In 2006, our report, Broken Engagement, used 40 different indicators of civic involvement to measure how Americans were engaging in community and civic affairs and politics. It included indicators of community participation (such as belonging to groups and attending meetings); trust of other people and major institutions (such as the government and the press); volunteering and charitable contributions; voting and other political activities; political expression (for instance, making speeches and contacting the media); and following and understanding the news and public affairs. By combining all these indicators into a Civic Health Index, we showed that Americans' participation had dropped substantially from the 1970s into the 1990s, and then recovered somewhat in the current decade. Overall, there were alarming trends, but also a few signs of hope, particularly in the voting and volunteering patterns of young people.

Thirty-three of the components that formed this index were questions asked between 1975 and 2004 by DDB (a market research firm formerly known as DDB Needham), or the American National Election Studies (ANES). DDB has changed its poll, and ANES will not field its next survey until 2008. Therefore, in order to continue monitoring civic health, we repeated these 33 questions in our own survey conducted by Harris Interactive during the summer of 2007. Because the format, methodology, and timing of our Harris survey do not precisely reproduce the DDB and ANES, there is some uncertainty about whether our 2007 data are strictly comparable.

All available data, however, point to a decline after 2003.

First, the following graph shows how the Index would look for 2007 if we used the Harris data to continue the DDB and ANES trends.2 There is a clear decline in 2007.

Second, for some indicators, precisely comparable data are available after 2005. Most of these indicators show decline:

• After tracking an encouraging and sustained rise in volunteering after 9/11 that continued through 2004, particularly among young people, the Census Bureau identified a significant drop in volunteering between 2005 and 2006.

• The General Social Survey found that trust in other people fell by three percentage points between 2004 and 2006; monthly church membership fell by four points; and newspaper readership fell by six points.

• Internal Revenue Service data show that families and individuals used less of their disposable income for charitable contributions in 2004-2006 than they did in 1999-2003, which had been a high point. This was the case even though the economy was generally strong from 2004 to 2006.

• Voter turnout rose by about one point in 2006—compared to 2002, which was the previous non-presidential election year—but this small increase disappointed many observers who had expected the hotly contested 2006 election to draw more participation.

In short, most of the forms of engagement measured in the Civic Health Index have fallen in the three decades since the mid-1970s. The recovery after September 11, 2001, while initially very encouraging, seems to have stalled. Against that background, we now present some positive findings that may help to show the way forward to broader and deeper civic renewal.