Together, we are responsible for this planet that we call home. More of us are now awakening to the realization that our civilizational foundations are unstable as humanity’s life support systems and quality of life deteriorate on a planetary scale.

Instead of inadequate and short-term remedies, ignoring or numbing the sources of suffering, or reactively dismantling systems because of their dysfunction, we choose to address the root problems causing our current civilizational crisis. We recognize that these root problems are phenomena that stem from fundamental societal agreements that can be changed.

Despite the power of the fear that we cannot change course, a deep yearning burns at the center of every human soul to participate in and care for the world around us. Liberating the natural impulse of the human spirit to envision and co-create a more beautiful world is one of the greatest endeavor of our time and invokes a return to the original meaning of civics.

Originally, civic referred to a crown or garland of oak leaves and acorns, bestowed on a soldier who had saved the life of a citizen in battle. Reclaiming this original spirit in a contemporary context, civics is both the stewardship and management of civilizational systems of care. We are beginning to remember that, as participants in civil society, we are all civic stewards. As civic stewards, we realize that it’s up to us to create the conditions in which all human beings are empowered to meet their basic needs, make choices aligned with their unique perspectives, and steward thriving ecologies.

The choice to be a civic steward is to take responsibility for our world with courage, creativity, and devotion.

And when our systems of civic stewardship are insufficient to empower the necessary adaptive response to shifting circumstances or crises, some civic stewards rise into the role of civic innovator.

The choice to be a civic innovator is to take responsibility for the improvement of civic systems that empower others to be civic stewards.

Civic innovation is the collaborative research, development, and improvement of civic utilities and civilizational functions that are important for the public good.

This spirit of responsible civic stewardship as innovators calls for an open civics: a process of synergistic collaboration and civilizational stewardship that engages in the evolutionary adaptation of our core civilizational systems.

This process engages the public and all relevant stakeholders in a participatory design process and empowers leaders, innovators, change agents, and public servants to work better, together.

OpenCivics is an invitation to collaborate on a civilization-scale Apollo Project for the shared purpose of reinvigorating civic stewardship and innovating vital, resilient, and participatory civilizational systems that empower thriving humans, thriving communities, thriving organizations and thriving ecologies.

We know we can’t do it alone. But we know there is no time like the present to begin. So, we’re asking you to join us.

Together, we choose to be co-creators with a shared will to discover humanity’s path through the eye of the needle of extinction and crisis, into a life-affirming civilization.

Together, as civic stewards, we choose to:

• cooperate with other civic innovators through consensual co-governance for mutual benefit
• co-sense a synergistic strategy that leverages the power of our collective insight and shared vision of the future
• converge around shared purpose beyond our individual projects or identities
• coordinate our activities to maximize systemic efficacy through interoperability
• collaborate on larger meta-projects that require the integration and contribution of components within our stewardship