FAR MORE THAN A SPEAKER SERIES!

Listening and learning matter—but they are only a beginning. At each gathering, we reflect together on how new insights might translate into action. Neighbors for Democracy thus functions as an incubator of ideas, offering encouragement and support as participants take concrete steps to improve their neighborhoods, communities, and our country. 

Our speakers come not only as experts, but as citizens who share their own feelings of confusion, discouragement, as well as resolve. They highlight what is at stake for ordinary people, as well as for institutions by sharing personal stories that illustrate why these issues matter to us. Our aim is to reduce the costs of personal disengagement and to help instill the feeling of the possibility of agency, for constructive action in attendees and members of our communities. 

We meet monthly in a local setting that is set up to support good communication and connections between attendees. Beyond offering entertaining moments and brilliant insights, we recognize that citizenship asks something of people that resonates with their deepest personal experiences, their sense of moral authority. Our mission is to create conditions where people remember that they are not alone in answering this call.

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Paraphrasing Frederick Douglass, it’s easier to build strong neighborhoods than to repair a broken country.

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