Richard Young

CivicLex is spreading a new model to strengthen civic health and revive local democracy by redesigning how citizens and government institutions interact for the benefit of both.  

Richard Young has designed a model that any city or town in the United States can adopt to fundamentally redesign how citizens engage in local democracy, and ultimately strengthen communities’ ability to solve their own challenges. Across the United States, you can see collapsing indicators across a variety of aspects of our democratic life – shrinking levels of civic literacy, increasing social isolation and polarization, diminishing trust in institutions, and governmental decisions being made with minimal and ineffective public engagement. On a national scale, these trends are helping the American public become increasingly open to non-democratic forms of government. 

American democracy is inherently local, so re-stitching it must begin by re-stitching faith and trust at the local level and demonstrating that engagement in local government can be meaningful and produce better results for everyone. People want more voice and autonomy over the decisions that affect their daily lives, and yet most don’t know where to begin – because of a lack of knowledge, a lack of social trust, and a lack of responsive institutions who seek their input. Richard founded CivicLex to work with both sides of the equation – citizens and government – to bring about mindset shift and normalize new behaviors. The work centers around three strategic pillars: civic literacy and knowledge, social cohesion, and institutional reform. Within each, CivicLex plays the role as catalyst, creating regular and sustained opportunities to demonstrate what effective participation in local government looks like – until that becomes the expected norm. This means intentionally designing for and committing to a marathon rather than a sprint, because behavior change takes time. In Lexington, signs of change are now everywhere. Take, for example, the comprehensive city plan, which in this last cycle incorporated 15,000 individual citizen inputs gathered from more than 500 small-to-medium gatherings, including in people’s homes. (This, in contrast to the two public comment sessions available in the last cycle.) And critically, the new volume of input changed the substance of the plan itself – including, among other things, the first ever set of climate resilience goals.  

Such substantive improvements create a positive cycle: people are more likely to participate and recruit others to do the same when they see the fruits of that engagement. Government is more likely to create meaningful space for participation when it’s not just a handful of angry shouters. Then culture and attitudes and expectations shift – toward an ultimate vision of “everyone a participant” in local civic life. Beginning in Lexington, Kentucky, CivicLex is a prime example of “scaling deep”: Richard is adamant that making this work requires a federalist, place-based approach where change funnels from the local level up to the national level. But the work is also changing policy and practice in local government, and it’s an idea built to spread and “scale out” as well, first across Kentucky (where CivicLex is now meeting with many other municipalities) and eventually beyond (pilots are underway in North Dakota and Colorado). 

In our most recent nationwide elections, the United States ranked twenty-sixth in voter turnout among the thirty-two OECD nations for which data are available – with about 60 percent of eligible voters participating. Turnout in local elections is consistently much lower (one study revealed that turnout averaged less than 15 percent in elections for mayor and city council in the nation’s ten largest cities.) But low turnout is merely a symptom of a deeper (and it seems, growing) problem: a lack of trust in our institutions and in each other. Average confidence in major U.S. institutions (from the presidency and the Supreme Court to newspapers and the criminal justice system) fell to its lowest point ever in 2023 at 26 percent. Young people’s faith in democratic politics is lower than any other age group, with a report from the Centre for the Future of Democracy at the University of Cambridge finding that in almost every global region it is among 18-34 year olds that satisfaction with democracy is in steepest decline. The rise and sophistication of misinformation and disinformation only complicates matters further – so much so that researchers in 2024 call it an “unprecedented” threat to American democracy. 

Of particular concern: Americans’ trust in state and local government is now beginning to follow the same negative trajectory as their feelings toward federal politics. This is in part because national political issues are overshadowing local government concerns and eroding people’s inclination and ability to solve challenges, even though it’s precisely at the local level where they can make the most measurable difference. But it’s also because citizens have little knowledge of how local government works, and even less trust that the people serving in local office are looking out for their best interests. It’s not necessarily that they don’t care; it’s that they don’t know where to direct that concern. Each of the issues negatively impacting civic life reinforce each other. People with low civic literacy who are misinformed are less likely to engage in civic life. People who are less likely to engage in civic life are more likely to be distrustful of civic institutions. People who are distrustful of civic institutions are more likely to be distrustful of their neighbors. Communities with low levels of social cohesion are more likely to polarize politically. Communities with high levels of polarization are more likely to struggle to solve community challenges. Caught in a negative tailspin, citizens pull away from civic life because they distrust the process, and when that very process produces policies at odds with their concerns, they distrust and retreat further. After a time, they begin to lose faith that civic life is worth participating in at all.  

In spite of this, few of the interventions that exist in the democracy ecosystem are geared towards local government. Instead, they focus on civic education or social cohesion campaigns at a national level, fueled by national philanthropic dollars. Their diagnosis of the problem is accurate, but their responses fall short because they rarely land well in places like Lexington, Kentucky or West Fargo, North Dakota – and they are never there to stay. Often the emphasis on “saving democracy” explicitly falls on deaf ears. People care about local fire and police and roads and parks – and they want to have a voice that’s heard. This was a key insight into Richard’s design process: making local government work again – and reviving democracy itself – starts from the ground up, by re-stitching the local trust and relationships and sense of agency upon which everything else rests. Trying to short circuit that process will only lead to fleeting wins and more frustration.  

Richard believes that permanently improving civic health and local democracy requires both individual transformation and systemic change – and has built a strategy that targets both. So much of collective civic life depends on the combined sentiment of individuals, so CivicLex focuses on equipping those individuals with critical information and relationships – but also with the motivation to participate and to keep participating over time. On the other side, the organization partners closely with local government (including young city staff) to redesign how and how often they connect with the public and create room for input on the decision-making that will affect life at the city level. CivicLex straddles the space between both: a new kind of civic institution that acts as a catalyst to revive civic health and that can be a model anywhere in the nation. 

In an environment of cynicism and distrust across the political spectrum, this can be harder than one might think. But CivicLex is getting traction, leveraging what they call “major civic moments” – budgeting, public meetings, comprehensive planning, etc. – to make transformational changes to public processes that can re-make the role that residents play into one that is generative and beneficial for public policy. For individuals, this means making the process of engaging in civic life fun, joyful, rewarding, and something that becomes part of people’s daily lives. For institutions, it means orienting them precisely to support and reward that engagement. For both, it means approaching the work much more as a marathon than a sprint – a deep, sustained commitment to building and maintaining the relational and institutional fabric that has eroded. 

The work of CivicLex is oriented around three reinforcing pillars: civic education, social cohesion, and institutional reform. Within each, Richard and his team have designed a range of programs and creative interventions – which then collectively increase both the volume and the effectiveness of public participation in local government. That, in turn, produces better results for all.  

CivicLex helps residents of all ages understand how the community works through educational programs, workshops, and resources. In 2023 they supported 114 events focused on civic learning – but only 30 that they managed themselves; the rest were grafted onto existing community events. CivicLex also partners with the public school system where they’ve re-designed high school civics to be focused on local government and civic engagement – grounding theory in local practice. They also work with adults to help them understand the basic underpinnings of local civic life in the community – from budgeting to elections to school board decision-making. The goal is to create a shared baseline of understanding that is a starting point for effective participation.  

A baseline civic education is necessary but insufficient: Another core ingredient is staying informed with accurate knowledge on what is happening locally and why it matters. To this end, CivicLex launched its own news shop that covers every single public government meeting (an average of 17 per week) and publishes quality, free, accurate, and neutral information about the daily civic actions shaping the city. This work has been recognized by the Knight Foundation as a model for expanding public access to timely and relevant information about local civic matters and will help build a well-informed public that engages in local decision-making. The coverage is so effective that it is regularly featured on local news stations in their own reporting. Timely information is also easily accessible via the website and regular newsletters, where even first-time visitors can find answers to basic questions like “How is American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money being allocated in Lexington?” 

In a country increasingly segregated by income level, by race, by political affiliation, by age, by power – connections across those lines need to be facilitated directly. This is a key role that CivicLex plays in re-weaving the social fabric: creating spaces for people from different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives to come together and learn from each other and build relationships. CivicLex organizes events and forums – some big, some small – with the goal of strengthening community cohesion and building a culture of inclusivity and mutual respect. One example is “On the Table” – a program that convenes neighbors in coffee shops, churches, schools, parks, backyard BBQs and elsewhere to have regular conversations about the future of the city. In 2022, On the Table hosted 509 conversations in a single week about the future of Lexington, deliberately bringing together people of different races, socioeconomic status, neighborhoods, etc. Such bridging work is an opportunity to reinforce the civic education work as well. A less formal example looks like a city councilmember co-hosting a BBQ or a pumpkin carving or birdhouse making session for citizens of all stripes to come with family to connect, to ask questions, to learn, and to begin to feel a part of the decision-making fabric of the city.  

Most importantly, CivicLex knows that an informed, engaged, and even connected community doesn’t necessarily lead to stronger civic health all on its own – they need civic institutions to come to the table. So nearly half their work involves partnering with civic institutions to make resident engagement a rewarding and meaningful experience. Much of this involves piloting and integrating new ways of governing that center residents in their decision-making processes with the goal of building a self-governance that reflects community needs and fosters a sense of shared responsibility and trust. Perhaps the clearest example of this work is the “Public Input” initiative where CivicLex worked with local government to research how to redesign public meetings. Over two years, they talked to more than 1,000 residents and high-ranking city staff to create 15 recommendations to change how public meetings and public input works, about 7 of which have already been adopted, including: creating a new Public Information Officer position inside the City Council’s Office, adopting a new digital public engagement software called EngageLex, launching a new Public Input hub on the primary county government website, and adopting clearer, better guidelines for giving public comment in Council chambers. As a result, both the volume and quality of public engagement has surged.  

Another creative way that Richard advances reforms within government is by embedding non-government workers with arts or music backgrounds in city teams for one-year paid residencies (in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts). CivicLex has done so most recently with a filmmaker and a stand-up comedian. The idea is that they bring fresh perspective, new ideas, and even laughter into environments that could use them most. At the Department of Finance, therefore, you’ll have an artist who works to develop new, graphical representations of the city budget that are significantly more approachable for the average citizen. And that same artist will lead sessions across the city that recruit citizens to draw what they believe would be fair district lines – as a way to raise awareness about gerrymandering and grow support for nonpartisan redistricting.  

There is magic in how these three pillars come together and produce results. Take the city budget: civic education offerings help young people and adults learn about the importance of the city’s budgeting process and how it happens; local reporting keeps these same residents informed on how the Mayor and Council are deliberating on the budget, and how and where to get engaged; CivicLex “bridging” work convenes residents in public spaces to connect with elected officials and policymakers and share their perspectives on specific allocations. Finally, a focus on institutional reform encourages the city to test practices like participatory budgeting to more deeply engage residents in future budgeting processes. 

The presence of CivicLex has already had a major impact on participation in local government. The process for designing and prioritizing the city’s comprehensive plan was completely different from past years, with 80-90 facilitators across the city hosting conversations around land use policy from parks to community centers to people’s living rooms. CivicLex collected a data set of 15,000 individual comments, as well as pre-and-post surveys with residents about the process of engagement and commenting itself. As a result of such robust input, Lexington included a climate resiliency plan for the first time ever (and a goal of being net zero on emissions by 2050), as well as specific plans to undo the lingering effects of redlining in transit, zoning and housing policy. The city has launched a park equity accelerator as well as a way to combat disparities in use of public parks across racial and class lines. You see the effects in other ways too: in how the city is communicating its decisions and transparency without the direct guidance of CivicLex. For example, Lexington put out an RFP focused on analyzing the role of its boards and commissions for the purpose of making them more representative of community-at-large and functional. In 2024 CivicLex is launching a civic health assessment tool – with the hopes that it acts as an annual benchmark of trust levels and engagement with local government, as well as government responsiveness and effectiveness. Such a tool would demonstrate and track growth of engagement of individuals over time, as well as institutional improvements.  

In Lexington, the scaling strategy is to scale deep. But Richard and team are also focused on scaling up (via changing policy at the city and county level) and scaling out – across Kentucky and then beyond. To do so, they see their role as one of demonstrating a better methodology, and then seeding it elsewhere – but with the flexibility to adapt to different realities. The vehicle for doing so in Kentucky is via the Kentucky Civic Trust, for which Richard was a founding member. The Trust is both a charitable fund at the Blue Grass Community Foundation and a field-building network that is helping create the local and state-wide conditions for civic health work to be successful. The Trust is being built on a decade of relationships with hundreds of Kentuckians across the state through the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange. This means state policymakers and local officials are involved across the political spectrum, which is critical in preventing this work from being labeled as partisan. To date the Kentucky Civic Trust has partnerships in 70 of Kentucky’s 120 counties. Other key partnerships include the University of Kentucky, with whom CivicLex has worked to help integrate civic literacy & health modules across their existing infrastructure of extension programs that reach into every state county.  

CivicLex also focuses on expanding both regional and national philanthropy for this kind of local civic health work. Richard himself is active in national democracy reform circles, having spoken over the last two years at 40 national convenings about the CivicLex approach. Until more national attention (and dollars) goes toward strengthening civic health, he argues, the national state of democracy simply won’t change very much. Richard works to seed this mindset shift and has also launched in 2023 a technical assistance practice for organizations looking to pilot similar approaches – as far as West Fargo, North Dakota – which is also a way to generate some fee-for-service revenue.  In 20 years, Richard wants every American to have the opportunity to meaningfully participate in the decisions that shape where they live, and he is confident that as more cities adopt approaches like CivicLex, it can happen. 

CivicLex has a seven-person team and an annual budget of $700,000 – with revenues coming in part via philanthropic grants (50%), local supporters (25%) and community engagement consulting and fee-for-service (25%). The goal by 2027 is to reduce grants to 20% and increase revenue from events and sponsorships.

Richard is a seventh generation Kentuckian. For most of his upbringing, he and his peers were told that in order to make something of their lives, they had to leave – a mentality baked in from a young age, that they had no individual agency in their own communities, and that success lay elsewhere. Richard ventured out, though not too far, to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he pursued formal training as a professional bassist. However, the pull of his roots proved strong. More than a decade ago, Richard returned to his Kentucky home and embarked on an entrepreneurial journey.

In 2013, Richard co-founded MusicWorks, a program that uses group musicmaking to foster social and community development. It was an outgrowth of early musical experiences from high school, when he and a couple of buddies launched “pop up” chamber music concerts across the city as a way to bring music to more people and build community. Later in 2013, he co-founded Lexington’s first place-based Community Development Corporation called North Limestone, which he ran for almost four years – work that spanned affordable housing development, greenspace and environmental work, long-range neighborhood planning and more. He witnessed how many people still felt that underlying lack of agency – who expressed that change in the community happened to them, not with them. Five people would show up to a conversation about city-wide zoning implications. Meanwhile, Richard spent time in City Hall as well and was surprised by how many policy decisions were made completely independent of citizen voice. Throughout these years he developed close relationships with his neighbors and was impressed with their ability to articulate a vision for the future of Lexington when asked -- even as those same people were encouraging their children to leave home in order to find success. He asked himself, how might their visions be heard and incorporated?

In 2016, Richard launched CivicLex – as a way to counter the pervasive feeling of powerlessness people felt to shape the world around them. In reflecting across his life, a clear and consistent through-line is his commitment to community, to building mutual trust and respect, to using public space for the benefit of all, to encouraging people to find their voice and power. Richard is not only an innovator, but a weaver: pulling together multiple voices into a more cohesive whole, much like his role as bassist in an orchestra, providing the harmonic, resonant backbone that may not garner as much attention as others, but without which an orchestra sounds incomplete.