City Club Partnership

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Sustainable Seattle has partnered with City Club and Communities Count to promote community action towards our B-Sustainable program goal of Participatory Decision-Making and Civic Engagement.

Our Action Agenda Coordinator worked with City club to compile existing information about our civic engagement- from involvement in community organizations and voting and volunteering rates to participation on arts and culture. Now, City Club is using that information to promote action.

Opening with United Way’s Day of Caring on September 12th and ending on Election Day on November 4th CityClub’s Community Matters Campaign will focus on building our social capital and moving citizens from talk to action, because community matters.

Visit www.seattlecityclub.org to join the campaign and help increase our community level of civic engagement. Sustainable Seattle is hosting a dialogue for the tenants of the Vance Building! Thursday, October 23 from 11:30am - 1:00pm.

Program elements will include:

• Education - In-depth, non-partisan information and opinion offered by experts, community leaders and policymakers. Presented as 7 live public forums and candidate debates on health care, environmental stewardship, public education and imminent elections and ballot initiatives. Each session will be presented to a live public audience. It will also be broadcast multiple times on cable television (Seattle Channel and TVW) and available for streaming and as podcasts.


• Community Dialogue – New this year, CityClub will host up to 50 facilitated community conversations asking citizens to weigh in on the ways they are currently engaged in the community and the barriers and opportunities they see to strengthening that engagement. Participants will also be asked what elected and civic leaders can do to support deeper citizen engagement.


• Action – All Community Matters Campaign participants will be charged to take action to deepen their civic engagement. A web-based “civic action toolbox” will be available as a resource and all dialogue and forum participants will be asked to sign individual pledge cards listing specific investments they intend to make. CityClub will record these civic commitments and mail back copies of the pledge cards to remind participants of their commitments. Additionally, dialogue and online participants will identify strategies we should take to strengthen our social capital. At the end of the Campaign, micro-grants will be awarded to community organizations addressing these identified needs.


• Community Report – The Community Matters Campaign will conclude with a report to the community—policymakers, press, and the public—summarizing what we learn from participating individuals and organizations over the program’s duration.