Caleb Christen and Jacob Bornstein Talk with Heidi Burgess about the Development of Better Together America

All of those models exist. Caleb, do you want to add to that?

Caleb: I’d just add that what this is really doing is trying to stitch together all the things Jacob was just talking about and give them a home where they can work together. It helps break down some of the silos between local efforts that are already happening and creates connective tissue so that all those amazing things can have more impact.

Heidi: Jacob mentioned Braver Angels, and I was going to ask about them later, but before I forget: Braver Angels has this thing they call “Citizens-led Solutions.” We also talked with Rich Harwood, who has the New Civic Path, which seems to be doing something very similar to what you’re doing.

So if Braver Angels does a bunch of things that look to me like civic hubs, but they call them “citizens-led solutions,” are they BTA civic hubs too? And are Rich’s communities BTA civic hubs too?

Jacob: In many cases, yes. We’ve had a number of [BA] alliances participate. We did the initial accelerator workshop in person in Denver, which you attended. Then we did a virtual accelerator workshop, and now we’re doing a third accelerator workshop, also virtual. We’re also rapidly onboarding others who are more advanced in their journey, including through focused cohorts in specific areas.

So we’re supporting people coming into the fold, so to speak. But we don’t own civic hubs. That’s not what we do. We support civic hubs. If they become part of the learning community and the network, then in that sense they’re part of BTA. But we’re also perfectly happy if a Braver Angels alliance sees what another alliance in BTA is doing and copies it, even if they never formally join the network.

We’re grappling with that a little now, especially with some state-level hubs that are propagating more civic hubs within their state. Do all of them need to go through BTA training? Or is it enough for them to go through state-level support, with only some of them participating in BTA training? We’re still pretty early, so we’re figuring that out.

But to answer your question, a lot of these communities are existing efforts—like a Braver Angels alliance or one of Richard Harwood’s communities. We’ve sent some of our people to those trainings, so we understand what they’re about. Those are all potential candidates for becoming civic hubs, and in many cases they have become civic hubs and part of the BTA network.

We work closely with David Eisner and that whole Braver Angels team, and with Maury and others there—they’re fantastic partners and share many of the same values. There are some things an alliance will do that fit within citizens-led solutions. But when they want to go bigger—when they want to fully incorporate collaborative problem-solving on top of the bridging work they already do, and maybe move into actual action—then they turn to us for training, network support, and infrastructure.

That’s one way we serve as a framework within which many models and organizations can live, thrive, learn from one another, and take what works. Caleb, do you want to add anything?

Caleb: And just to add to what Jacob said, we don’t expect them to rename themselves. It doesn’t have to say “Better Together America” anywhere in their title. We’re not very prescriptive about that.

There are, however, a few basic tenets they ultimately need to adopt and move toward. One is being nonpartisan, which is a pretty low-hanging fruit. Another is being co-owned, so it’s not ultimately controlled by a single organization or person. Of course, somebody has to initiate it, so it often starts that way. And they need to be dedicated to pursuing the community-building and community-led solutions Jacob has been describing.

So there are some parameters. The barrier to entry into the network is fairly low, but as long as they’re aligned on those things, we’re happy to provide as many connections as possible so everyone can learn and benefit from one another.

Heidi: I have another two-fold question. What is BTA’s North Star—your overarching goal, what you’re trying to accomplish? And do the individual hubs have to share that same North Star in order to be considered a hub, or can they be oriented toward different things?

Jacob: That’s a fantastic question.

We believe we’re working to build community-led civic infrastructure that enables communities to solve the problems that matter most to them, using all the different perspectives that may exist within that community. That’s a long North Star, but ultimately it’s for the benefit of all, so everyone has the opportunity to thrive within that community.

Then, from BTA’s perspective, local plus local plus local equals national impact. If we want everyone in the country to have the opportunity to thrive, we need a network in which communities don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. They can learn from one another, and we can eventually overlay measurement so we can see what works in different places.

So, what we’re trying to do is build the supportive network, along with the tools, resources, and measurement, to accelerate this work on the ground so that everyone can thrive.

The hubs on the ground don’t really need to care about the “local plus local equals national” piece. But, as Caleb said, they do need to commit to being community-led, co-owned, inclusive of all perspectives, and built around a combination of community-building, collaborative problem-solving, and combined action. They need to commit to those things. They also need to be nonpartisan.

If they don’t commit to those things, they’re not civic hubs. They’re something else. That doesn’t mean they’re bad. They’re just not part of our network.  Anything to add, Caleb?

Caleb: No, that was great. I’m happy to go deeper into any of that, but I’ll pause there.

Heidi: Once again, I’m going to back this whole conversation up, so it may seem like we’re in a loop. You said that 18 months ago, when I talked with Caleb and Vinay, you were talking to nine different groups you were identifying as hubs or potential hubs. How many are there now?

Caleb: In terms of communities, we now have roughly 40 in the network. In the first 9 to 12 months, it grew to around 29 communities, and now it’s continuing to grow toward 40. If you include the actual number of civic hub builders, the number is significantly higher.

By my count, approximately 60 people have come through the training pipeline, either currently or in the past.

Jacob: And Heidi, if I can add, we’ve been working on a maturity model. Yes, we have about 40 communities we’re working with, and we’re looking to scale. We think building off the infrastructure that already exists in communities, while helping focus and accelerate it, is the path to scaling in terms of breadth—number of civic hubs.

But what really matters is that the work also goes deep in those communities. A lot of our civic hubs are still at the early stages. So if you asked a random community member, “Do you know about the XYZ Hub in your community?” in most places right now they’d probably say, “The what?”

So what also matters is supporting them and deepening their work so they can scale locally—so local government and community members are actually participating, actual results are being seen, people are reaching consensus on issues, and those solutions are being implemented.

When we look across the network, we have fewer hubs that are already doing collaborative problem-solving and combined action at meaningful scale, compared to ones that are still in formation—trying to coalesce, define themselves as a civic hub, and bring the right people to the table. So there’s really a whole spectrum of development.

Heidi: What I think would be really interesting is if you could tell a few of the case studies orally. One of the things that was so great about the Impact Report was that it included case studies of various hubs.

You’re the leadership, and although you’re not necessarily doing every hub yourselves, you’ve talked to the organizers. So I’m wondering if you could tell a few stories—maybe one of the more advanced hubs that’s having a wider impact, a couple that are just getting started, and perhaps something about the statewide hubs. It would be interesting to hear how statewide hubs compare with local hubs.

Jacob: Sure. I’ll pass it to Caleb in just a moment. But just to be clear, everyone on our core staff except me is also a hub builder. We decided that, as executive director, I probably shouldn’t be putting a stamp on a local hub. But Caleb is a hub builder, Vinay Orekondy is a hub builder, Kristina Becvar is a hub builder, Alex Levy is a hub builder—that’s our core team.

So when we say we are of, by, and for civic hubs, we mean it. We’re also almost entirely made up of hub builders ourselves.

Heidi: Great. I apologize for the mistake.

Jacob: No worries.

Heidi: Caleb, maybe you can give a few examples.

Caleb: Sure. I’ll start, and maybe we can popcorn back and forth, because there are so many.

Heidi, to your point, they’re spread across the country, and they also vary enormously in size. We have examples ranging from the neighborhood level to small rural towns, major metropolitan areas, county and multi-county regions, and all the way up to several states.

I’ll start with Sisters, Oregon, a town of about 3,000 people. It’s a really good example of one of the more advanced efforts, largely because they were already doing civic-hub-like things before we ever connected with them.

They had already formed a very community-building-oriented effort, and that’s really the strength of what they do. If you look at Citizens for Community –the website--and the visioning exercise they went through, it’s an incredible amount of community-building activity for a town that small.

Most recently, they had wildfires sweeping through the town, and because they already had those relationships and connections in place, they were able to rally nonprofits, community leaders, and residents to provide mutual aid to people who were affected. It’s a really strong example of how community-building and civic hubs can propel and support follow-on community action.

Jacob: One of the really cool things we saw from the BTA level is that there had also been a similar wildfire experience in Topanga, outside Los Angeles, before the Oregon fires. So Kellen in Sisters was able to call Scott in Topanga and ask, “How did that work? What worked? What didn’t? What can I learn?”

So there was an immediate exchange of information from Scott to Kellen, which let them put those lessons to work locally. Their response was more effective because they didn’t have to learn everything from scratch. That’s one of our favorite examples of how innovations can spread through a resilient network.

Caleb, do you want to give another example?

Caleb: Why don’t you take the next one, and I’ll jump in after that?

Jacob: Sure. Maybe I’ll jump to North Carolina. North Carolina is one of our statewide hubs, and I’m really excited about the hub builder who initiated it, Leslie Garvin. It’s a good example of an organization whose mission overlaps significantly with hub work. Her organization is North Carolina Campus Engagement. She still has her regular role, but she’s able to incorporate statewide hub-building into her job description, which is exciting.

They started with an assessment at the statewide level, essentially asking, “What is our civic health?” The answer was, “Oh my gosh—it’s near the bottom everywhere.” So they created three strategy groups: one around community-building and engagement, one around collaborative problem-solving capacity, and one around how to move toward action.

When we met Leslie, all of that was already happening even though they didn’t yet have the language of “civic hubs.” Then she said, “Oh my gosh, this maps perfectly onto what we’re trying to do.”

They recently held what I believe was their second statewide summit, and they’re really advancing the conversation about how to improve civic health across the state. They’ve involved a lot of partners, and Leslie has now also begun supporting, I think, three local civic hubs in North Carolina.

So for us, statewide groups tend to have two primary missions. One is to host a statewide collaborative table for advancing civic health and thinking through the state’s needs. The other is to help support or initiate local civic hubs throughout the state.

North Carolina is a great example of that. Colorado is another. We’re seeing it happen in Idaho too. Caleb, maybe you want to talk about a big urban area—DC, LA, Oakland, something like that?

Caleb: There are so many great examples to choose from. Maybe I’ll just skim over a couple. The next one I was thinking about was Montrose, Colorado.

Jacob: Yeah, that’s a great example.

Caleb: But let me briefly mention LA first. Both North Carolina and LA have very strong ties with Braver Angels, and that has helped them move beyond simply bringing different groups together. They’ve also been able to advance participatory democracy practices there through citizen assemblies.

Oakland has been doing some interesting work at both the neighborhood and city level, with Polis and some other deliberative processes. In the greater DC/DMV area, there are, as we all know, a huge number of nonprofit organizations. So they’ve spent a lot of time trying to bring those organizations together. There’s a monthly happy hour, and they’re starting up some dinners to deepen those relationships.

So there are lots of interesting things happening at the metropolitan level. But I wanted to bring up Montrose, Colorado, because it represents a different demographic—something like 25,000 people—and because many of the other examples are especially strong in community-building. Montrose is a good example of how there are different on-ramps into forming a civic hub.

In their case, they had support from a national network, and they started with a series of citizen assemblies that identified important issues in their community—issues that people were energized to work on together. After the national organization’s support had run its course, some local community members came together and said, “We want to keep this going and keep finding solutions.”

Since then, they’ve followed up on and successfully implemented solutions around things like insufficient homeless shelter capacity. They’ve also addressed some education-related and childcare needs. What’s especially interesting, though, is that things like citizen assemblies can be expensive and time-consuming. So they’ve been very innovative in asking: how can we design deliberative processes that are shorter, less expensive, and something we can train local facilitators to run? They’ve been doing some cutting-edge work in figuring out how to help a community find solutions more affordably and sustainably.

Jacob: The childcare project was the initial one, and Unify America paid for that. So that was more like a full-scale civic assembly or citizens’ assembly, which cost a lot of money.

But the later efforts—on parking on Main Street and on the winter homeless shelter situation—have been much lower-cost. The same is true of the LA civic assembly work. They’re finding donated spaces, working to get affordable food, lowering the rates they pay participants, and still finding that people show up. They’re also still getting a diverse cross-section of the community.

Those kinds of innovations are really important not just for civic hubs, but for the field as a whole. What does it take? Can volunteers serve as facilitators? How much training do they need? Or do we need paid facilitators? These are the kinds of questions civic hubs are grappling with.

We’re there to support that work, but we’re not taking credit for what’s happening in North Carolina, Montrose, or LA. Some version of this work would be happening anyway, but fewer people would know about it, and fewer would be connected through a network, without Better Together America.

So we want to be clear: we’re not taking credit for the work of the civic hubs. They’re doing amazing work. We’re providing a supportive environment where they can share what they’re doing, accelerate it, and get some coaching. But they really own what’s happening on the ground, and we’re cheering them on and saying, “Did you hear what they did in Montrose? Did you hear what they did in LA or North Carolina?” We’re helping make those connections so people can learn from one another.

Heidi: Great. So where do you see this going?

Jacob: That’s the $100 million question.

There are a few scenarios we’re grappling with. We know what we’re committed to over the next year, given our current capacity. That includes helping deepen the work in existing civic hubs while also bringing on more civic hubs through accelerator workshops and similar pathways.

We’re also launching rapid onboarding for the first time.

Caleb, did we finish the first round, or do we still have one more session?

Caleb: We finished the first one, and we have one more left in the second round.

Jacob: Right. So rapid onboarding is for people who are farther along the maturity scale. It’s just two quick sessions rather than a six-month commitment. The idea is to bring them into the next level of engagement or into focused cohorts.

For example, we’re going to do a state-level focused cohort for all the states that are already in the network. That also allows us to bring in new states like Minnesota, which has been doing great work for years, fairly quickly, and help define the state-level model while letting those states learn from one another about what’s possible.

That’s exciting because it lets us deepen the work while also bringing new people into the network. At the same time, we’re continuing the accelerator workshops and recruiting more groups into those, expanding our partnerships as we go.

And the last thing I’d add, Heidi, is that we’re also really working on building relationships with national networks that can support hubs or become part of hubs. That includes facilitator networks, performing artist networks, veterans networks, business networks, faith networks—existing groups on the ground that may not think of themselves as civic hubs, but might absolutely see themselves as part of a civic hub. That expands the reach and impact of the work in those communities.

So that’s a big part of what we’re doing on the partnership front.

Heidi: When you say you’re onboarding people into the statewide network, does that mean they meet monthly and talk about what’s going on? Or are there other kinds of activities involved?

Jacob: Yes—the state learning cohort is basically that. Monthly meetings, learning from one another, and some additional learning that we help provide. They might request something specific. For example, if they want to learn more about civic assemblies, we know national experts who can come in and do a training on that.

So we have several layers of partnerships. One is the training and resource layer. Another is expanding the broader network—artists, faith leaders, and so on. A third is what I’d call the hub-initiator layer, which includes Braver Angels and the Harwood folks—groups that already have local infrastructure on the ground that fits the kind of work we’re trying to support.

I think I may have lost the thread of your question in trying to give enough context. Could you repeat it?

Heidi: I was just trying to understand what it means to be in a network of hubs, and what kind of support you get. I think you answered that.

Jacob: There are maybe two missing pieces. One is coaching. In addition to the learning cohort, we provide coaching. A lot of that is me, Caleb, and Alex having one-on-one conversations with people.

Heidi: So can people call you up and say, “I’m trying to do something and it isn’t working—do you have any ideas?”

Jacob: Exactly. A week or two ago, the hub leader in Cortez called and said, “I’ve got these two deliberative topics, and I’m trying to decide whether to use a civic assembly or some kind of task force.” I helped her think through the pros and cons of different deliberative methods and what might work best for the specific issues she was dealing with.

That’s the kind of coaching call we do—very specific to their actual questions. Caleb has those all the time, and I have them some of the time.

The other big piece is shared measurement. We have a strong shared-measurement framework, but we’re still figuring out how to help people participate in it effectively. Some hubs are amazing at it, but it’s hard work, and the technology we have right now is still clunky. So we’re working on that too.

Heidi: Explain what you mean by measurement. I assume it’s some kind of evaluation of progress.

Jacob: Yes. Kristina Becvar is really our measurement person. I’m a statistician in recovery, so I still have that tendency.

If you think all the way out to the goal that everyone has the opportunity to thrive, then measurement has to work at different levels. At the far end, you have outcomes around issues like housing, childcare, homelessness, or parking on Main Street. Those are the things we ultimately care about, but they tend to be lagging indicators.

So we also need earlier indicators. Did the hub choose a topic the community actually cared about? Did it bring together a diverse group? Did that group reach consensus? Did they move toward implementation? All of those things should be predictive of achieving the longer-term outcomes that improve thriving.

Then, from BTA’s standpoint, we’re also looking at questions like: were they trained? Did they participate in an accelerator workshop? Were they part of a learning cohort where we supported them? Did they participate in shared measurement so we actually know what’s going on?

So from individual training all the way to long-term outcomes, both at the hub level and the BTA level, we’re trying—at least in theory right now—to understand that whole journey and track progress. That's mostly in theory right now.

We do have the metrics, and some hubs are very good at participating, but we’re still working on getting the technology improved so more hubs can participate. We’re also trying to incorporate that measurement into the learning cohorts so that more hubs participate, and making sure we're linking to other measurement efforts happening in the field.

For example, New Pluralists has a shared-measurement cohort, and Kristina was just invited to participate in that. I’m sure we’ll learn from that and then try to spread what’s useful across the BTA network as well.

Caleb: Especially since a lot of the hubs are still in the early stages, we’re also thinking hard about how to meet them where they are. We talk about measuring impact, but at the beginning, that may just mean measuring whether they’re taking the right steps and moving in the right direction.

We want measurement to be easy enough that it doesn’t distract them from actually building the hub and taking action. So we’re also exploring credentialing or badging systems—not just to make it more fun or create incentives, but to help them identify the things they ideally should be measuring and how we can support them in doing that.

So yes, that’s definitely still a work in progress. But we think hub formation itself is pretty predictive of eventually getting to outcomes. So there are measures around that too: number of partners, whether the hub coordination team has formed, whether it’s meeting, whether it’s choosing topics, and so on.

Heidi: Let me back up and ask a more fundamental question. When I talk to my friends—and I suspect the same thing happens to all of us—we say, “Hi, how are you?” and then we kind of moan about how things are going to hell in a handbasket, how hard it is to feel optimistic, and all the rest.

My sense is that one of the main reasons to start hubs and use processes like the ones you’re describing is that they offer a way out of that. They give people a sense that we still have some agency, that maybe we’re not doomed, and that maybe we can regain some control over our lives.

Is that true? Is that part of the appeal?

Jacob: Thank you, Heidi! That’s a great selling point! Maybe we should be interviewing you.

Heidi: I’ve been using that language in what I’m writing. We’re finishing up what has turned into a six-part newsletter series on whether people should be bridge-building or fighting.

That series started because David Beckemeyer wrote us about three months ago saying he had lost faith in bridge-building. He felt the time for bridge-building had passed, that things were getting too desperate, and that he was going to give up on bridge-building and shift into “fight authoritarianism” mode.

I wrote back explaining why I wasn’t ready to do that and why I thought it was a mistake. That exchange turned into a public series. He put up two posts on his blog; we couldn’t be outdone, so we did six on ours.

But we’ve heard this kind of thing from others too. Martín Carcasson told us a few years ago that he had given up on the national level and taken refuge in the local level, because that was where he could still get things done, feel a sense of accomplishment, and help other people feel that too.

So I think there really are people who see this as a way out of what otherwise feels like a pretty grim situation.

Jacob: Martín is actually a new hub builder, by the way—which we’re excited about. Northern Colorado out to the northeastern plains. He’s someone coming in with a lot of experience.

Caleb: He’s in the rapid onboarding group, for example.

Jacob: There’s so much to say about this, Heidi. Some of what I’m about to say comes from my BTA executive director hat, some from my Mediators Foundation president hat, and some honestly from my consulting hat, because I’ve been working for decades at the local and state levels in liberal places, conservative places, and mixed places.

What I’ve seen is that people are shocked when they discover they can actually reach consensus—not just across left and right, but across many kinds of differences. Oil and gas advocates and bike advocates. Housing developers and homeless shelter operators. These are very different perspectives.

And when people reach consensus, and then that consensus is translated into policy or collective-impact work on the ground, and you begin to see movement on real outcomes, that’s incredibly powerful.

At the national level, it’s very hard to know how I as an individual—or my neighborhood, or my community, or even my state—is supposed to affect national politics. But one way it can happen is by demonstrating the power of collaborative action. When people from different perspectives work together and examine a problem from all sides, the solutions are usually more durable, stronger, and have more political will behind them than they would if the “smartest people in the room” just designed the ideal answer by themselves.

So for me, this isn’t really about “bridge-building” as an end in itself. Bridging is a skill. You can use it for community-building, collaborative problem-solving, and helping people implement solutions across many partners. If you think of bridging only as shared understanding, then no, that’s not enough. But when you combine it with these other pieces that help a community actually thrive, then it becomes very powerful.

Heidi: And wouldn’t you say bridging is probably the first stage of hub-building?

Jacob: Yes and no. For a Braver Angels alliance, absolutely. But take a group like +More Perfect Union’s Brickyard initiative—they’re doing volunteer projects and making sure people from different backgrounds are working together. Through that shared work, they build trust. Someone realizes, “Wait, you’re conservative and you’re out here doing this with me?” or “You’re liberal and you care about this too?” That builds trust, and then the trust can be leveraged.

So there are different starting points. I wouldn’t say it all has to begin with classic bridging work like a Braver Angels alliance. There are other starting points that are equally powerful for building that initial seed of trust.

That’s why we use the term community-building. Bridging is one element of community-building, but it’s not the only path.

Caleb, I’ve gone on a bit of a lecture again. Anything you want to add?

Caleb: That was great. I completely agree with what Jacob said. And I’d add that Jacob has very direct experience with these things and could give lots of examples from his own work. But I think we can also look at the network itself as evidence that this is resonating.

We’ve seen more than fourfold growth in the number of civic hub builders over the last year and a half. Those are people hearing about the concept—not because we’re out there planting it everywhere, but because they hear about it and say, “Yes, this is exactly what our community needs.”

And I really like something Kelly Klein from Sisters, Oregon always reminds us of: the scale of the solution doesn’t have to match the scale of the problem.

That gets back to your original question, Heidi. The beauty of local work is that it’s where we actually have agency. When we come together with people—not just in angry Facebook threads, but in meaningful interactions and real relationships with neighbors—that’s where we can both experience change and actually create it.

Heidi: I’m not sure I fully understand that line—“the scale of the solution doesn’t need to match the scale of the problem.” Does that mean we can work locally on something that is national in scope, but solve it here for ourselves?

Caleb: Jacob may want to add to this, but I think part of it is that when we focus locally and do the things that are actually within our reach, and then all those local improvements add up, those local transformations of social, political, and other systems aggregate into broader change.

And that goes back to what Jacob said earlier: local plus local plus local equals national. When you add enough good local things together, that becomes national-level change.

Jacob: Yes. I think we feel we’ve stumbled onto a leverage point, to use systems-change language. These relatively smaller efforts in particular places can build into transformational change in those places, and then feed into a larger narrative: that we really are better together as Americans than we are apart.

They become shining lights that other communities follow, and eventually other states and the country more broadly follow. We’ve seen movements repeat that kind of path again and again. So we really do believe that local plus local can become national.

My challenge with “fighting” is that in every movement—women’s suffrage, civil rights, marriage equality—you do see fighters, and those fighters often matter. But the people who often get the credit in the end are the ones who provide a reasonable on-ramp for the broader public and the political establishment to get on board.

So for people who want to fight, that’s their choice. It’s not what we’re doing here.

We’ve been looking at democracies since 1994, and our reading is that every democracy that turned toward authoritarianism and then turned back again only lasted at most six years before sliding back toward authoritarianism. So our view is that fighting alone doesn’t lead to durable change. We need a long-term movement capable of bringing the whole public along, and we think this kind of path is the only durable way forward.

There are some additional things we could do nationally—and that’s me putting on my mediator’s hat—but that may be a topic for another conversation.

Heidi: I very much buy your “local plus local plus local” model, but I have a slightly different or additional interpretation of how it might work.

If you get a fair number of communities in each state with successful hubs, then other communities in that state are going to say, “Look what Montrose accomplished. We ought to do something like that here in Boulder.” Then it grows across the state. Then people in Kansas look at Colorado and say, “Look what they did,” and then people in Iowa do the same.

Eventually—and this is my perhaps crazy hope—people start saying, “We’ve done this here. Why can’t they do that in Washington, DC? I’m going to vote for somebody who thinks this way.”

Everybody says, if you look at Gallup and similar polling, that they want leaders who will collaborate and work with the other side. But then they don’t actually vote that way. They often don’t. And collaborators don’t always get rewarded electorally. Take Michael Bennet in Colorado. He put his hat in the ring for the Democratic presidential nomination back in 2024, and he didn’t get anywhere, in part because he was a moderate—someone willing to compromise and work with both sides.

Jacob: Mediators Foundation has a project called Bridge Grades, and I’d recommend it to people who want to see who in Congress functions as a bridger versus a divider. Every member of Congress gets graded from F to A using third-party data sources.

Heidi: Are there any A’s?

Jacob: There are some good people on both the right and the left who are getting elected. But in the last election, we saw a significant decline in the number of bridgers relative to dividers. There's a trend of those bridgers retiring. 

Heidi: I was going to say—they’re dropping out.

Jacob: Yes, many of them are retiring. What we see as the long game is building a constituency that believes collaborative problem-solving is the way to go, and then having leaders emerge from those networks who seek public office with the support of the communities they worked in. But that’s a long-term game.

If we really want to affect things in the near term—which is what David is pressing you on—that takes a different strategy. It also takes a lot more money up front and a much more intentional partnership strategy. And honestly, in my opinion, time is already running short if you want to shape 2028 in a big way through this work.

So most civic hub work, given our current capacity and what’s happening on the ground, operates on a longer time horizon. We think that long horizon is necessary no matter what happens in 2026, 2028, and beyond.

One of the biggest mistakes people in this field make is assuming that if we just win the next election, everything will be fine. It won’t. There will certainly be consequences depending on which side wins and which side loses, but if your real goal is to help America function better and come together more effectively, then you have to keep your eyes on a much longer horizon than the next midterm or presidential cycle.

Heidi: What I say to people, including David, is that it’s fine to focus on the short term—but you also have to look at the long-term effects of what you’re doing in the short term. If your short-term strategy is going to totally undermine your long-term goals, then you aren’t really helping yourself.

Jacob: Yes, exactly. I appreciate your long-term perspective here. And if you ever want to talk about shorter-term opportunities, I’d be happy to do that another time.

Heidi: All right. So what haven’t we talked about that we should talk about? Is there anything people should know about BTA that might get more people involved? Anything I should have asked and didn’t? 

Jacob: What do you think, Caleb?

Caleb: Maybe the main thing is to give a little more granularity about what currently exists. For anyone interested in either joining a local, regional, or state civic hub—or helping form one if there isn’t one already—we do have a map. Hopefully it will be on the website before too long.

The short version is that communities are forming civic hubs all across the US. So whether someone is just an individual without organizational backing but excited by the concept, or part of an organization, there are opportunities. Even if there isn’t already something in place where they live, this network is here to help.

So Heidi, I’m hoping you can pass along my email address [see below!] and encourage people to reach out. We’ll help get them plugged into the resources we have, accelerate their journey, or connect them to local efforts that are already underway.

Heidi: Even if you don’t yet have the map on the website, do you have a list? For example, you were saying that Colorado is really active. I live in Colorado, and I have to admit I haven’t been working with anybody on Colorado hubs. Is there a place I can go to find out who’s doing what in Colorado?

Caleb: The short answer is yes-ish. I can pass along what we have, and if you’re able to share that, that would be great.  [See below.]What we currently have publicly available doesn’t include all the specific contact information for the  people doing the work, but I can connect people where it makes sense.

Heidi: So for now, if people are interested, they should get in touch with you.

Caleb: Yes.

Heidi: Well, I’m convinced people should do that. So everybody who’s watching: do that.

Caleb: That’s right. We have plans to be able to take on a total of 60 new civic hubs this year.

Heidi: Six? Or sixty?

Caleb: Sixty.

Heidi: Oh!

Caleb: Yes, and we’re already partway to that goal. So we do have capacity to take on more at our current level of support.

And I’d add that the network could also benefit from more capacity. So if anyone listening has time, talent, treasure—or any combination of those—we can often plug that in locally, which is usually best. But there are also opportunities at the support-network level. Maybe someone can help curate resources in the Resource Center, or has an eye for curriculum development, or something else. There are lots of places where we’d love to plug people in.

Heidi: I’m hoping interest in this sort of thing will grow. I’ve been saying for years that people have to be getting fed up with the status quo and looking for something else.

Everybody is fed up, but I don’t think they realize there is another option. That’s what I think is so important. That’s what we’re trying to do with Beyond Intractability, and it’s what you’re trying to do too: show people that there really is a better way. We don’t have to live like this.

Jacob: Thank you, Heidi.

Heidi: And thank you both for taking the time to do this, and for developing BTA. As soon as I heard about your ideas, I got excited, because I was convinced this was a very important direction to go. And the more I learn about it, the more convinced I am that this is the answer. We just have to implement it. So thank you both very much.

Jacob: Thank you so much.

Caleb: Yes, thank you, Heidi. Your thought partnership and support have been invaluable to us.

Heidi: Great!

Resources Caleb Shared After the Conversation:

• His email address: caleb@bettertogetheramerica.org - Contact him if you are interested in joining or forming or learning more about civic hubs.
• A new "primer" on local civic hubs.
• The map of current civic hubs.