Announcing the Active Citizens|Active Communities Initiative

June 2, 2009 by NEOCL

Please join the Northeast Ohio Citizens League as we launch the first truly regional grassroots citizen organizing and engagement initiative - Active Citizens|Active Communities.

Civic Commons Meeting

Wednesday, November 24 2009
6:00pm – 7:30pm
Downtown Cleveland ( to be announced shortly)
To register for this event, please email info@neocitizensleague.org

What is Active Citizens|Active Communities?

Active Citizens|Active Communities is an initiative of the Northeast Ohio Citizens League focused on encouraging citizens and communities to organize and engage around issues that are important to them, and building a broad network of active citizens and active communities to effectively address our shared regional interests.

How can you participate?

Northeast Ohio Citizens League seeks active citizens to become Community Ambassadors and participate in our first series of sub-regional Civic Commons meetings. Our first set of Civic Commons meetings will be launched in June 2009 in Cuyahoga County, with other sub-regions to follow shortly.

Who are Community Ambassadors?

Community Ambassadors are folks interested in organizing small groups of Active Citizens into Active Communities. We’re starting small here – a group of 5-10 of your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, classmates, etc., is all it takes.

Active Communities meet regularly to explore the issues that are important to them, and create (and follow up on!) citizen action plans to make positive change around those issues.

Community Ambassadors also work to connect Active Communities to discussions of broader regional issues, with a goal of bringing more active citizens into the regional community decision-making process.

Community Ambassadors in a particular sub-region (i.e., Summit, Cuyahoga, Ashtabula, etc.) of Northeast Ohio connect at monthly Civic Commons meetings to:

• Learn and help further develop the AC|AC model,
• Share the issues that their local communities are dealing with,
• Discuss the actions that their communities are taking, and
• Explore the intersection between civic issues at the local and regional levels

They organize and host regular local Active Community Meetings, with a simple, flexible agenda designed to encourage discussion of local issues, as well as the development of action plans to help.

What is the Regional Civic Commons?

Think of your monthly Civic Commons meeting as your support group as a Community Ambassador. Here, Community Ambassadors from a sub-region of Northeast Ohio meet to discuss their local communities' progress, share ideas and tips for successful civic engagement, and explore ways in which each community's local needs fits into broader policy issues.

Documents for Community Ambassadors

• Active Community Pre-Meeting Worksheet
• Community Ambassador Worksheet

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