Why Voting Isn't Enough. CivicLex: Richard Young, Megan Gulla

How do you get supporters of Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the same room at the same time working together on something political? It sounds almost impossible, but even at a time of hyper-partisan division, progress and trust can be achieved on a local level.

In this episode, we look at the groundbreaking work of CivicLex, a non-profit civic education and solutions journalism group based in Lexington, a Kentucky city of nearly 400,000 people. Civic Lex has three main goals: Improve access to information, Change the processes that govern how the city interacts with residents, and Democratize political power.

Our CivicLex guests are: Executive Director, Richard Young, who has worked on civic engagement and community development projects for almost a decade, and Director of Programs, Megan Gulla, who has worked and volunteered in a variety of fields, including creative, local journalism.

CivicLex has won funding from The National Endowment for the Arts, Knight Foundation, Facebook Journalism Project and other major donors. "There's something brilliant" in the mission of CivicLex, says Danielle Allen, Director of the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. "They're foregrounding the importance of relationships."

This show and several other recent episodes on local initiatives are funded with a grant from Solutions Journalism Network. We thank them for their support and encouragement.

Recommendation: Richard (our-co host!) is listening to the new podcast series, hosted by author and historian Jon Meacham, "Hope Through History."

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