What’s the big idea?

The Center for the Future of Arizona is looking for “big ideas”. In early April 2011, the Center invited communities across the state to develop proposals that describe how they could improve civic health in Arizona. The reason for this call for proposals was quite simple: Arizona ranks very low on virtually all indicators used to measure civic health. Here’s a sample of the available data:

• Arizona ranks 40th in the nation for voter registration and 43rd for voter turnout among eligible citizens.
  


• 37% of Arizonans say they do not follow the news or discuss the news regularly.
  


• Arizona ranks 48th in the nation for exchanging favors with neighbors regularly and 45th for eating dinner with family/household members almost every day.

In addition, a Gallup Poll found that only 10 percent of Arizonans believe that elected officials represent their interests, and only 10 percent rate the performance of elected officials as “very good.” Other areas of concern included quality jobs for all Arizonans, a competitive P-20 education system and a healthy environment – each of which cannot be achieved without the sense of connection that Arizonans feel to one another.


This project, known as the “Five Communities Project,” is looking for big ideas to address the state of civic health and engagement in Arizona. The Center received 96 letters of intent in response to its April call for proposals – one of which was submitted by APCA. Happily, APCA is one of 33 organizations to be named as a semi-finalist in this competition.


Ultimately, there will be just five communities selected to partner with the Center in developing a collaborative proposal that will be submitted to some of the nation’s most esteemed and influential foundations. The objective is to provide partner communities with the resources to implement their plans over a three-year funding period.

What is our “big idea”? Suffice it to say that we’re envisioning a more cohesive and engaged Asian American and Pacific Islander community in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. I’ll provide greater detail on our “Thirdspace” initiative in a future blog entry. For now, we’re pleased to be named a semi-finalist and are hard at work on the next iteration of our proposal.

-Doug Hirano, MPH, APCA Executive Director