Discover Your Civic Personality Type

You see the injustice and inequality in the world and immediately springs right into action.

Superpowers: Building Relationships, Leadership, Event Planning

Instead of getting hung up over an issue, you are motivated to fix it right away. The Organizer/Mobilizer’s main goal is to help build sustainable methods that work in creating stronger and stabler communities.

Learn how YOU can participate in policymaking and read our How a Bill Becomes a Law Guide.

Strengthen Your Mobilizer / Organizer Skills

• Advocate and Volunteer: Help out at your community center, get out the vote, support political campaigns, or champion causes you care about. With Mobilize.Us, discover events in your area hosted by organizations and groups working on various issues. Attend, learn more about an issue, and build your network!

• Map Out Resources and Stakeholders in Your Community: Is there an issue in your neighborhood that you want to fix? Strategize how to bring people to support the cause–creating change takes community. With this toolkit by MITRE, map out the stakeholders in your community to identify who you need to engage to get the work done!

• Start Your Own Project: Ioby is a crowd-funding platform that helps local leaders, or anyone with an idea, construct a project of their own in order to achieve change within their communities. It is a great opportunity for mobilizers to address a local problem and galvanize support around a potential solution. Create your own project or support local-led community change and browse projects and consider volunteering or donating!

Curious to learn more?

• How to Mobilize and Organize
  A series of short video lessons that will teach you the basics of organizing and its role in helping you make change. Source: Resistance School

• Involving Your Neighbors & Local Stakeholders
  This two-page guide discusses the basics of stakeholders and how to involve them. Source: ioby

• New York City Community Boards
  This two-page guide will help you learn all you need to know about community boards and how to join one. Source: Women Creating Change

You care about making sure people’s immediate needs are met.

Superpowers: Building Relationships, Listening to Others, Locating and Distributing Resources

The Civic Guardian/Nurturer is someone who acts as the support system for their community and individuals who may be struggling. They are usually introspective, thoughtful, and often come up with ways to promote community well-being.

Explore topics and strategies for taking care of yourself and your community in our Community Care Guides.

Strengthen Your Guardian/Nurturer Skills

• Find Your Community Board and Attend a Meeting
  Your local board is a great place to meet neighbors and collectively organize to make change in your community. Find your community board and other information about the districts you live in through the NYC Boundaries Map.

• Get Involved with Your Mutual Aid Network
  Mutual aid is about neighbors helping neighbors. Groups dedicated to providing aid and resources to community members exist in many NYC neighborhoods. Discover how to join a mutual aid group or set up your own group to build relationships, collaborate with neighbors, and support your community through MutualAid.nyc.

• Volunteer with New York Cares
  New York Cares is the largest volunteer organization in NYC offering hundreds of opportunities to volunteer in all five boroughs from serving meals to teaching children how to play chess.

Curious to learn more?

• Community Care – Not Just Self-Care – Is Key to Our Collective Wellbeing
  Learn about what community care entails and the importance of taking care of not only oneself, but of others around you. Source: Author

• Tricia Hersey: Rest & Collective Care as Tools for Liberation
  This video includes speaker and founder of the Nap Ministry, Tricia Hersey, where she discusses how to use rest as a form of resisting and disrupting systems of oppression. Source: Tricia Hersey

You get down to the root causes of issues to imagine futures and create change.

Superpowers: Researching, Documenting, Gathering Stories
Investigators constantly research topics in order to gain a deeper insight of social issues that certain communities are faced with so that society can be better equipped in providing solutions to these problems.

Ready to take a deeper dive? Browse all of our guides on rights, duties, voting, and government - Civic Basics Guides

Strengthen Your Investigator/Researcher Skills

• Sharpen Your Research Skills
  Check out Digital Civics Toolkit’s Investigate Guide to learn about the importance of finding credible resources and reflecting on personal biases, how to understand infographics, and how to effectively share information you have learned with others.

• Investigate Your Elected Officials
  Discover the financial backers of your representatives on Open Secrets and think about how they align with your values and interests.

Curious to learn more?

• Open Data for All New Yorkers
  NYC OpenData is a platform that offers transparency and publishes free public data on New York City agencies and other partners. It also allows you to access training opportunities and upcoming events. Source: NYC OpenData

• Op-Ed Writing: Tips and Tricks
  This guide offers tips for finding credible information, prompts for getting started, and the standard structure to follow when writing an opinion piece (also known as an Op-Ed). Source: The OpEd Project

• Fact Check
  Factcheck.org is a platform where people can check whether certain political information is accurate, or not. Source: The Annenberg Public Policy Center