- Divided Community Project
- American Spirit Executive Summary
- Why We Started this Initiative
- What is Community Spirit and why does it matter?
- What makes a Community Spirit powerful?
- How can you go about identifying and unifying Community Spirit?
- What makes a Community Spirit Powerful?
- How do you select and prepare a group to identify you community's spirit?
- How can meetings achieve consensus?
- How can a community try out the ideas?
- Resources
OUR ASPIRATIONS CAN BRING US TOGETHER
- Divided Community Project
- American Spirit Executive Summary
- Why We Started this Initiative
- What is Community Spirit and why does it matter?
- What makes a Community Spirit powerful?
- How can you go about identifying and unifying Community Spirit?
- What makes a Community Spirit Powerful?
- How do you select and prepare a group to identify you community's spirit?
- How can meetings achieve consensus?
- How can a community try out the ideas?
- Resources
OUR VIEW OF THE AMERICAN SPIRIT
WE SEEK TO BE INNOVATIVE AND ENTREPRENEURIAL
Americans’ ingenuity and their spirit of taking the initiative may have been borne of necessity – the need to create a new type of government, to survive as pioneers in new environments. Today innovation is fostered by Americans’ economic success, personal liberties, and our commitment to create opportunity for all.
A Closer Look
- Stories from history
- Stories that bring this goal home today
- Quotations and speechwriting materials
- What young people are doing
WE SEEK TO BE POSITIVE, TO EMPLOY A “CAN DO” APPROACH
Americans are traditionally a positive people. We greet a new disease with the determination to find a vaccination or cure. We volunteer to help in recovery from a natural disaster. Graduation speakers admonish graduates to “make a difference.” It’s not that we have been or are perfect, but we seek to strive, in the words of the U.S. Constitution’s preamble, to “form a more perfect union.”
A Closer Look
- Stories from history
- Stories that bring this goal home today
- Quotations and speechwriting materials
- What young people are doing
WE UNITE IN OUR AIM TO BE INCLUSIVE AND TO APPRECIATE EACH OTHER’S INDIVIDUALITY
We are better together. That requires including everyone in opportunities and understanding the value that emerges from our varying backgrounds and ideas and our welcoming and respecting each other. We are determined not to repeat the tragic results of the opposite course — exclusion, discrimination, and polarization. Instead, we will be one people.
- Stories from history
- Stories that bring this goal home today
- Quotations and speechwriting materials
- What young people are doing
A COMMUNITY SPIRIT
That is aspirational and widely embraced can -- like an American Spirit -- motivate us, help us feel a part of something bigger than ourselves, and stir a generous spirit toward each other. You can get involved. We include below a downloadable guide to identifying a community spirit. In addition, we include a guide for holding a discussion among friends or neighbors to tell the stories that bring home your community spirit or the American Spirit. We'll post some of those stories on this website.
Identifying a Community Spirit
Identifying a Community Spirit is a step-by-step guide for coming to consensus on your community’s spirit.
Hosting a Conversation About the American or Community Spirit Among Neighbors and Friends
Hosting American Spirit Storytelling Conversations: A Brief Guide with 18 Ideas offers pointers on planning, sending notice, facilitating, and following up on a small meeting to bring home the American spirit or the spirit within your community.
A Closer Look