Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) and Seattle CityClub are joining forces on May 22 to host FullConTech, bringing people together from across the public and private sectors for a morning focused on Civic Collaboration.
CityClub, founded in 1980, is a non-partisan civic organization that “fosters civic engagement on issues vital to our community through access to leaders, informative programming, fair debate and lively exchange of ideas.” One of the organization’s most important programs is Seattle’s Civic Health Index, a report that comes out every three years, in partnership with the National Conference on Citizenship, and measures the impact of civic engagement in communities across the country, as well as offering recommendations for how residents can improve it. At FullConTech on May 22, CityClub will release its third Seattle Civic Health Index.
Diane Douglas, CityClub’s Executive Director, highlights two reasons the Civic Health Index is so important. First, she says, “This is a town where if you can’t measure something, it doesn’t count.” And, she argues, civic health needs to be a part of public health. “If you want to solve problems, like healthcare,” she says, “you can’t just focus on disease. A lot of what makes us healthy as individuals and as a community falls outside traditional health care concerns. For example, are you isolated? Do you have a supportive community? If you want to improve people’s health, civic health has to be part of the agenda.”