About our work

We get questions all the time about what we do, why we do it, and what our goals are. We’ve tried to break it down into a few easy to understand paragraphs.

What is the need CivicLex is trying to address?

 

Alarming studies over the past decade or so show that our civic society is fracturing. Trust in our institutions and each other is decreasing at rapid levels and we are segregating ourselves into ideologically divergent groups. According to the Kentucky Civic Health Index, less than 15% of Kentuckians have ever talked with their elected representatives in their lives, and only 7% of Kentuckians have ever worked with their neighbors to solve a common problem.

CivicLex first started around an expressed and significant need for information about issues that are impacting Lexington, and education about how local government works. We work to fill that need by providing a centralized location for understandable, accessible information about what is happening in our community, and how to get involved. But we are increasingly focusing on relational development, bringing together residents and government officials to learn about and reimagine how our city functions.

What are the needs that CivicLex is trying to address?

 

We have a single goal in our work: building a Lexington in which all residents are able to meaningfully participate in the decisions that shape where they live. 

For us, this means building an open and collaborative dialogue between residents and their representatives, and ensuring that communities know how to address an issue alongside  local government. 

To do this, there must be transparent, effective, and intentional communication between government and residents, and in this communication, power must be evenly distributed between the lived experience of residents and the systemic experience of government.

 In short, CivicLex aims to foster a truly healthy, participatory, and equitable Democracy in Lexington.

What are CivicLex’s strategies to address these issues?

 

We have three core strategies to execute our work:

1. Improve access to information about how our city works.

This aspect of our work focuses on making information about what is happening in our local government easier to access and understand. We believe this will provide a more level playing field for meaningful civic participation for residents across economic, geographic, class, and racial divides. Pure access alone does not close this information gap. The way that people understand city government is rooted in academic terminology and difficult to grasp concepts. So, we change how people interact with information through "creative social practice". This can include creating a board game about how to install a crosswalk in your neighborhood or playing a mock game show like 'The Price is Right' to understand the city budgeting process, and how it reflects our values as a community. 

2. Change the specific city processes that govern how it interacts with residents.

The city government has the most power in determining how residents can understand and participate in civic life, and because of this, it is essential that we work within the city government to redesign their processes around what we feel to be most effective. We must involve governmental bodies and persons in our workshops so that they can see what change is possible when we shift how we engage with residents. In 2019, we achieved a landmark in our internal evaluations to have seven residents for every one elected official in our workshops. This is core to our work being effective and leads us to our third strategy...

3. Democratize who has relationships with the people in city government that have political power.

To us, the antidote to many of society's ills centers around building relationships in physical space, face-to-face, person-to-person. This is the growing core of CivicLex's work. All of the education and literacy in the world doesn't matter if individuals don't know and can't connect with each other - and trust in our institutions cannot be restored until these relationships extend to those that serve and represent them in government.  We're working to bring municipal government employees into the same rooms as citizens that are impacted by the most pressing issues in our community and trying to build common understanding. Most of the time this is not adversarial or confrontational, but it is simply people doing an activity together - it may be a board game about crosswalks, but it is a common purpose.

Why is CivicLex capable of addressing these issues?

 

  1. We effectively communicate with our audience both online and in physical space. In order to improve access to information, we utilize our expertise in informational design, graphic design, and social media to distribute resources that help to better explain community issues, government processes, and study data.  

    We use years of expertise in facilitation techniques to convene in-person gatherings where residents and government representatives are able to communicate about information and issues directly. Extra care is given in these convenings to examine, acknowledge, and diffuse power dynamics. Not even COVID has stopped us - we convened 20 Zoom conversations in April and May about the city’s response to COVID-19 with 500+ residents.

  2. We work directly with residents and city government representatives to assess and create better engagement methods. Over time, we’ve developed an insider’s understanding of how city government works, while maintaining an outsider’s eye for barriers and inefficiencies within this system. This unique perspective allows us to better understand the motives of both residents and government officials and to help each develop the tools necessary to bridge this power-based divide.  

  3. Through our work within city government, we’re able to identify routes to power and to show the way for others. Often, power is accessed and transferred through relationships. We know how to develop these relationships and we can teach others how to do the same. 

    We also understand the power inherent in a dedicated, focused group of individuals. We’re able to help residents understand how to build and use their power to create the changes they want to see in their communities.

How will
CivicLex recognize success?

 

CivicLex will know we’re making progress if measures of democratic participation in Lexington, as mentioned above, improve. We’ll know when more residents are in regular contact with their representatives, when more participate in city meetings, and when more vote. 

We’ll also know when city government adjusts its engagement and communication with residents, when city meetings and programs are accessible to as many people as possible, and when our city government is more representative of Lexington as a whole.

What has CivicLex done to prove this work can be sucessful?

 

  1. We regularly provide explainers for important issues in Lexington. These are short, informative pieces that break an issue down to it’s basics, help readers understand how it fits into the city as a whole, and provide resources for taking action. 

  2. We take notes at city meetings and post them on our website and on social media. 

  3. We’ve created resources for teaching residents how to bring an issue to their representative’s attention, or what to expect during a council meeting. 

  4. We produce a print and searchable digital city budget guide and host public workshops about it annually. After two years of this work, the city actually changed its own presentation of the budget, borrowing many elements from our guide. 

  5. We create a candidate survey and voter information database during election years. In 2018 that included organizing and hosting a public forum featuring the candidates for Council At-Large. We ultimately reached 1 in 30 Lexington residents in 2018 with that work.

  6. This year we’ve partnered with BallotReady and built a coalition with other nonprofits to educate voters. We worked on the Primary and are in the process of getting everything ready for November.  

  7. In 2019, along with our regular work, we wrote and released a study that examined the viability of the nonprofit workforce in Lexington. We hosted several workshops with nonprofits in the city about the findings and ways to make improvements. 

  8. In 2019-2020, we planned Lexington’s On the Table event. We unfortunately had to postpone indefinitely due to COVID a week before it’s launch date, but up to that point we created all the design and outreach materials, convened and managed advisory groups, and were on track to making it the most inclusive On The Table Lexington had so far produced. 

  9. During the Spring of 2020, we organized and convened 20 public Zoom  conversations about Lexington’s response to COVID-19. Along with these conversations, we also created a comprehensive COVID-19 resource database. 

  10. We’re in the process of planning a community journalism project with our local newspaper, the Lexington Herald-Leader.   

  11. We’re in the early stages of developing a 2-year Civic Artist in Residence program with the city. This program will place an artist in four different city government departments with the goal of reimagining government-resident interaction and communication. This has the potential to be transformative for Lexington and we’re excited to bring this kind of program to our city.

  12. We’re creating a new section on our website dedicated to equitable policy research and information. We want both residents and government representatives to be informed about what policies have been successful around the country, making the process of researching, advocating for and implementing effective policy more simple and efficient.