A Dose of Common Sense

Here is something I have discovered about advocacy: if you constantly bring up the issues you’re passionate about, someone will point you toward the organization that fits.

During my first week with the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC), I met a man who pointed me toward Common Sense Action, an advocacy organization for millennials. Civic engagement and twenty-somebodies? Could you think of a better fit? 

This organization is working from the grassroots to expand millennial opportunity and interest in

politics. Advocacy is built on three tiers: generational fairness, millennial mobility, and repairing politics.

CSA was founded and is run by millennials. The seven-person national staff is comprised completely of students still in college. Just over two years ago, the organization began as the brainchild of a few interns at the Bipartisan Policy Center. The organization is bipartisan, meaning it affiliates with every party without exclusion and encourages joint participation across party lines. The foundation of the organization is over twenty active college campus chapters, and its membership is comprised of affiliated chapter memberships. Additionally, mobilization focuses on primaries more directly than general elections, since low turnouts increase the impact of each millennial vote, increasing the chances that millennial-friendly candidates will represent parties in the general elections.

Work at the national level is currently centered on the recently released Agenda for Generational Equity (AGE). In terms of mobility, AGE looks at furthering equality of opportunity through reforming education access, incarceration and recidivism, and diversifying pathways to employment. Endorse the platform here!

While CSA recognizes that there are policies on the table in Congress right now that will impact their

generation in the future, they very much emphasize the need to be a viable citizen demographic in order to have political expectations. The final tenant of the platform is a call to national service, which they

believe will appeal to the millennials in a special way to galvanize other forms of citizenship like voting. NCoC shares this belief, and you can find out about their national service initiatives here.

We twenty-somebodies need a strategy for finding ourselves in the political sphere. We are lacking in civic representation and concern, making us highly vulnerable to disadvantage.  CSA is a vibrant new organization, budding with potential. In its unique way, CSA may serve a vital role in the formation of the millennial political realm, and therefore the future political culture of America. Learn more about them and get involved!