Still more encouraging is the number of people who want to become even more involved. The successful organizations of the next centruy will be the ones who realize that the first steps on the path to civic involvement no longer seem to be activities like voter registration or volunteering with a political party. More and more, it's community activities like Little League, the PTA, and the neighborhood block party. We found that by and large, Americans believe they can be most effective in small groups working on specific issues. Accordingly, people are spending more time solving neighborhood problems than trying to influence politicians.
People are busier than ever, and are very careful about how they spend their time.
Before they commit to becoming involved, they want to be sure that they can do so on their terms, around their schedules. Community engagement is localized, personalized and tends to be channeled through individual and group-based activities rather than through established organizations. In general, Americans register more positive feelings about the direction of their communities than about the nation as a whole, though a number see problems as well. The report also identified barriers to community involvement, including the perceptions that engagement requires a high level of knowledge and demands a significant, inflexible time commitment. People also fear that their work will not have an impact.