Civics Unplugged is a 501(c)(3) social enterprise founded in 2019 that supports leaders of Gen Z with the training, funding, and network they need to become civic innovators that build a brighter future for humanity. We are re-imagining civic education and sparking a global civic revival. We do this by building a community of young leaders who are committed to realizing their potential and supporting the flourishing of their communities and the world around them. Civics Unplugged runs an intensive three-month leadership program that trains hundreds of high schoolers each year in the fundamentals of personal development, systems thinking, and civic literacy. The Fellowship prepares Fellows to take full advantage of CU’s digital community. Staying active in the community unlocks access to more opportunities to continue developing the knowledge, skills, and practices needed to realize one's full potential. In addition to receiving training, members of the CU Community receive mentorship and direct financial investment to scale initiatives that catalyze human flourishing around the world. Our community represents all 50 U.S. States, as well as 76 countries around the globe spanning North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. 74% of our community identifies as young women, 70% identify as POC, 22% are part of an active U.S. Military family, and 40% will be first generation college students. It is in this diverse community that the magic of CU emerges. Everything we do at Civics Unplugged is built with Gen Zers across the world, ensuring that everything we create relates to our target audience and stays relevant in a fast-paced environment. And given that our programming is digital-first, almost any student, no matter their location, can join this community and train to become a civic superhero. By the end of this decade, the Civics Unplugged movement will have supported the flourishing of millions around the world.
External link for Civics Unplugged
New York, NY 10016, US
Civics Unplugged reposted this
Job alert!! Amazing position open at Civics Unplugged. Very cool opportunity to do meaningful work with a rockstar team. 🔥 Katya Hancock Dr. Kristine G. Sierra Malia F. Josh Thompson Abigail Binder #YFInnovators #YoungFutures
You should do it! https://lnkd.in/eWM8PUnD
Thank you Young Futures Org for highlighting our CEO and Co-Founder Josh Thompson with this wonderful article! Josh knows inspiring innovation begins with a community, which is why Civics Unplugged is an intergenerational, collaborative team made up of individuals committed to supporting youth-led, civic innovations worldwide: Nick Delis, Hilary Kinney, Adiah Price-Tucker, Abigail Binder, Anissa Mansour, and Zoë Jenkins! Young Futures Org and the Lonely Hearts Club cohort have been such a vital part of our growth this year! If you haven't already, take a look at the other amazing organizations we have the pleasure of working alongside. https://lnkd.in/ecwpVceU Onward!🗽
🎉✨ Meet Josh Thompson. From high school basketball star at St. Benedict’s Prep to joining Mayor Cory Booker's fight for Newark’s future, Josh has always been all about shaking things up! 💪✨ Fast forward, and he's now the mastermind behind Civics Unplugged, a powerhouse non-profit that’s empowering teens to take the reins of democracy in our increasingly digital world! 🌍💥 With a focus on curiosity, collaboration, and community, they're transforming young leaders into civic change-makers! 🚀 Josh's journey shows that it’s not about being liked—it's about making a difference. And hey, he’s doing just that, one young voice at a time! 🙌💖 Curious about how he’s shaping the future? Check out the full scoop and get inspired! 📖✨ #CivicsUnplugged #JoshThompson #YoungFutures #LonelyHeartsClub #YoungFuturesInnovators Katya Hancock Dr. Kristine G. Sierra Malia F. Abigail Binder Tiffany Zhu Kelsey Noonan Pivotal Ventures Susan Crown Exchange Kevin Connors Celine Coggins Ph.D. The Goodness Web (TGW)
Fellow Spotlight💡 CU Fellow Saheb Gulati was recently interviewed by TIME! Saheb's work as Co-Director of Center for Youth and AI highlights the youth-led activism driven by Curiosity and Civic Innovation that makes our Community so unique. Read the article below and follow along on his journey! Congrats Saheb Gulati!
Our team at the Center for Youth and AI (YouthAI) just released a comprehensive survey of 1,000+ American teenagers (ages 13-18) on how AI is shaping their world. The results are eye-opening: 🎯 Key Findings: 1. AI risk ranks among teens' top policy priorities (80%) – surpassing both social inequality (78%) and climate change (77%) 2. Nearly half (45%) believe AI could pose an existential risk to humanity 3. 57% express significant concern about advanced AI development 4. 59% worry about AI-generated misinformation and deepfakes The most striking revelation? Today's teens are already adapting their future plans around AI: 1. 65% are actively considering AI automation in their career planning 2. 47% are regular users of tools like ChatGPT As one 17-year-old respondent shared: "I just hope that as AI gets more powerful, we don't lose touch with what makes us human. I don't want to live in a world where everything is just automated and we're not needed anymore." These findings highlight crucial reality: Generation AI isn't just watching the AI revolution unfold – they're actively grappling with and adapting to its impacts. If you're interested in hearing more about our findings, reach out! We'd love to hear from you. Full briefing: https://lnkd.in/gn-6Srpw Read more about our findings in TIME here: https://lnkd.in/gazKPDXD Saheb Gulati Jason Hausenloy Hieu Minh Nguyen Cyra Anindya Alesha Catherine Wang Ian Habich-Ramirez Sneha Revanur Rachel Hanebutt Harry Booth Civics Unplugged #HalfTheStory#HalfTheStory Project Liberty Encode Justice Design It For Us Hopelab Center for Humane Technology All Tech Is Human Common Sense Media #GenerationAI #AI #YouthVoices #FutureOfWork #AIResearch #TechPolicy
Sparking youth-led civic revival around the nation — and the world. Seems ambitious? We're doing it. Civics Unplugged Fellows are starting youth-led civic innovation initiatives that have engaged and impacted over 10,000,000 people in communities worldwide. Are you ready to join the movement? We're 44% of the way to receiving a $250k matching gift...can you help us get to 100%? Support the future of civics and democracy by investing in the young people who will carry the torch for the generation.🗽 Any donation, no matter the size, will be matched this month — doubling your impact for our young leaders! 💯 Donate: https://lnkd.in/eR7ijdGT 🙌 Share with your network. 🤝 Connect and partner to continue towards widespread civic revival.
Thank you Anew for highlighting our work here at CU! Onwards! 🗽
Solution Spotlight: Civics Unplugged Tackling: Civics education and innovation Civics Unplugged (CU) is building social impact leaders. Founders, Josh Thompson and Nick Delis, recognized the lack of opportunities for young people to experience democracy, climate, and social innovation as viable and long term career paths. CU grew from this gap and provides resources and programming for high school students to understand how their passion for social good can develop into a wide array of sustainable and exciting career choices and make them realize their true ability to transform the future. Civics Unplugged is an intergenerationally-led organization that believes investing in young people is investing in our future. CU focuses on training, funding, and building the community that young people need to become civic innovators through several Fellowship programs such as the Civic Innovators Fellowship, and The Civic Innovation Academy at Georgetown University, UCLA, and in Austin TX. Learn more about Civics unplugged at civicsunplugged.org or follow them on LinkedIn at Civics Unplugged and @civicsunplugged on Instagram
We are so proud of Mabel Ciepluch and Kayah De La Cruz and their work with Purpose Worldwide! Civics Unplugged is thrilled to have young, civic-minded leaders who are at the forefront of innovation and change, like Mabel and Kayah, be a part of our community and call CU their homebase.
A Friyay shout out to Civics Unplugged fellowship leaders Mabel Ciepluch and Kayah De La Cruz for participating in Purpose Worldwide's Climate Week internship, bringing together a global assembly of Climate champions and investors from the public and private sectors to advance their understandings of Climate Adaptation and Resilience gaps and opportunities! We couldn't have done it without you! Thank you for your leadership! #climatetech #climateinvesting #civicleadership #purpose #climateweeknewyork
Civics Unplugged reposted this
A Friyay shout out to Civics Unplugged fellowship leaders Mabel Ciepluch and Kayah De La Cruz for participating in Purpose Worldwide's Climate Week internship, bringing together a global assembly of Climate champions and investors from the public and private sectors to advance their understandings of Climate Adaptation and Resilience gaps and opportunities! We couldn't have done it without you! Thank you for your leadership! #climatetech #climateinvesting #civicleadership #purpose #climateweeknewyork
Are you ready to envision a post-election America where young people from all over the country are working to create a civic revival independent of partisan politics? Our 100% tuition-free programs are training the next generation of young leaders, and a generous donor has committed to matching $250,000 in donations raised to ensure our programs remain tuition-free. So we need your support! Every dollar you are able to give today will be matched by the generous donor, doubling your impact on the young leaders reshaping democracy. Civics Unplugged is an intergenerational nonprofit that supports young leaders with training, funding, and community to become civic innovators and transform democracy. Since 2019, we’ve supported nearly 5,000 young leaders from 76 countries and all 50 U.S. states, moving over $1 million to youth-led civic projects. For 5 years, Civics Unplugged has inspired nontraditional approaches to democratic engagement around the world. Our Fellows lead community events and create social media campaigns to engage their peers and build towards a more fair, accessible democracy. Our Fellows are energized to spark a civic revival, but we need your help to keep the momentum going. 💥 Double your impact today by donating at https://lnkd.in/eR7ijdGT! 💥 Share this post with your network to spread the word! Thank you for supporting the future of democracy. 🙏 Onward, Josh Thompson, Nick Delis, Abigail Binder, Anissa Mansour, Adiah Price-Tucker, Hilary Kinney #CivicInnovation #GenZLeadership #Democracy #YouthEmpowerment #MatchingGift #CivicsUnplugged
We're so inspired by the Future's Happening Playbook! Since some of our team members and our fellows Bhairavi Senthilkumar, Maddon H., and Prince Nwalozie attended the Future's Happening gathering in April, we've been waiting with excitement to be able to share this resource with our fellows and friends. Congratulations to Lisa Kay Solomon and the team behind this resource created to help others incorporate a "future's happening" approach into their own work!
Futures and Design at Stanford d.school. Building better Civic Futures with AllVoteNoPlay.org
It’s the Final Day of #CivicImaginationWeek. I’m going to keep this one simple. I’m thrilled to share the release of #TheFuturesHappeningPlaybook, a free, nonpartisan guide to designing more generative and joyful civic gatherings. https://lnkd.in/gJE5NmZH This playbook was inspired by the award winning gathering we hosted at The Stanford d.school earlier this year. Following the event, we received requests from educators, community and civic leaders, and even the First Lady of Albuquerque ,NM who asked: "How can we incorporate a 'Futures Happening' approach into our community?" The Playbook focuses on empowering all of us to become Civic Futurists - to actively shape better futures through civic imagination, creative possibility, and collective impact. As we say in the Playbook: A “Futures Happening” approach invites exploration into alternative futures by shifting the frame from reacting to “what is” to envisioning “what could be.” It encourages all of us to see ourselves as active builders of our community’s future rather than passive recipients of decisions made by others. The creation of The Futures Playbook is an embodiment of the 5 principles we outline in the guide. 1. Lead with Creative Imagination How can we spark more expansive imagination and vivid exploration of the futures we want (even if the path ahead is unclear)? 2. Promote Multiple Perspectives How can we foster more authentic curiosity, empathetic learning, and active listening to diverse voices? 3. Elevate Bright Spots How can we identify and amplify our community’s unique strengths, assets, and successes to inspire more impactful and resonant civic gatherings? 4. Make it Experiential How can we inspire feeling and holistic experiences filled with generative opportunities to engage, connect, and co-create? 5. Hone the Production What resources and support are required to execute the experience in congruent and consistent ways? We invite you to take a look. Share it with others. Report back what resonates. Finally, there are dozens of civic futurists that inspired, co-created and contributed to making this resource a reality. Scott Doorley Jeffrey Rogers Ruth Wylie Nancy Murphy Nils Gilman Suzette Brooks Masters Karthick Ramakrishnan Edgar Ibarra Gutierrez Jake Dunagan Ilana Lipsett Eric Liu Susie Chang Anne Gomez Rubin Molina Speaks Shamichael Hallman Civics Unplugged Sanda Balaban Citizen Film The Team Sesame Workshop Laura McBain sam seidel Kwaku Aning Adene Sacks Monique DeVane Tim Fish David Martinez Karina R. Kloos Civics Unplugged Debilyn Molineaux Diana Smith Chris Loos Ahmed Best Liz Gerber (she/her) Caroline Klibanoff Listen First Project Kristin J. Hansen and so many others. And, thank you, my brilliant partner Franzi Sessler, and your tireless Kreatives team, who always elevate our biggest visions into something even greater. And you do it with joy and love. ❤️
We're so thankful to the Internal Revenue Service for hosting us for the second year in a row while we were in D.C. for our Civic Innovation Academy! Can't wait to continue working to make Direct File a great success!
Industry Liaison | Government Relations | Dot-Connector | GovCon | Human Capital | Entrepreneur
Last month I pulled a hat-trick and convinced three Internal Revenue Service leaders take a moment out of their busy schedules to speak to room of highly engaged high school students (future federal leaders) about how cool (yes, I said "cool") the IRS Direct File Program is. Direct File which successfully completed a pilot in 12 states this past tax season, resulted in more than 140k tax returns filed for free! Students from Civics Unplugged heard insights from IRS executives Bridget Roberts, Jim Keith and Product Manager Chris Givens to develop a Direct File strategic outreach campaign for their capstone project at Georgetown University. These students dubbed "Civic Innovators" by Civics Unplugged co-founders Nick Delis and Josh Thompson are passionate about solving community issues and want to channel their passion into innovative action. They selected IRS Direct file Program as their capstone because of its streamlined, user-centric and effortless approach for taxpayers to file their taxes and they wanted to GET THE WORD OUT! I was delighted to participate and plug the #IRS as a great place to start your career in Federal service as we continue to "Build Pipelines of Talent," as part of #InflationReductionAct initiative 5.2.3 #HumanCapital #Recruitment #IRS #DirectFile #Taxes #Innovation #NowHiring #CivicsUnplugged