Pete Peterson wrote a solid piece about Front Porch Forum for Personal Democracy Forum… published today. Please check it out and leave a comment there. Thanks Pete and Micah!
Civic engagement is all the rage. I addressed three different state-wide gatherings about the topic in the past week alone! Front Porch Forum is a long-term civic engagement catalyst and accelerator.
The concept goes by many names (see “public engagement” below), but mark my words, this will be THE NEXT BIG THING for nonprofits, academics, government agencies, etc… even pushing into the private sector.
The spark that started this wildfire came from President Obama’s campaign and his ongoing call to public service. Here’s a posting from
The old White House Office of Public Liaison (OPL) has been renamed the Office of Public Engagement (OPE) with some new responsibilities. Calling itself the “front door of the White House”, the official press release noted that the “OPE will help build relationships with Americans by increasing their meaningful engagement with the federal government.”
Most all of the OPL staff will remain in place for the new OPE, including its director, long-time Obama friend, Valerie Jarrett. The White House will be using both online and “offline” – face-to-face – fora to both gain input from Americans and communicate Administration policies.
Glad to see another of our society’s megaphone holders catching on to the importance of local. Douglas Rushkoff‘s new book, Life, Inc., apparently gives corporatism the once over and realizes that we’re in kinda deep. Okay.
Further, he prescribes turning real and local as a solution. Here’s a quote from Scott Heiferman‘s review…
84. instead of reconnecting people to their local communities, to one another, or to the value that tey might be able to create for one another, many well-meaning efforts against corp power conect people to abstract ideals and highly centralized organizations… disconnects us further from the truly bottom-up networks through which we can restore human-scaled activity
This is the power of Front Porch Forum. Where it’s working well, it’s catalyzing real, decentralized, non-corporate connections among neighbors who are organizing block parties and knitting clubs, political rallies and casserole brigades for people in need. And for many people, this action is better than what’s served by Comcast, or Facebook, or the WalMart.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more