The Together book club wrapped up on November 9 with a crash course in deliberative dialogue and community forums. DMC Executive Director Rachel Mosness guided the ACE communities through a typical deliberative forum and what they could expect as potential moderators.

On November 2, the second installment in the DMC and ACE book club took place over Zoom. Following the guidelines listed in Together: Building Stronger, Better Communities, ACE representatives participated in a “Community Checkup” to assess the status of civic life in their towns. According to Dr. Mathews, “Many of the things communities do must be done by citizens working together.”

On Tuesday, October 26, the David Mathews Center for Civic Life and Alabama Communities of Excellence kicked off the first session of an online discussion series with various ACE communities. Each week, groups meet via Zoom to discuss how to become “leaderful” communities based on a forthcoming book by Dr. David Mathews, entitled Together: Building Better, Stronger Communities. The goal of this series is to help community leaders and active citizens strengthen civic life in their communities and connect with other small town leaders across the state.

This grant is one of 83 distributed statewide by the Alabama Humanities Alliance to help cultural organizations bounce back from the pandemic.

Jean O’Connor-Snyder intern Benjamin Hand shares how the people and places in Walker County transform a community into a home.

Jean O’Connor-Snyder intern Lauren Landers explores how the community of Camden celebrates the collective history of the Black Belt region through art.

Even if you weren’t able to join us live for this year’s Civic Institute, you don’t have to miss out on all the amazing content highlighting the great work being done by our community partners all over Alabama. Download this interactive PDF of all the day’s programming with clickable links to videos and more!

When I joined the Kettering Foundation in 1981, the board and I agreed that in addition to being president, I would continue the research and writing I had been doing while in universities. So, I have had two jobs. Now I would like to have just one.

Jean O’Connor-Snyder intern Katy Hurd delves into the role of Capstone Rural Health Center as a staple for Walker County in both healthcare and community connections.

Jean O’Connor-Snyder intern Oquendo Bernard captures how small-town volunteer programs serve their community and extend a helping hand even during the most challenging times.

Since the creation of the Greater Sylacauga Resiliency Network in 2020, the Sylacauga community has come together to make a difference and strengthen civic engagement. One of the major goals of the Network is collaborating with other organizations and assessing common needs.

Jean O’Connor-Snyder intern Patrick Dutton reflects on how two Walker County natives found new opportunities to better serve their hometown.

The David Mathews Center for Civic Life is happy to announce Rachel Naftel Mosness has been chosen to lead the organization as its new Executive Director.

On June 21, the David Mathews Center for Civic Life hosted the third annual workshop of the Innovators in Civic Education Fellows. Teacher Fellows assist the DMC in educational programming by providing valuable insight on how to create the most relevant and useful resources for educators, both in the classroom and the community.

The summer of 2021 kicked off with a series of professional development workshops across the state. During the week of June 7-11, DMC Education Director Gabrielle Lamplugh attended four workshops to present on educational resources.

The David Mathews Center for Civic Life is pleased to announce the hiring of Loren Gary as Development Director. In this role, Loren will work with DMC Executive Director Cristin Brawner to drive the organization’s sustainable growth to meet its mission. Loren will be responsible for developing and maintaining active and productive relationships with internal and external constituencies.

The Board of Directors of the David Mathews Center for Civic Life (DMC) is launching a strategic planning process for the organization that will define its direction for the next five years.

Throughout nearly two decades of serving civic life in Alabama, the David Mathews Center has worked closely with our state’s local libraries. Our programming has focused on engaging young people to be active citizens, and equipping communities to host deliberative forums as they seek to work better together; our partnerships with public libraries have helped us promote these objectives one community at a time.