CivicLex

Lexington, Kentucky

In 2017, I created CivicLex, an organization that has since become a nationally-recognized as a model for reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century.

At CivicLex, I am responsible for strategic direction, fiscal management, fundraising, program direction, board management, and all other aspects of the organization. Since our launch, I have raised over $1.5M for our work, spoken at the Library of Congress, and have grown our organization four-fold.

What is CivicLex?

CivicLex is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civic education organization that is trying to build a healthier civic fabric in Lexington, KY. We have three areas of focus for our work: civic education, civic transformation, and relational development. Each focus area has goals that interplay with each other in addition to their own unique goals. All of our areas of focus are in service of our Vision: we want to build a Lexington in which all residents are able to participate in the decisions that shape where they live in a meaningful way.


Civic Education

Our civic education work helps residents understand the issues impacting Fayette County and equips them with the knowledge and tools they need to engage with those issues in a meaningful way. Our approach focuses on providing timely information about issues moving through city hall, hosting events that allow residents to learn about broad processes and issues in civic life, and long-term participatory research projects into topics like local redistricting or budgeting.

Civic Transformation

Our civic transformation work helps civic institutions build processes that enable greater resident participation and broader democratic engagement. Our approach focuses on reforming specific processes like public legislative input, working with institutions to bring a broader perspective into decision making, and co-designing creative solutions to civic processes.

Relational Development

Relational Development is the most critical aspect of our work. We understand that social relationships are the primary mechanism for advancing or shaping civic issues in our community and are vital for building a cohesive civic fabric. Our relational development work is centered around creating spaces in which residents can connect directly with people in positions of political power. Our approach to this work involves giving residents and power-holders shared governance over parts of our work, connecting residents and power-holders in public workshops, and specific facilitation techniques that decentralize formalized experience.

What have I done for CivicLex?

  • Responsible for long-term vision, budgeting, administrative duties, program creation, etc.

  • Built all programs from scratch, including Kentucky’s first-ever Civic Artist in Residence program, a media consortium funded by the Lenfest Institute and Facebook Journalism Project, a widely-acclaimed public civic education curricula, and more.

  • Currently working alongside municipal government to reform public comment processes, public meeting expectations, and council redistricting process.

  • CivicLex’s work has cited by Danielle Allen, Chair of the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University as a national best practice for reinventing American Democracy. National in- depth collaborations include with the American Academy for Arts & Sciences, Generation Citizen, Engaging Local Government Leaders, National Endowment for the Arts, and more.

  • Rapidly grew organization from non-existent to one whose civic education work reaches 30k residents annually and has a $100k+ annual budget, raising over $500k, including an Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.