Welcome to the website of the Civil Society Project. We are a non-profit organization providing theoretical as well as practical tools to aid in the revitalization of civil society.

For fifteen years, the Civil Society Project (CSP), has provided encouragement and support for efforts to renew philanthropy, volunteerism and service, character and community. Please see our “Mission” for more information on the Civil Society Project’s core programming and vision.

The Civil Society Project website you are visiting was created in order to make available to a global audience a treasure trove of books, essays, media clippings and journal articles that have surrounded a decades long debate in America about civic renewal in which the CSP has played a central role.

Our History.

Starting in the 1990s, the CSP contributed widely to a broad bi-partisan debate over the state of civic America and how to renew it, involving academics, policy experts, civic leaders and elected officials. Don Eberly and the Civil Society Project contributed numerous books and essays as well as broad public commentary to that debate. Eberly also worked with other major institutions and projects focusing on civic revitalization, including the 1996 Presidents’ Summit on Volunteerism, the Council on Civil Society, sponsored by the Institute for American Values, the National Commission on Civic Renewal, the American Assembly and the George Gallup, Jr. International Institute. His work and that of affiliated scholars was regularly recognized by such institutions as the Brookings Institute, the Communitarian Network, and numerous other state and national think tanks. Numerous college courses adopted CSP materials as part of curricula on civil society.

International Relevance and Demand.

Suddenly in the early 2000s, international affairs catapulted to the top of the national agenda, with America facing fresh challenges in the area of violent conflict, state oppression, and regional and ethnic divisions. Like never before, American institutions are in a position to promote ideas and model programs for the development of civic, democratic and economic institutions worldwide.

The challenge today is to make all of this information available to a global audience so that the burgeoning international civil society movement can glean insights and inspiration from our own history and experience in this area. One book, Building a Community of Citizens: Civil Society in the 21st Century, has been translated into Arabic and distributed by the U.S. Department of State in several large Middle East Countries. Don Eberly has been invited to speak at strategic international gatherings where issues of institution building, democratization and civil society were discussed.

Few doubt that America will continue to be pressed to help aid movements around the world that are promoting greater openness, democratization, local civic institution building, philanthropy and rule of law. We hope that in some small way Civil Society Project will help further those goals.

Help Spread the Word.

We appreciate your interest in this work, and we hope you will tell friends about it. We welcome you to call to the attention of others the ideas presented here.