Since 2006, the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC), in partnership with the Civic Indicators Working Group, has published annual reports called America’s Civic Health Index. This series of reports has informed Americans about leading indicators of our nation’s civic health and has motivated citizens, leaders and policymakers to strengthen the foundations of civic engagement. America’s Civic Health Index has become the leading gauge of how well Americans are connecting to each other and their communities, and measures rates of volunteering, voting, connections to civic and religious organizations, trust in other Americans and key institutions, and other civic behavior and attitudes.

America’s Civic Health Index received a new level of recognition through its inclusion in the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which was signed into law in May 2009. The Act formalized a partnership between NCoC, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Corporation for National and Community Service to develop, refine, and implement an annual civic health assessment.

Civic health and social capital have well-established connections to issues such as disaster resilience, crime, education, public health, and American democracy. For example, students who volunteer in their communities are also engaged and successful in school; retirees who volunteer are healthier and happier; and cities with higher levels of civic engagement have better schools and other public institutions.1

The 2009 America’s Civic Health Index is based on a nationally representative survey of 1,518 Americans and additional oversamples of 2,371 respondents in six states, conducted in May 2009. That survey and this report have two major purposes.

Our first goal is to take the pulse of American civil society at a moment of great political change and economic turmoil. Political activity reached historic levels during the 2008 presidential election, but such momentum is often difficult to sustain.

Meanwhile, our nation and the world have been experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. This crisis might be expected to have two effects. It could encourage Americans to work together on serious problems in their communities and nation. It could also prevent Americans from participating in civil society if they feel they must turn inward and look after their own families, or if the infrastructure that recruits and supports volunteers and other active citizens shrinks because of financial cuts.

The best way to follow trends in civic participation (other than voting and election work) will be to consult the federal government’s annual survey of volunteering, group membership, and local community engagement.2 Federal data for 2009 will become available in 2010. Meanwhile, in NCoC’s Civic Health Index survey, we asked respondents directly whether they had expanded or reduced their own civic engagement, and whether they felt their communities were responding by serving more or cutting back. These were opinion questions, not objective measures of public behavior. Still, the results were unequivocal— most Americans said they are reducing engagement and turning inward under the stress of the economic crisis.

Our second goal is to develop and test new measures of civic engagement that broaden our understanding of the term and more accurately capture the full range of participation. Our 2007 report explored “citizen-centered”3 work and also asked a detailed battery of questions about online civic engagement. Those two sets of questions have allowed us to better define modern citizenship, and some of the most meaningful items from 2007 and 2008 have been retained in the 2009 America’s Civic Health Index.

This year’s survey adds a new dimension, by investigating more personal forms of civic engagement that are especially salient at moments of economic contraction, such as giving people food or shelter in their own homes. The 2009 America’s Civic Health Index found such forms of engagement especially common among America’s least advantaged citizens.