Everyday Democracy Launches “Doing Democracy” to Harness Civic Imagination for America’s Next 250 Years

​Everyday Democracy’s virtual conversation, “Doing Democracy: Using Civic Imagination to Shape Our Next 250 Years,” explores how creativity, art, and community rituals fuel democratic change. Despite 76% of Americans believing the political system needs significant change, only 25% are confident it can change. The panel features Chandanie Orgias, Shawnee Benton Gibson, and Nadine Bloch, moderated by Everyday Democracy President Merle McGee. They discuss how civic imagination bridges desire for change and belief in feasibility through embodied practice, cultural organizing, and art as dialogue. The event introduces the OurNext250 gathering guide, inviting communities nationwide to host inclusive gatherings that build connection, spark shared vision, and practice democracy. This work advances NCDD’s mission by demonstrating how civic imagination transforms participants into civic agents, reshapes community connections, addresses barriers, and recognizes democracy as created through everyday actions, storytelling, and cultural organizing.

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Everyday Democracy is hosting "Doing Democracy: Using Civic Imagination to Shape Our Next 250 Years," a virtual conversation exploring how creativity, art, and community ritual can fuel democratic change as the United States marks its 250th anniversary amid a moment when 76 percent of Americans believe the political system needs significant change, but only 25 percent are confident it can change. The event brings together leaders using civic imagination—the practice of envisioning better futures and mapping steps to get there—as a critical tool for meeting this moment through art, culture, and new ways of being in community that expand what feels possible and strengthen movements for justice and belonging. Co-sponsored by Beautiful Trouble and The Horizons Project, the conversation will inspire local civic action, practical steps to practice democracy in everyday life, and connection with a community of creators and organizers, while introducing Everyday Democracy's OurNext250 gathering guide for communities nationwide to host inclusive gatherings building connection, sparking shared vision, and helping people practice democracy together.

The panel features Chandanie Orgias, National Director of Narrative and Culture at Everyday Democracy with over 14 years driving people-centered initiatives across education, arts, and community engagement including coaching school leaders, amplifying youth voices at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and guiding racial equity initiatives; Shawnee Benton Gibson, artivist, psychotherapist, director, and cultural strategist who founded Spirit of a Woman Leadership Development Institute and co-founded the ARIAH Foundation, using psychodrama, storytelling, ritual, and immersive public experiences to create spaces where communities confront injustice and imagine liberated futures; and Nadine Bloch, activist artist, political community organizer, and Training Director for Beautiful Trouble whose work explores the intersection of art and politics where creative cultural resistance becomes effective political action, powerful way to reclaim agency, fight oppressive systems, and invest in communities. Moderator Merle McGee, President and CEO of Everyday Democracy, brings over 25 years of fighting alongside historically marginalized communities for dignity and racial, gender, and economic justice.

The conversation addresses how to bridge the gap between desire for change and belief in its feasibility through methodologies including embodied practice and psychodrama that create kinesthetic experiences helping people "feel" different possibilities, cultural organizing that builds long-term community resilience rather than merely mobilizing for events, and art as a foundation for dialogue, grounding conversations in history and local identity. The OurNext250 initiative invites communities to host gatherings focused on reckoning, reflecting, and reimagining, recognizing that democracy is not inherited but created through everyday actions, storytelling, and cultural organizing. For dialogue and deliberation practitioners, civic imagination offers approaches for transforming participants into civic agents while reshaping their connections to communities and physical spaces, addressing barriers including rugged individualism, systemic disconnect between public values and official actions, generational trauma, and lack of practice with shared decision-making.

To watch "Doing Democracy: Using Civic Imagination to Shape Our Next 250 Years" and access the OurNext250 gathering guide, visit https://everyday-democracy.org/doing-democracy-civic-imagination/