For years, the header atop the NCoC website read, “Promoting Civic Participation and Civil Dialogue.” The mission of our 65-year-old institution has always been to promote active citizenship, and we have often built atop that foundation to focus on specific strategies from time to time. In our current venture to define modern citizenship, we have noticed that promoting civil dialogue is critical and much more necessary now than it was 65 years ago.

Civility is necessary from the top-down and the bottom-up. Civility is the critical ingredient to the underlying fabric of our society. Without civility, we will ultimately disappoint our founding fathers and prove Benjamin Franklin right by losing our Republic.

Two weeks ago, my colleague Karlo Marcelo wrote a great discussion entitled, “A New Political Culture?” This piece highlighted the recent launch of No Labels and questioned if this movement was changing the culture of our politics and providing voice for the millions of centrists who desire a medium for good ideas to be discussed appropriately and effectively turned into law. He talked about how No Labels is aiming to change this culture from the bottom-up – starting with MeetUps in all 435 Congressional districts, in all 50 states, and on hundreds of college campuses around the nation. This movement is one that NCoC will watch closely and see how we can best collaborate to build a more active citizenry and a more civil public dialogue.

I’d like to focus on an element Karlo referenced briefly—the top-down strategy to promote civility. From electoral reforms, such as open primaries and redistricting reform, to providing opportunities for elected officials to connect personally and get to know each other, there is dire need for the leaders of our country to walk the walk and promote civility by being living examples.

The Democracy Project, an effort to do just this, was recently launched by the Bipartisan Policy Center. I am honored to serve on the Advisory Committee of this effort along with our co-chairs former Secretaries Dan Glickman and Dirk Kempthorne, and AOL co-founder Steve Case.

As listed on BPC’s website, “The Democracy Project will initially focus on two issue areas ripe for reform: strengthening civil discourse in government, and Congressional redistricting. The Democracy Project recognizes the importance of partisanship and debate in creating sound public policy. Many of the nation’s greatest legislative achievements have resulted from principled compromises by Democrats and Republicans. While improving the way Washington functions may not occur overnight, small investments in procedural reforms and infrastructure changes will pay grand dividends for the American people.”

One of the first projects the Democracy Project is taking on is trying to rebuild relationships between Members of Congress, beginning with a reception welcoming families of new Members to get to know each other during the first week of the new Congress and continuing through proposed rule changes that encourage Members to spend more time together during legislative sessions. These simple shifts in behavior will help build rapport between Members.

In a similar way that our 2010 Civic Health Assessment shows the ironic loneliness of cities through the lack of urbanites knowing their neighbors or exchanging favors with them, current Congressional rules allow Members to never really get to know each other our build personal bonds. As replicated in communities around the nation, this lack of social capital results in a disconnected, less effective, and less engaged citizenry. Appealing to the humanity of elected officials, the Democracy Project’s strategy is meant to reduce hyper-polarization by ensuring Members build social capital amongst each other in a hope that this will yield civility in the chambers and beyond.

Through efforts like The Democracy Project, NCoC encourages leaders of our Republic to serve as examples of civil servants. Perhaps this leadership will be welcomed, rewarded, and imitated by the rest of our citizenry.