Community Foundations for Civic Health: Virtual Learning Series
August 18 @ 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm EDT
About Community Foundations for Civic Health
Community Foundations for Civic Health (CFCH) is a national initiative led by CFLeads, Rhode Island Foundation, and the National Civic League. The initiative supports community foundations in confidently advancing civic health by leveraging community leadership, designing their own civic health strategies or plans, and engaging in shared problem-solving and peer learning.
“Civic health” describes all the ways people make decisions, solve problems, and build community together. It depends on two things: the civic readiness of individuals — their knowledge, skills, and connections — and the civic opportunities that communities provide to help people develop and apply those skills. Community foundations play a unique role in supporting these efforts by convening partners, investing in civic infrastructure, and amplifying community leadership.
About the Virtual Learning Series
The Community Foundations for Civic Health Virtual Learning Series is designed for Community Foundations in the early- and mid-stages of developing or strengthening their civic health practice. This learning opportunity brings together trusted content expertise, peer learning, and real-world case examples from community foundations across the field, highlighting what effective civic health work looks like in practice.
The series will build participants’ confidence, clarity, and readiness to advance civic health strategies that are rooted in community leadership, collaboration, and measurable impact. Participants will leave energized and better equipped to apply civic health approaches within their own communities and partner with key actors to support their efforts.
Learning Objectives
1) Build a shared understanding of civic health, its connection to community leadership, and opportunities to embed civic health into current foundation work.
2) Explore approaches for identifying strategic partners and cultivating staff and board buy‑in around a shared civic health vision.
3) Develop and strengthen understanding of strategies, tactics, and approaches for building, operationalizing, and measuring civic health work tailored to your community context.
Structure & Details
8-part virtual learning series including content experts, peer learning, and homework/pre-reads between each session. Each session is 90-minutes (3:00–4:30 pm ET / 12:00–1:30 PT). For more detailed information about each session, please click here.
Key Dates:
August 18, 2026 – Session 1: Introduction & What Is Civic Health?
August 20, 2026 – Session 2: Ecosystem Mapping
Optional In-Person Engagement: Sep 9-10, 2026 – Community Foundations for Civic Health Summit
September 29, 2026 – Session 3: Sensemaking for Community & Organization Strategy (Workshop Session)
November 5, 2026 – Session 4: What Are the Most Effective Civic Health Practices and Approaches?
December 8, 2026 – Session 5: How to Measure Civic Health
January 19, 2027 – Session 6: How to Communicate Civic Health
February 9, 2027 – Session 7: How to Fund Civic Health and Engage Your Board
March 16, 2027 – Session 8: Your Civic Health Next Steps
Participants
Each community foundation is encouraged to develop a core learning team to engage in the series. Community foundations that are not able to form a core learning team are also welcome! Recommended team makeup includes 3 (maximum) members, including:
– A staff person driving strategic civic health work (team lead)- A CEO or senior leadership team member (optional)- A board champion (optional)
Core team members are expected to attend all sessions. For select sessions, additional staff may be invited to join (e.g., your communications lead may be invited to participate in the communications session).
