Each September, the government community celebrates Civic Awareness Month.  This month celebrates the engagement of citizens within our communities, understanding that governments that serve engaged citizens end up better over time.  In the spirit of civic awareness, I wanted to share some articles with you that relate to the benefits of engaged citizens:

• Read ”Students Together Achieving Revitalization” to learn about San Antonio’s successes with engaged citizens.
• The Alliance for Innovation’s white paper, “Connected Communities: Local Governments as a Partner in Citizen Engagement and Community Building,” offers steps that local governments can take to achieve a higher level of citizen engagement.
• You can read about the importance of engaged citizens, as the topic was laid out in the “Big Ideas Conference” sponsored by the Alliance for Innovation, in “Citizen Engagement: An Outgrowth of Civic Awareness”.
• In the article “Citizen Education Initiatives”, learn about other resources across the Knowledge Network that can help you structure your citizen education program.
• Learn about the implementation of a citizen engagement plan in the city of Montgomery, Ohio in “Citizen Engagement: The Art of Welcoming, Inviting, Cultivating and Connecting Your Residents”.

More documents, questions, articles, and blog posts about civic awareness issues can be found in the citizen engagement, community relations, citizen academies, citizen education and volunteer topic pages.

I hope you all have a happy and engaging Civic Awareness Month,

Aloha,

James Davidson

ICMA's Knowledge Network Intern

jdavidson@icma.org