citizen

Research shows that when people get older, they don't spend more time on vacation -- they spend more time helping and caring for others. The baby boomer generation that gave us the social protests of the '60s and '70s, and the "me" decades of the 80s and 90s, is making the '00s and '10s the "we" decades.

That is the motivation behind Citizen, the magazine of community involvement and activism.

This magazine proposal was shopped to The Points of Light Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trust, among others.

Here's the one-page pitch:

Citizen

The Magazine of Community Involvement and Activism

Citizen, simply put, is "the magazine of community involvement and activism." It offers practical advice and creative ideas for fund-raising, public relations, marketing, communications, motivation, and the like for people involved in community service and volunteerism.

But just as important, Citizen is about the people who are making a difference -- from great philanthropists to little children who give blankets to the homeless; from Hollywood celebrities to members of civic clubs in middle America; from the boards of our great cultural institutions to the millions of people who care about their fellow citizens, and just need some direction before they get involved.

Even the White House, through the Points of Light Foundation, is asking Americans "to make service central to your life." Certainly, Citizen is an idea whose time has come.

In a recent Gallup poll, nearly 50% of respondents say they're involved in charity work, up from 31% in 1984. There are over 500,000 elected officials sitting on community boards and other government organizations. And there are countless millions of Elks, Lions, Kiwanis, Optimists, Hunger Project members, World Runners, and others in America who are working to make a difference in the community and in the world.

The whole world, in fact, has rediscovered the power of the individual to make a difference -- look at what happened in Poland, China, and the Soviet Union, and what we’d like to have happen in Iraq and the Middle East. And consider the growth of the Internet – a great power for individuals.

When people get older, they don't spend more time on vacation; they spend more time helping and caring for others. The generation that gave us the social protests of the 60s and 70s, and the "me" decades of the 80s and 90s, can make the 00s the "we" decade.

As they retire, they will have even more time to devote to their philanthropic pursuits. And Citizen is the breakthrough magazine to inspire them, and give them the tools that they need.

People are used to business magazines. Citizen will serve as the business magazine for the business that they care most about -- creating a better world by making a personal difference. There are hundreds of special interest charity magazines (each of the major charitable groups listed above has one). But they are mostly narrowly focused, poorly written, newslettery publications about what is happening in local chapters. The magazines for professional fund-raisers (those with MBAs who work for the nation's largest charities) are too technical for the millions of people who just want to lend a hand. And the political commentary magazines (like The Economist, The National Review, etc.) are about the world of politics, not the “roll up your sleeves and help out” world that most people live in.

Just as Fortune, Forbes, Business Week, and SUCCESS serve all business (while there are hundreds of specialized business magazines), so, too, will Citizen serve the service marketplace.

Concept creator and writer: Bill Weber

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