CivLead vs CauseClass

CivLead: Sustained Constructive Action to Make a Better World. We hope that CivLead provides education and motivation for people to build and sustain their commitment to social justice and to building a better world. Organize your life to "make good trouble," as John Lewis put it. "Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime." The goal for CivLead is to help people develop the HABIT of working at least a little bit every day to: - Educate Yourself - Center Yourself - Collaborate with Others - Take Action in your Everyday Life - Take Collective Action It takes alternating periods of vigorous activity and rest every day to build our muscles, develop athletic skills, and improve our physical health. Same idea with learning music. And it also takes daily or regular practices of education, action, and reflection to build or moral muscles and civic skills to fight racism and create a better world. THE VISION If a critical mass of people gets serious about educating themselves, building their skills and commitment, and working together to make a better world, the future will look way better than it does now. How many people does it take? We don’t know! But we know that THIS is the direction we need to head. HOW CAN I USE CivLead? To begin, pick a small (or large) activity in each category each day and commit to acting on it. Once you’re done, check it off as complete and (if you want) share it with your friends or with a team of folks working on the same goals. WHO DEVELOPED CivLead? CivLead is a project of the Civic Leadership Project (http://www.civicleadershipproject.org) and its DC Tutoring & Mentoring Initiative (http://dcTutorMentor.org). DCTMI works to get a volunteer tutor or mentor for the 60,000 DC students reading below grade level or with other needs. The Civic Leadership Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC, and dedicated to practical civic and educational transformation. If we are to successfully tackle the major challenges that our communities and our nation faces today, we must create a stronger civic culture. We do this through concrete projects and practices, like DCTMI and CivLead, that bring people together across class, race, and ideology and help each of us develop the civic mindset and skills we need to effectively work together for the shared goal of making a better world. WHAT WAS OUR ORIGINAL MODEL FOR THE APP? CivLead is a free app originally inspired by the article "75 Things that White People Can Do for Racial Justice." written by Corinne Shutack in 2017.

This free bundle of online courses is a virtual tool that takes a solutions-based approach to teaching climate change. Through documentary-style videos, creative activities, and recorded conversations, students learn about the issues facing the natural world and explore their power to make an impact. From airboats to solar fields, our crew traveled to the frontlines of the fight for sustainability to film the instructional videos within each course. We wanted to captivate students by putting them right in the action, because there's no better way to educate than by entertaining. Reflect on Purpose - Access guided reflections and writing where students think about their role in society. Identify Passions - Analyze the careers or projects they're most drawn to. Explore Impact Pathways - Learn five different pathways students can take to affect positive change. Create New Solutions - Write a proposal that would solve a sustainability issue through their chosen impact pathway.