Giving Compass' Take:

• Yordanos Eyoel explains the opportunity presented by millennials to reinvigorate civic spirit as public trust in democracy falls. 

• How can funders engage with millennials to maximize this effects? 

• Learn more about building robust civil society dialogue. 

Like a body gasping for oxygen in the midst of a heart attack, so is the current American civil society gasping for the “public spirit” that enamored sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville in the 19th century and has sustained our democracy since. This decline has culminated in a lack of civic trust. Today, Americans have largely lost faith in the pillars of 20th-century democracy, with only 41 percent expressing trust in organized religion, 20 percent in the media, and 23 percent in organized labor. We are also less trusting of each other.

This crisis of civic trust, coupled with the rise of a new generation, presents a window of opportunity for American civil society to chart a new course. Our ability to reboot civil society depends on unlocking millennials’ civic leadership potential by gaining a deeper insight into their unique values and powerful ethos. Here are three such insights:

Millennials view the common good as the collective responsibility of all sectors—civil, private, and public. Both the 2017 and 2018 millennial surveys by Deloitte Consulting LLP concluded that young people believe business should prioritize not only the bottom line, but also employees, society, and the environment.

Millennials live at the nexus of personalization and community. They are socialized to operate through a loose connection of networks, which enable them to explore and tap into different dimensions of their interests and identity. This affects how they prefer to engage in civil society as well; they desire a personalized, individual journey, combined with access to a social network that cultivates community and a shared mission.

Millennials see social impact as self-expression. The belief that change happens through a series of daily decisions is perhaps the marker of this generation. While millennials have largely lost faith in institutions to drive change, they are finding ways to exercise their agency through purchasing decisions, entrepreneurship, protests, and social media campaigns that use tools such as online petitions.

Read the full article about civic spirit by Yordanos Eyoel at Stanford Social Innovation Review.