Throughout December, we are highlighting each of the organizations featured in our Jersey Give-Back Guide, an online portal for year-end giving that makes it easy to donate to some of New Jersey’s most effective nonprofits. Today we feature The Citizens Campaign.
Organization name: The Citizens Campaign
Connect: Website | @CitizenCampaign | Facebook
Communities served: New Jersey Citizens
Founded: 1997
Get Generous: Make a Year-End Gift
WHAT WE DO: Most of us see the problems in our communities and want to make things better but we’re not mayors, legislators or politicians and we don’t always know how to get things done. That’s where The Citizens Campaign comes in. We train people to become leaders in their community and work with their fellow citizens to find solutions that benefit their communities. Many individuals have been successful in getting laws passed because they’ve learned how to develop these laws and present them to the governing body of their towns.
We offer a broad menu of tools and trainings free of charge to citizens who want to work on solutions that are beneficial to the community as a whole, evidence-based, cost effective and implemented with our signature no-blame strategy.
The Citizens Campaign’s “Power Platform” includes:
- An Advanced Citizen Leadership Training Program
- A Robust Menu of Evidence-Based Solutions
- Advanced Citizen Journalism Training
- The Citizens Manual
- Expert Coaches in Policy & Politics
- A Legal Task Force
- A High School Leadership Civics Curriculum
- Access to our Community of Civic Innovators
Our work with New Jersey citizens provides a cure for our leadership deficit, raises the quality of our public dialogue, and sets a new standard for public service.
WHY WE’RE GREAT: The Citizens Campaign has educated and mentored thousands of people to take local leadership positions as Appointed Office holders, Political Party leaders, Citizen Journalists and Citizen Legislators; and helped pass more than 300 local ordinances and several major statewide laws. Equally importantly, our Community of Civic Innovators continue to pay it forward by recruiting and training the next generation of community leaders.
Working together, we are changing the game and becoming the alternative to dysfunctional politics.
HOW YOUR DONATION WILL HELP: You can help us empower a new generation of New Jersey civic leaders. Please support The Citizens Campaign and you, too, can learn to become a citizen legislator, journalist or innovator in your hometown and make all of New Jersey a better place to live.
ADDITIONAL NEEDS:
Experts in Law and Policy: The Citizens Campaign’s Expert Coaches in Policy & Politics support citizen leaders in getting results using our no-blame political strategies via adoption of ordinances, resolutions, and policies by governing bodies and school boards that have tremendous impact on economic, educational, and environmental bottom lines. We are currently looking for individuals with expertise in the following areas: arts, economic development, public safety, education and environmental policy who are willing to commit to helping citizen leaders in our cities of focus: Trenton, Perth Amboy, Jersey City and Newark.
Journalism Coaches: We are building a network of citizen journalists who are telling the stories of citizen empowerment and civic innovation in their communities. We are seeking current and retired journalists to serve as coaches for our City Storytellers.
MORE ON THE CITIZENS CAMPAIGN:
— Amanda Kathryn Roman
GO TO THE JERSEY GIVE BACK GUIDE NOW.
The Dodge Foundation is offering $1,000 challenge grants to each of the organizations featured in the Jersey Give-Back Guide. To be eligible, each organization must receive at least 50 donations through the Guide by December 31st. Help them reach their goal and get that extra $1,000!