Celebrating Civic Excellence: The All-America City Award's 75-Year Legacy of Community Collaboration

For 75 years, the All-America City Award has honored communities that exemplify the power of civic engagement, inclusive dialogue, and collaborative problem-solving. More than just a recognition, the program serves as a national model for how local action can drive meaningful, lasting change. From environmental sustainability to innovative storytelling and cross-sector collaboration, the award highlights what’s possible when diverse voices come together with shared purpose. Read more in the blog post below.

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​For 75 years, the All-America City Award has stood as a beacon of what's possible when communities embrace the principles of civic engagement, collaboration, and inclusive problem-solving. Administered by the National Civic League, this prestigious recognition program offers a compelling model for how dialogue and deliberation can drive meaningful change at the local level.

Beyond Recognition: A Framework for Civic Excellence

The All-America City Award isn't just about celebrating success—it's about creating a replicable framework for community transformation. The program recognizes communities that demonstrate four key elements that align closely with NCDD's mission:

• Civic Engagement: Communities must show how they've meaningfully involved residents in identifying and addressing local challenges. This goes beyond traditional public meetings to include innovative approaches that reach diverse populations and create genuine opportunities for participation.
• Collaboration: Winners demonstrate how they've broken down silos between government, nonprofits, businesses, and residents. The award celebrates initiatives where different sectors work together as true partners, not just stakeholders.
• Inclusiveness: The program specifically looks for communities that have created pathways for underrepresented voices to participate in civic life. This includes efforts to engage youth, marginalized communities, and those who have historically been excluded from decision-making processes.
• Innovation: Communities are recognized for creative approaches to longstanding problems, often involving new forms of dialogue, deliberation, and community engagement.

The Power of Storytelling and Peer Learning

One of the most compelling aspects of the All-America City Award process is how it transforms communities into storytellers and teachers. Finalist communities don't just submit applications—they bring their work to life through 10-minute presentations that range from first-person testimonials to creative performances, from mock TV shows to rap presentations.

This storytelling approach serves multiple purposes. It forces communities to reflect deeply on their work, articulating not just what they did but why it mattered and how it changed their community. It also creates powerful peer learning opportunities, as teams from 20 finalist communities gather to watch, learn from, and cheer on each other's presentations.
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The annual event, held in Denver, goes beyond the competition itself to include workshops, panel discussions, and dedicated peer learning sessions. This creates a rich environment for dialogue and deliberation practitioners to share insights, challenge assumptions, and explore new approaches to community engagement.

Environmental Sustainability Through Inclusive Engagement

The 2025 All-America City Award theme, "Strengthening Environmental Sustainability through Inclusive Community Engagement," demonstrates how the program continues to evolve to address contemporary challenges. This theme recognizes that environmental issues cannot be solved through top-down approaches alone—they require the kind of inclusive dialogue and deliberation that brings together diverse perspectives and builds shared ownership of solutions.
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This focus on environmental sustainability through inclusive engagement offers valuable lessons for dialogue and deliberation practitioners. It highlights how communities can use collaborative processes to address complex, multi-faceted challenges that require both technical expertise and community buy-in.

​A Laboratory for Civic Innovation

​The All-America City Award program serves as a living laboratory for civic innovation. Each year's finalists and winners contribute to a growing body of knowledge about what works in community engagement. The National Civic League maintains extensive archives of presentations, case studies, and resources that document promising practices from communities across the country.
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This documentation serves the broader civic engagement field by providing concrete examples of how theoretical principles translate into practice. Communities can learn from peers who have successfully navigated similar challenges, adapted approaches to their local context, and measured the impact of their work.

Lessons for Dialogue and Deliberation Practitioners

​The All-America City Award program offers several key insights for those working to strengthen dialogue and deliberation in their communities:

• Start with authentic relationships: Winning communities consistently demonstrate that effective civic engagement begins with building genuine relationships across different sectors and populations. This requires sustained investment in relationship-building, not just project-based collaboration.
• Create multiple pathways for participation: The most successful communities don't rely on a single engagement strategy. Instead, they create diverse opportunities for participation that meet people where they are and accommodate different communication styles and preferences.
• Focus on outcomes, not just process: While the quality of dialogue and deliberation matters, the All-America City Award ultimately recognizes communities that achieve measurable results. This emphasis on outcomes helps ensure that engagement efforts translate into real change.
• Celebrate and share success: The program's emphasis on storytelling and peer learning demonstrates the importance of celebrating civic achievements and sharing lessons learned. This helps build momentum for continued engagement and inspires other communities to try similar approaches.
• Invest in long-term capacity building: The application process itself serves as a form of capacity building, requiring communities to reflect on their strengths, identify areas for improvement, and develop strategies for sustained engagement.

Building Stronger Democracy Through Local Action

​The All-America City Award program embodies the principle that democracy is strengthened through local action and civic participation. By recognizing and celebrating communities that have successfully engaged residents in addressing shared challenges, the program demonstrates that meaningful change is possible when people come together across differences to work toward common goals.

For dialogue and deliberation practitioners, the All-America City Award offers both inspiration and practical guidance. It shows how the principles we champion—inclusive participation, respectful dialogue, collaborative problem-solving—can be implemented at scale to address real community challenges.
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As we face increasingly complex challenges that require collective action, the All-America City Award program provides a valuable reminder that communities have the capacity to solve problems when they create the right conditions for civic engagement. The program's 75-year history demonstrates that this capacity exists in communities of all sizes and types, from small rural towns to major metropolitan areas.

Looking Forward: Opportunities for Collaboration

The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation and the National Civic League share a commitment to strengthening civic engagement and building more inclusive democratic processes. The All-America City Award program offers numerous opportunities for collaboration and mutual learning.

NCDD members might consider encouraging their communities to apply for the award, using the application process as a way to reflect on and strengthen their engagement efforts. The program's emphasis on peer learning also creates opportunities for NCDD practitioners to share their expertise and learn from communities that have successfully implemented innovative engagement strategies.
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The All-America City Award demonstrates that when communities commit to inclusive dialogue and deliberation, remarkable things become possible. It's a testament to the power of civic engagement and a source of inspiration for all who believe in the potential of democratic participation to create positive change.

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To learn more about the All-America City Award or to explore how your community might participate, visit the National Civic League's website. The 2025 All-America City Award Event will be held in Denver, Colorado from June 27-29, 2025.