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Support The Philadelphia Citizen’s work here. Donate more than $100 and receive The Citizen’s first Do Something Card Deck shipping out January 2024. (Make sure to enter your mailing address, if different from your billing.)

 

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Solutions for better citizenship

One of the founding tenets of The Philadelphia Citizen is to get people the resources they need to become better, more engaged citizens of their city.

We hope to do that in our Good Citizenship Toolkit, which includes a host of ways to get involved in Philadelphia — whether you want to contact your City Councilmember about the challenges facing your community, get those experiencing homelessness the goods they need, or simply go out to dinner somewhere where you know your money is going toward a greater good.

Find an issue that’s important to you in the list below, and get started on your journey of A-plus citizenship.

Vote and strengthen democracy

Stand up for marginalized communities

Create a cleaner, greener Philadelphia

Help our local youth and schools succeed

Support local businesses

A Humble Ask from The Citizen

Screw Giving Tuesday. We proclaim it Democracy Monday. Can you help us reach our $10,000 goal?

A Humble Ask from The Citizen

Screw Giving Tuesday. We proclaim it Democracy Monday. Can you help us reach our $10,000 goal?

We know, we know. It’s (almost) Giving Tuesday. Your inbox is surging with asks for your hard-earned dollars, including from a bunch of media outlets. Well, screw Giving Tuesday.

We humbly ask you to consider giving to Democracy Monday.

If we can raise $10,000 from all of you, we can unlock another $10,000 match from patriotic Philadelphians who believe — as we do — in the importance of citizenship.

We just got done with an election that turned out all of 31 percent of registered voters in Philadelphia, and we live in a time when autocracy and illiberalism are ascendant. Never has the brilliant ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr been more prophetic: “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

But if The Citizen stands for anything, it’s the principle that democracy is more verb than noun. It’s something you do. And the answer to shoring up endangered American values like pluralism and civic participation is … all of us.

That’s what we do here at The Citizen, in our writing, our podcasts, our thought-leadership events and our nonpartisan activism: We use storytelling to summon us to collective action. Before deleting this latest plea in your inbox, rethink the ask: Don’t contribute to The Citizen. Invest in what all of us can do together.

That will allow The Citizen to do more deep dives into solutions to gun violence, more tales of everyday crusaders who walk among us, more reports from the frontlines of democracy, and more events that feature the most old-fashioned kind of social networking — the actual coming together of stakeholders in common pursuit of problem-solving. In exchange, we’ll send you our brand new Good Citizen Deck of Playing Cards — each containing an actionable step you can take to make your city better, complete with a QR code linking to our in-depth Do Something guides.

That’s it, that’s our pitch.

No one is coming to save us. So take back your city. Be a citizen.

 

Donate more than $100 and receive The Citizen’s first Do Something Card Deck shipping out January 2024. (Make sure to enter your mailing address, if different from your billing.)

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The Citizen is asking for your help for Democracy Monday. Photo: Flickr/Dave Z

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Support Your Local Journalism. "With your help, we can be the antidote to the failures of big media, the bitterness of national politics, your post-election malaise and the confusion about what to do now" - Roxanne Patel Shepelavy, Executive Director, The Philadelphia Citizen. Button that says Give that leads to a donation page for end of year fundraising. Your gift will fund independent, local journalism and solutions for Philadelphia.

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We do not accept political ads, issue advocacy ads, ads containing expletives, ads featuring photos of children without documented right of use, ads paid for by PACs, and other content deemed to be partisan or misaligned with our mission. The Philadelphia Citizen is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization and all affiliate content will be nonpartisan in nature. Advertisements are approved fully at The Citizen's discretion. Advertisements and sponsorships have different tax-deductible eligibility. For questions or clarification on these conditions, please contact Director of Sales & Philanthropy Kristin Long at [email protected] or call (609)-602-0145.