CPR for Our Neighborhoods

COMMUNITY THROUGH PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

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Constitution for a New Civil Society
An action blueprint for a grassroots movement in America:

Seven Specific Guiding Values

Four Specific Guiding Commitments

Six Specific Areas for Personal Responsibility with

Twenty-One Concrete Steps

To Revive the Heart of Our Neighborhoods

Seven Guiding Values

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1. Personal Responsibility: The concept that the bedrock of community comes from the character, conscience, and integrity of individuals willing to initiate action, serving as the fundamental, initiating, healing forces for positive change.

2. Respect for the Health, Welfare, and Property of Ourselves and Others: The concept that self respect must be linked to the respect of others. If we do not respect our own health, well-being, and property, we cannot respect that of others. On the other hand, if we do not respect others, we will deserve no respect ourselves. This value also captures the important idea that community is grounded in individual dignity and mutual respect.

3. Respect for Individual Freedom Within the Context of Building a Just Community: The concept that individual freedom must be understood as connected to, and informed by, the vision of a just community. The community leaders whom we studied exhibited a deep wisdom that aspired to nurture liberty while reinforcing the community context that gave life to liberty, so that both became stronger rather than undermining one another. They perceived liberty as the purpose of justice, but also saw liberty dedicated to justice as its ultimate vision, as the mother gives life to a child who in maturity cares for her, learns from her, and aspires to build upon her wisdom.

4. Respect for Diversity Within the Context of Building a Just Community: The concept that we must transcend differences in a way that celebrates and preserves them, and in which their identity is mutually respected and reinforced as part of a greater whole that contributes meaning and value to each member; and also that the greater whole itself is respected and reinforced, and not undermined, in serving as the shared context for individuality and diversity.

5. Service to Others through Productive Employment and Charity: The concept that charity and gainful employment share something profound--the commitment to create value for others. To work is to create value for others that is reinforced and sustained by personal gain and reciprocity. To give charitable service is also to create value for others that is reinforced. Charity is sustained by a kind of personal gain in which we see that we ourselves are enriched by the benefit provided to others. True charity transcends sacrifice because the giver sees their deeper connection to the person who is cherished in receiving a gift.

6. Continuous Learning: The concept that human beings and their communities are continuing to change and evolve, and that this development requires a commitment to ongoing learning, and the development of teams and organizations that learn and adapt as they respond to changes and challenges, and as they strive proactively to envision and achieve their dreams.

7. Leadership by Example: The concept that the most profound policy changes unfold when communities take a lead and model the changes they wish to see in the world. Leadership through the power of example, rather than through the example of power, does not focus on the problems and weaknesses of communities, seeking to identify scapegoats or to allocate blame as a vehicle for change. Leadership by example transcends the twin problems of hypocrisy and hindsight. Looking backward, it is all too easy to call for reform, or to point out where others have failed, and pretend that this work of finger-pointing is action. Meanwhile, nothing changes. On the other hand, to demonstrate progress with our own lives and individual works serves to break down the barriers of cynicism and despair that prevent progress.

Four Guiding Commitments of the Movement (in order of priority)

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Commitment One: We commit to improve ourselves before trying to improve others.

Commitment Two: We commit to strengthen our immediate families and peers as the most direct way to strengthen our local community.

Commitment Three: We commit to maintain and improve our personal property and our local community. This is the most direct way to improve our nation as a whole.

Commitment Four: We commit to strengthen our own nation as the most direct way to strengthen the world beyond.

Commitment One: We commit to improve ourselves before trying to improve others.

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We commit to strengthen ourselves and do justice before trying to help others achieve justice. We believe that improving ourselves does not require others to improve first. We do not allow holding others accountable for their failings to distract us from holding ourselves to the same standards that we would impose on others. We adopt this corollary of the Golden Rule: We require of ourselves the standards of behavior that we expect from others. We commit to exemplify as individuals the changes we want to see in the larger world.

Commitment Two: We commit to strengthen our immediate families and peers as the most direct way to strengthen our local community.

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We choose to create strong and healthy families and peer groups as the most direct way to help our community at large. We do not believe that the strength and the commitment of our families and our peers depend first upon living in a larger context that supports us and that is just within itself. We choose not to let injustice within our local community prevent our individual families and peers from achieving health, prosperity, and justice. It takes a just village to raise a healthy child, but it takes healthy, strong, and just individuals to build such a village. We recognize that changing our community should begin with changing ourselves, our families, and our peers.

Commitment Three: We commit to maintain and improve our personal property and our local community. This is the most direct way to improve our nation.

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We choose to create justice within our own community as the most direct way to promote justice in the nation as a whole. We do not believe that weakness or injustice anywhere makes progress impossible everywhere. We choose not to be distracted protesting wrongs elsewhere, or in the society as whole, in such a way that prevents us from the task of taking care of our own business and addressing wrongs that we can right within our local community. We believe that making progress at home in our local community is most vital way to improve the nation as a whole. We believe that to start where we are, doing what we can in our own community, is the most direct way to change the entire system. The synergy of the whole derives from the parts of the whole meeting their respective potential. Indeed, when the parts fail, the whole is worth less than the sum of the individual parts.

Commitment Four: We commit to strengthen our own nation as the most direct way to strengthen the world beyond.

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We choose to build a just nation as the most direct way to bring justice to other nations. We do not believe that injustice abroad makes justice at home impossible. We choose not to allow the serious problems of the world to distract us in such a way that we cannot be effective in improving our own part of the world. We choose not to put out fires abroad while our own communities need help. We believe that strengthening our own nation, and building peace and justice there, is the first and most effective way to help others beyond our borders. Leadership through a strong national example is better than the hypocrisy of selling an ideal abroad that is belied by reality at home.

Specific Action Areas for Personal Responsibility (in order of priority)

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Area 1. Begin With Ourselves

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Practical activities we can do now, without depending on help from others, that will enhance our personal responsibility and leadership ability:

Achieve Physical and Mental Fitness (Step 1)

--Taking up personal physical exercise in some form – even if it is just walking -- for one hour each day.

--Eating healthy foods and committing to limit our total intake of food to less than 2000 calories per day.

--Addressing our personal health issues to attain optimal physical health.

--Freeing ourselves of dependence on smoking, abuse of alcohol, or use of illegal drugs.

Engage in Continuous Learning (Step 2)

--Reading our local newspaper everyday.

--Continuing our own formal education:

earning a GED if we have not graduated from high school;
earning a college degree if we have only graduated from high school;
earning an advanced degree if we have only graduated from college;
acquiring a profession if we do not have one;
if we have a profession, earning advanced credentials, or branching into a new one.

--Obtaining productive employment and supporting neighborhood charities with voluntary contributions of time and money.

Be Productive (Step 3)

--Creating a plan to increase our personal income through work or owning a business:

Our plan will be to increase our personal income through work or entrepreneurship every year.
We view work as proactive service to others that has a value to them; we view work as an opportunity to earn compensation through valuable service, not as a social or political entitlement;
We understand that our personal economic success helps others by creating new economic opportunities for them as the economy grows as whole.

--Creating a plan to buy our own home in our own neighborhood (if we are not already home owners).

--If we don’t want to own a home in our neighborhood, making a list of every way in which the neighborhood would have to change so that we would want to own a home there, and using this list to inform our community and political efforts (below).

Develop our Personal Faith and Creativity (Step 4)

--Joining a faith-based organization in our own neighborhood, supporting it with our own volunteerism and funds.

--Taking up some form of creative expression, for example, through writing, art, or music, and practicing it on a daily basis.

Area 2. Next, Focus on Our Immediate Family and Peers

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Practical activities we can do now in cooperation with members of our immediate circle to strengthen and empower our families and our peers:

Help our Family and Peers Achieve Physical and Mental Fitness (Step 5)

--Making a commitment to influence our family and peers primarily by our personal example. In other words, choosing only to ask someone to do something that we are willing to do ourselves, and only to promote virtues to which we do aspire ourselves. We walk our talk.

--Making a list of our family and peers, and if any of our peers or family members are dependent on alcohol, or use illegal drugs or tobacco, making it our number one priority to help them make better choices -- not only through treatment, but primarily through building other positive activities into their lives. We ARE our brother’s keeper (and our sister’s, too).

--Convincing our peers and family to join us in exercising, healthy eating, and healthy living.

--Convincing our peers and family to join and support the faith-based organization that we belong to.

--Convincing our peers and family to join us in our continuing education efforts.

--Convincing our peers and family to join us in our artistic and cultural activities.

Partner with our Family and Peers to Be Productive (Step 6)

--If we have productive employment, helping our family and peers to obtain it.

--If we do not have productive employment, asking our family and peers to help us get it.

--If we are retired and living on social security or a pension, and we do not want to work for money, then finding some volunteer work to do for a faith-based or community-based organization in our own neighborhood.

--Volunteering to serve at least half the number of hours that we would if we had a full time job.

--Volunteering to create something in our community that we will directly experience the benefits of having.

--If we can’t find a volunteer activity that we are willing to commit that much effort to, inventing one through our own community leadership.

Area 3. Take the Lead in Caring for Our Property and Our Neighborhood

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Practical activities we can do now to improve our immediate surroundings and community:

Maintain Our Property (Step 7)

--Making sure that the place where we live is well maintained – do it ourselves, with our own money and labor, even if we do not own it. “Well maintained” means free of trash and vandalism, in good repair, clean, and beautiful in the view of the people who live near us.

--Making sure that the street in front of our property is well maintained. Doing it ourselves with our own money and labor.

--After doing this with our own property and the street in front of our own dwelling, asking our neighbors to do the same with their properties.

--Joining with those around us willing to get directly involved to make a community organization on our block focused on keeping the houses maintained and the street well kept.

Create Shared Community Resources (Step 8)

--Creating a community garden or similar shared resource in our neighborhood:

Taking up a contribution from our neighbors to buy or lease the land for the project – not asking anyone to put in more money or time than we do ourselves.
Not asking the government to support the project in any way – doing it ourselves, with our own labor and with the resources contributed from members of our community.

Area 4. Take the Lead in Building Our Local Community

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Practical activities we can do now to strengthen and promote justice within our community:

Join or Start a Faith-Based and a Community-Based Organization (Step 9)

--Making a list of all the faith-based organizations in our community.

--Making a list of all the community-based organizations in our community.

--If there is no faith-based or community-based organization that serves a faith or a community cause that we think is important, then working with our family and peers to start our own group.
--Joining at least one faith-based and one separate community-based organization in our neighborhood, or starting one of each.

Support or Start a Values-Based Youth Development Program (Step 10)

--Making a list of the after-school programs operating in our neighborhood that promote values (we will not include sports or “entertainment” programs in the list unless they specifically teach values as well as athletics). “Promoting values” means stating a positive and proactive vision of what it means to be a good person and to lead a good life. A “positive” vision is one defined in terms of what people should do rather than what they should not do and how they should be rather than how they should not be. We ensure that the values promoted include the following fundamental values:

commitment to personal responsibility;
respect for the health, welfare, and property others;
respectful toleration of racial, cultural, ethnic, and religious differences;
belief in the importance of human freedom;
belief in the importance of service to others through productive employment and through charity;
belief in the importance of continuous learning.

--If we find such programs, enrolling our own children in them.

--If we find such programs, supporting them by joining them, serving them as a volunteer, and contributing to them financially. We do not call upon others to support the programs unless we support them ourselves.

--If we find that there are not sufficient value-based programs, joining with our peers and family to start one such program through our existing faith-based or community based organization. We do not call on others to create such programs; we create the programs ourselves through our own leadership.

Support or Start a Values-Based Adult Education Program (Step 11)

--Making a list of organizations that support adult education and that also support values. Again, we ensure that the values promoted include the following core values:

commitment to personal responsibility;
respect for the health, welfare, and property others;
respectful toleration of racial, cultural, ethnic, and religious differences;
belief in the importance of human freedom;
belief in the importance of service to others through productive employment and through charity;
belief in the importance of continuous learning.

--If we find such programs, participating in them actively.

--If we find such programs, supporting them by joining them, serving them as a volunteer, and contributing to them financially.

--If we find that there are not sufficient programs, joining with our peers and family to start one such program through our existing faith-based or community based organization. We do not call on others to create such programs; we create the programs ourselves through our own leadership.

Area 5. Take the Lead in Creating Economic Self-Reliance and Abundance

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Practical activities we can do now to improve our local economy:

Create a Business to Serve Our Community (Step 12)

--Making a list of the goods and services that people within our community consume that are produced outside of our community.

--Determining whether any of these goods and services identified above could be produced either less expensively or at a higher quality within our community. If we can identify one such good or service, organizing a business venture based on providing such a good or service for less cost or at a higher quality level for people within our community.

Create a Business to Serve Those Beyond Our Community (Step 13)

--Making a list of goods and services that are capable of being produced by people within our community.

--Determining whether any of the goods and services that people within our community are capable of producing can be produced less expensively or at a higher level of quality than are available from sources outside of our community.

--If we find one such good or service, organizing a business venture based on providing such a good or service for less cost or at a higher quality level for people outside of our community.

Develop the Capacity for Productive Enterprise (Step 14)

--If we can find no immediate areas of economic opportunity directed at serving people within or outside our community, then learning what skills, knowledge, and abilities would be required to build such enterprises, and forming a plan to acquire such skills knowledge and abilities ourselves and to help others in our community do so through continuing education.

Area 6. Take the Lead in Creating a Self-Reliant, Efficient Local Government

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Activities we can do now to strengthen our local government:

Understand Local Government and Education Tax Revenues (Step 15)

--Learning about all the sources of local tax revenue that support our local school district and local government (e.g., property taxes, wage taxes, user fees, state and federal subsidies, etc.).

--Determining how much of the support for our local government and school district comes from locally paid taxes and how much is derived through transfer payments from jurisdictions beyond our local jurisdiction.

--Of the amount that is paid for our local government and our local school district through local income taxes or property taxes, determining what percentage is collected from households with annual revenue in the top 25% of income earners.

Understand Local Government and Education Expenditures (Step 16)

--Learning the total amount of local tax revenues expended from each source each year.

--Learning exactly what the budget breakdown is for the expenditures of our local government and school district on its functions: How much of the budget pays for personnel and operating expenses, how much pays for maintenance and facilities, how much to third-party organizations.

--Learning also about the capital budget – budgets used to build structures and physical resources that are then carried on the financial statements of our local government entity as assets.

Understand Local Government Finance (Step 17)

--Learning whether our local government or school district is required to borrow funds each year to finance its expenditures.

--Learning how much debt our local government and school district is carrying at present, and how much of its combined annual budget is devoted to making interest payments and repayments of principal.

--Regarding any debt currently owed by our local government or school district, finding out what that debt was used to pay for.

--Learning what has been the trend over the last twenty years in our local community with respect to tax revenues, expenditures, reliance on state and federal subsidies, and debt financing.

--Understanding the source of funds for such local capital development projects.

Understand Local Government’s Process for Hiring and Obtaining Services (Step 18)

--Learning about the processes used to hire people for jobs in the local government and school district.

--Learning about the processes used to award contracts for services to individual and corporate consultants and service providers.

Examine the Effectiveness of the Local Government and Education System (Step 19)

--Learning about the effectiveness of our local government in assisting members of our community in achieving personal responsibility, in caring for their health, well-being, property, and community, in creating economic self-sufficiency and abundance, and creating in self-sufficient and efficient local governments and educational systems. Specific indicators of effectiveness include the following: local crime rates; local rate of home ownership; local employment rate; rate of abandoned housing; rate of tax delinquent properties; extent of environmental issues; extent of community-available public assets and resources; local tax rates.

--Learning about the effectiveness of our local school district in respect of specific educational outcomes related to reading levels, mathematics abilities, graduation rates, college placement, and retention of graduates in jobs within the local community.

Create and Implement a Local Economic Development Plan (Step 20)

--Working with other community members to develop a long range economic growth plan. This plan will allow our school district and local government to function effectively only with resources drawn from local tax revenues. The plan will reduce dependence on federal and state subsidies and debt and strive to use these resources exclusively for the creation of capital or incoming-producing assets. Note: such a plan will likely require intensive investment in local educational and entrepreneurial efforts across the entire community.

--Transforming our community (or maintaining its status) over time so that it is a net contributor of tax revenues within the greater economic/political system; creating a community that provides enough local tax revenues to support its own operations and to assist other less able communities.

Participate Intelligently in the Local Political Process (Step 21)

--Becoming politically active to ensure that our economic development plan is adopted and executed.

--Becoming politically active to ensure that local laws and policies support our core values, conform with our guiding principles, and assist members of our community in achieving personal responsibility, in caring for their health, well-being, property, and community, in creating economic self-sufficiency and abundance, and creating self-sufficient and efficient local governments and educational systems.