NCoC (the National Conference on Citizenship) is excited to announce a 2012 partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation building upon our shared missions of developing communities that are informed, connected, and engaged.

NCoC is honored to work with Knight Foundation to explore the connections between community attachment, civic engagement, and economic prosperity. This partnership will expand existing research initiatives conducted by the two organizations. Knight Foundation, in partnership with Gallup, produced the Soul of the Community Project which explored what drives an individual’s “attachment” to their community. They found that key drivers such as social offerings, aesthetics, and openness yield more attached communities, which are in turn more prosperous economically. In 2011, NCoC and partners produced a Civic Health and Unemployment issue brief, which offered preliminary findings on the connections between civic engagement and economic resilience. This year, we hope to align this work to further explore the connections in these two research projects. Our joint goal is to demonstrate why community attachment and engagement are critical to economic prosperity.

Throughout this year, NCoC will work with Knight Foundation to:

• Produce a comprehensive literature review of information on this topic.

• Analyze the connections between the Soul of the Community data and our own civic health indicators—exploring how community attachment, engagement and economic vitality are interwoven.

• Explore the reasons why these connections exist. In 2011, we presented a number of hypotheses for why civic and economic vitality are connected— we will dig deeper with these hypotheses and engage in dialogue about these possible explanations.

• Convene our Civic Indicators Working Group, Knight’s SOTC team, and our local civic health partners to advance dialogue on how and why community attachment and engagement affect a range of economic outcomes.

• Conduct an online Civic Data Challenge that allows designers, developers, and others to create innovative and compelling ways to visualize the research and its connection to social outcomes. It will launch in April.

NCoC is excited to work with our partners at the Knight Foundation to explore the importance of attachment and engagement to creating thriving communities. Throughout the year, we will summarize what we're hearing and learning and share it with you here at NCoC.net. We encourage you to contribute your own thoughts and perspectives to the conversation, engage in our online Civic Data Challenge, and join us for the 67th Annual National Conference on Citizenship in Philadelphia on September 14, 2012.