What Motivates Illinoisans to Become More Engaged?Illinois 2009 Civic Health IndexNovember 18, 2009
Although the people of Illinois appear to have low confidence in the civic tradition of their state and feel distrustful toward the state government given recent events, it does not mean they will continue to reduce their civic engagement. In fact, our findings suggest that many people in Illinois are willing to become more engaged given the right incentives, as well as support civics- oriented policies. Additionally, many still feel positively about the federal government. Illinoisans show strong support for policies that integrate service into the educational structure. Seventy-five percent of Illinoisans support a policy that would require all high school students to do community service, compared with 71 percent nationally; and 72 percent of Illinoisans support adding a requirement for students to pass a new civics or government test, a percentage slightly higher than the national average of 66 percent. Providing tuition assistance for service was also a particularly popular policy proposal, and earned the support of 89 percent of Illinoisans and 82 percent of all Americans. However, Illinoisans were less supportive than the general American public of promoting local control over education; fewer Illinoisans were in favor of changing the law so that local citizens must take the lead in setting standards and choosing tests for students in their local schools. It seems as though Illinoisans want to see a stronger civic education infrastructure, but are not as willing to take the lead in the process. A lack of resources or general reluctance to take a leadership role could be a cause of this. Illinoisans are less likely to support policies that increase funding to non-profit organizations, as they support both of these policy proposals at approximately the same rate as the general public. Overall, 38 percent of Illinois respondents said they were willing to volunteer more to help overcome this difficult time. We also asked respondents specifically about various types of incentives to understand what might motivate them to increase their civic engagement. Like national respondents, Illinois respondents were most positive about tax breaks, paid time-off for volunteering, and educational vouchers. Illinoisans were different from the general population in that they were more open to increasing engagement if there were an easy way to sign up to volunteer small amounts of time. In fact, this option was the fourth most popular option in Illinois and sixth most popular nationwide. As suggested above, this may mean Illinoisans are willing to give time for civic engagement if it does not involve major and regular time commitment. To engage more people, local community organizations may be able to recruit more volunteers by providing a hassle-free way to give time, by creating online volunteer registration for specific events, or by simply announcing opportunities where short-term volunteers are needed in various media such as radio, local newspapers, and community websites. Use of newer technology, such as social networking groups (for community volunteering) or online bulletin boards (such as Craigslist Volunteering), is increasingly popular, though not all citizens can be reached using the Internet. Illinois respondents showed higher than average levels of trust in the federal government with 65.8 percent of Illinoisans expressing the opinion the federal government will spend stimulus money responsibly, compared to 59.5 percent nationally. Further, 30.2 percent of Illinoisans said that they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right “Just about always” or “Most of the time.” Nationally, 25.6 percent said the same thing. The most striking thing about these numbers is that usually, people tend to trust their state government and federal government at similar levels, and if anything, place greater trust in state government. This is the case for the national data; Illinoisans showed a reversed pattern as they showed much greater level of trust in the federal government than Illinois government. If you like this kind of content, sign up for an NCoC.net account and we'll customize your homepage recommendations based on your interests..
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