; they have dusted off a precious antique, one that dates to the very beginnings of our nation, and one that stands as an example to the rest of the world. As Tocqueville wrote 150 years ago,

As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have taken up an opinion or a feeling which they wish to promote in the world, they look out for mutual assistance; and as soon as they have found one another out, they combine. From that moment they are no longer isolated men, but a power seen from afar, whose actions serve for an example and whose language is listened to.(9)

We have demonstrated in this report that the concept of civil society may be old, but it is by no means archaic. Indeed, it is flourishing in Kentucky and is a vital part of our communities. It builds strong bonds between friends, neighbors, families and the formal and informal groups that bring them together. By broadening leadership opportunities, by seeking novel ways for private and public institutions to contribute to civil society, and by continuing to focus public attention on civil society, we can help people to find the mutual assistance Tocqueville described so many years ago. Then our communities will become powers seen from afar, our actions will serve for an example, and our language will be listened to.

  Back to Factors Affecting Civil Society

  Ahead to Appendix: A Collection of Good Things Happening in Kentucky

Footnotes

  1. CATO Institute, Handbook for Congress, 105th Congress (Washington, DC: Author, 1997) Available online: http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/handbook105.html, accessed 9/10/1998. Return to text.
  2. Theda Skocpol, "America’s Voluntary Groups Thrive in a National Network," Brookings Review 15 (1997): 16-19. Return to text.
  3. Crowder, N. L.,  and Hodgkinson, V. A. , "An Overview of Teaching About Philanthropy, Volunteerism and the Nonprofit Sector: Responses from Faculty," Compendium of Resources for Teaching About the Nonprofit Sector, Voluntarism and Philanthropy, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Independent Sector, 1991). Return to text.
  4. Schneider, M., et al., "Institutional Arrangements and the Creation of Social Capital: The Effects of Public School Choice," American Political Science Review 91: 82-93. Return to text.
  5. Aspen Institute Domestic Strategy Group, Beyond Bureaucracy: New Roles for Government, Civil Society and the Private Sector, Report of the Domestic Strategy Group meeting, August 17-21, 1996 (Aspen, CO: The Aspen Institute, 1996): 23-25. Return to text.
  6. Aspen Institute Domestic Strategy Group 25-26. Return to text.
  7. Katz, B., "Give Community Institutions a Fighting Chance," Brookings Review 15 (1997): 32-35. Return to text.
  8. City of Seattle, Dept. of Neighborhoods. Available online: http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/don/basic.htm, accessed 9/10/1998. Return to text.
  9. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in America, Volume II, Part A. Return to text.