By Justin Kiczek

President

A few weeks ago, I was invited by the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers to speak at their spring conference on the topic of “Philanthropy and Civic Engagement.” I was joining five other speakers in a kickoff “Spark” session, in which each of us would, using a short speech, “ignite” ideas on the conference theme. Faced with the challenge to ignite an idea in less than five minutes, I naturally thought nothing gets people fired up like … etymology.

You see, I have always found something clarifying about a word’s origin. As a former English teacher, I love learning about how a word came to be and how it evolved across time, gathering meanings and usages like barnacles on an old ship. But I also often find that investigating a word’s roots can return us to an essence that can fade as a word travels through centuries and across continents.

And so since the conference was entitled “Philanthropy & Civic Engagement,” I offered a little trip down Merriam-Webster Lane by focusing on these three words.

I started with philanthropy. Depending on who you are talking to, this word today may conjure positive feelings of a force for good or may make one think of an opaque, bow-tied clique of out-of-touch elites. But, again, getting back to first principles, I always find it clarifying to recall that philanthropy comes to us from the Greek, meaning “love for humanity.”

Then, I moved on to civic. While today we associate the word with voting and democracy and citizenship, the root of the word itself has much more humble origins: a town, city.

And finally, I turned to engagement, a word that, depending on context, might mean an accepted marriage proposal, a social event, or clicks on a LinkedIn post. The word can have a host of meanings today, but its origin is quite simple and beautiful: to pledge

In other words, all together, I proposed that what we were talking, across the day at the conference, was a loving pledge for people and places. And what I wanted to make sure I emphasized was that this pledge was for real people and real places.

I mention that because, as I reflected on it, I realized that the pledge and promise of the internet age and social media was that these technologies were going to allow us to engage with people all across the world. We would all become digital citizens, freed from the constraints of place and borders. And while it’s true these technologies ushered in a host of opportunities for human beings to connect, too often, these technologies also perverted love for humankind — in other words, philanthropy — into resentment and fear and anger. There was certainly engagement, but it was more often with algorithms than neighbors. Throughout the last decades, these technologies led us to break our pledges to the people and places right in front of us.

But I sense something is turning. From all corners, and throughout the conference, there has been talk about civics, about civic learning, about civic engagement, about civil discourse, and civic renewal, about civic information. And my spark here is that what we talk about when we talk about civics — in its most essential form — is place.

I see this in the emerging CivicsNJ effort, which is building a coalition of nonprofits, educators, and philanthropists interested in advancing civic learning and engagement for New Jersey youth.

I see this in the work of the Braver Angels, which is seeking to create a nationwide movement of depolarization by focusing on community-led conversations.

I see this in the work of the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, which is helping college presidents create spaces for civil discourse in the local community that is a college.

I see this in the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, which is fostering a local news ecosystem that can connect people more deeply to the places they care about.

The common thread connecting all of these movements is a return to our local communities as places worthy of our strongest pledges. I sense a movement in which we are seeking to return to what is in front of us, to come home.

Simply put, the spark I was trying to ignite was this: that the answers to our biggest questions begin in our own backyards.

Now, I am not pollyannish about our very complex and significant challenges. Nor am I saying we shouldn’t care about democracy writ large. But I do believe if we care about democracy writ large, the civic muscles of a healthy society, and a healthy democracy, are built locally in the thousands of interactions and small decisions and neighborly compromises and sidewalk encounters that are a part of living in a place.

So, if you care about civic engagement, my call to you is this: invest in the infrastructure of civic life — not just the systems, but the spaces. The actual places where strangers become neighbors, where people who don’t usually interact can share space, build trust, and develop a relational sense of responsibility to something larger than themselves. I am talking about libraries and parks, community gardens and art spaces, YMCAs and pools, houses of worship and community centers.

Therefore, I am proud of the F. M. Kirby Foundation’s recent investments in projects like  Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham, NC, a tremendous free resource of beauty and connection for the people of Durham. Here in Morristown, Grow It Green brings together people across neighborhoods and income levels with their community garden and urban farm. In the small village of Salisbury, NY, the Kirby Free Library serves as hub of information and resource for this rural population. And in Easton, PA, the Greater Easton Development Partnership uses community events and gatherings to build stronger bonds between neighbors and help foster a sense of place and belonging.

We choose to invest in these places not because they are the halls of power or where we vote or where policy is made — but because these are the sites where we make quiet pledges to one another. Where we show up. Where we practice being a community, so we can become a nation.