NYC Civic Coalition

Building a Youth Civic Ecosystem in NYC

Our country is in the midst of significant civic distrust and unrest, which necessitates the activation of a new generation of young people to become civically involved. Providing meaningful on-ramps for positive and ongoing civic engagement, particularly for historically disenfranchised youth and vulnerable populations, is vital now more than ever.

New York City and State have taken steps to support stronger civic participation among young people in recent years through:

  • Voter pre-registration for 16 and 17-year-olds
  • Creation of a Seal of Civic Readiness for high school graduates recognizing proficiency in civic knowledge and experience with civic participation
  • A Civics for All initiative by NYCDOE that helps participating schools integrate civics into their curricula and extracurricular activities 

Despite these promising developments, civic participation among young New Yorkers is still low. 

While recent changes at the state and city levels could enable more youth civic participation, progress will continue to be limited without a strategic effort by an integrated body of civic organizations. The time is right to build a much-needed civic ecosystem in New York that instills young people with strong civic identity, agency, and efficacy. 

To this end, YVote is joining civic organizations in an effort spearheaded by Do Something to create a coalition and hub honoring civic opportunities both in and beyond NYC schools.

The Civic Engagement and Participation Coalition

To develop an integrated vision and plan for the critical civic ecosystem, we have brought together leaders of key civic nonprofits in the city, such as the Citizens Committee for Children, CUNY’s Intergenerational Change Initiative, Generation Citizen, Mikva Challenge, and NYCLU’s Teen Activist Project, key members of youth-focused city government agencies such as the NYC Department of Education, the Department of Youth & Community Development’s, Mayor’s Office, NYC Votes, and the Civic Engagement Commission, researchers and evaluators, and funders to form  a Civic Engagement and Participation Coalition.

A steering committee is refining and leading different facets of the Coalition’s work. They recently conducted a landscape analysis and are now developing the digital Hub. This group is considering how public and private funding can strengthen civic opportunities for young New Yorkers, with an emphasis on underserved communities. 

The Youth Civic Hub

In NYC, we are fortunate to benefit from an abundance of civic resources. But we lack an infrastructure that makes civic opportunities known and navigable for young people, their families, and their schools and teachers in a systematic way.  As such, many young people have very limited, if any, civic opportunities, which runs the risk of resulting in a generation of civically isolated young people. 

A key pillar of the Coalition’s work is to develop the connective tissue needed for a strong civic ecosystem in NYC, which includes making current civic opportunities, resources, events, and organizations known and navigable to the city’s youth. That is why we are developing the Youth Civic Hub—a digital clearinghouse to connect youth with the civic opportunities they are looking for and develop a generation of civic leaders and change makers.

Thanks to the hard work of our Youth Civic Hub Working Group—consisting of NYC youth, YVote staff, and web developers—we’ve concluded our ideation and research around the Hub and are moving towards initial development and user testing. 

You can read about our vision, goals, and timeline for the hub in these slides and on the Youth Civic Hub webpage.

For more information, contact Sanda Balaban at [email protected]