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The
Democracy
Collective

The Democracy Collective (DemCo) is a 9-month long, experiential leadership program designed to build participants’ capacity for and commitment to equitable civic engagement. The program grows the participants’ individual and collective power to effect change in their
communities through the development of advocacy and leadership skills. Participants explore their shared issues of concern, learn about the landscape of power in Cleveland, identify levers for change, and develop projects to address their priorities.

Why DemCo?

Any Clevelander will tell you that it feels like civic engagement in the city is floundering (see our 2021 study in partnership with Policy Matters Ohio and HIT Strategies). So making equitable civic engagement a cultural priority is a serious challenge. Decades of systemic inequities, intentional barriers, and a disempowering mindset have left the marginalized residents of our community discouraged by what they see as a lack of progress.

Don’t get us wrong—there are countless Clevelanders working hard to keep our community engaged with important civic issues (we are lucky to work with many of them). However, apathy and sometimes outright hostility from local leadership (as noted in the study above) has been going on for so long that individual actions alone won’t fix a culture of disengagement.

Creating the future we all deserve requires people, investment, time, drive, and commitment. It will also take an understanding that solving generational problems takes a long-term vision. In response to the civic ecosystem in Cleveland, we launched DemCo in September 2023 to expand our city’s capacity and commitment to equitable civic engagement. It starts from the ground up, eventually flowing to into our institutions. We’re excited to share organizing tools with up and coming Cleveland leaders to get the job done.

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to program requirements

Why an
incubator
model?

“Leadership is not static… [it] is about building collective power to influence and change organizations and systems to operate in just and liberating ways that enable all individuals to thrive.”

--Center for Effective Philanthropy

DemCo is about cultivating Cleveland leaders’ ideas or passion into action. We're excited to connect and learn from community members that are already doing dope work and may benefit from additional investment and resources. We want to combat the bias of institutional hierarchies--just because someone doesn’t have a nonprofit or an established reputation does not mean they can’t affect positive change in their communities.

To learn more about social justice incubator models, we encourage you to check out the Social Justice Accelerator.

PARTICIPANTS.

Get grounded in social movement history of Cleveland
Learn about equitable civic engagement, explore different approaches to social change + map groups in Cleveland that use each approach
Develop a shared vision for the future of Cleveland
Identify priority issue areas to work on and build an Activation Project to engage and transform those issues
Gain an understanding of the landscape of power in the city and effective levers for change, including movement partners
Learn how to identify, reach + move targets
Strengthen their concrete advocacy skills and power as leaders
Strengthen connections with local movement groups

CLEVELAND VOTES.

Build the power of individual leaders to effect change in their communities
Build collective power to advance advocacy strategies and influence government systems
Proliferate framework of “equitable civic engagement” to bolster and amplify a wide universe of civic engagement activities
Seed activation projects to advance equitable civic engagement
Pilot leadership development program
Fight for a better Cleveland

Goals of this program.

PROGRAM
COMMITMENT.

DemCo is a 9-month long incubator that will bring up to 12 local community members into a training and action-oriented experience that will advance equitable civic engagement in their lives, their communities, their organizations + schools, and in Cleveland as a whole.

Our DemCo participants will be asked to commit to an estimated 11-15 hours per month, which includes our in-person sessions every other Saturday. The core tenets and time commitment of DemCo are detailed below.

Please note, the time commitment for each session is as follows:

Saturday Sessions: 9:00am–12:30pm
Deep Dives: 9:00am–2:00pm
Community of Practice: 9:00am–12:30pm
Final Session: 9:00am–12:00pm

Session Dates

September 7 + 21
October 5 + 19 [deep dive]
November 16 [deep dive]
December 7 + 21 [deep dive]
January 11 + 25
February 8 + 22 [deep dive]

Community of Practice

March 8 + 22
April 5 + 19

Closing Date

May 17

Activation Project Dates

February 23 [start]
May 2 [complete]

Come back soon for 2025-26 dates.

WHAT CAN
YOU EXPECT?

Over the course of our 9 months, the approximate breakdown of how we will spend our time together is detailed below.

EDUCATE.

The 6-month curriculum will invite participants to reflect deeply on their role as social change agents in Cleveland, including on the unique assets and commitments each participant brings. Sessions will include topics such as: advocacy skills and strategies such as power mapping, target research, one-to-one’s, storytelling, and power-building. This one of a kind curriculum was developed in partnership with Liberation in a Generation.

CONNECT.

Throughout the program, our facilitator will offer best practices and models, prompt participants to reflect and develop their own strategies, and create spaces for feedback and reflection to strengthen those strategies. These exercises will serve as building blocks for the activation projects the participants will develop and implement in the last three months of the program. A critical component of DemCo is relationship building, as well as group alignment and individual leadership development. There will also be opportunities to connect with local democracy-building movement leaders and gain deeper understanding, which will complement the curriculum.

EMPOWER.

Each participant will be asked to identify an issue area to focus on throughout the incubator. Examples of issue areas may include: education, environmental justice, healthcare, housing, infant mortality, and more. The issue area must be specific to a challenge we’re facing in Cleveland. After completing 6 months of curriculum-based learning, each participant will be asked to identify an activation project. The goal of the activation project is to take what you’ve learned and apply it to an issue in our community— that is, to translate your learnings into tangible real-life action. Since we know translating theory into practice doesn’t always go smoothly, you will continue to engage with your fellow Incubator members in our Community of Practice.

WHO WE ARE
LOOKING FOR.

We aim to engage a cohort that is intergenerational, multi-disciplinary, multi-racial, and reflective of Cleveland residents. In addition, we invite applicants to consider the following questions – are you:

Committed to Cleveland and its transformation?
Willing to learn and share in a collaborative setting?
Self-reflective + curious?
Someone with the initiative and drive to affect change?
A dreamer?

If this sounds like you, then you are the kind of leader that we are looking for!

ELIGIBILITY.

Reside in the City of Cleveland or demonstrate substantial commitment/current work in the City of Cleveland.
Have at least 1–3 years of related experience in the community-building and/or social justice field. This can be formal, paid positions, self-directed, or volunteer roles.
Be able to commit to the 16 in-person sessions.
Complete homework and reflection assignments in between sessions.
Able to implement an activation project that is reflective of the learnings and include some voter engagement/registration component.
Be willing to collaborate with fellow participants, embracing the power of the collective to enact transformational change.
Priority consideration will be given to those applicants who reside/work in wards with lower voter participation.