i am thrilled to be a partner i toolir and the ncoc. -- to ilir and the ncoc.the work that our universities and colleges are doing to connect students with opportunities to serve. let's work on that group who are not enrolled in college as well. i employed to count on all of you to join us in the americorps partnerships challenge or any way that you can find a vehicle, and avenue for america's two -- an avenue for americans to serve our community. thank you very much. [applause] [laughter] ♪ >> thank you, wendy. before bringing out our next speakers, i want to give you a sneak peek of some of the civic life data that will be coming out. i want to share three numbers with you. two of them have not changed much, but the third i find interesting. ate dinner with friends and family, which is great. that is good news. trusted most or all of their neighbors. have somenumber, 55% or a great deal of confidence in the media. that sounds like it is a majority and a large number, but sincet down seven points 2011. that sounds to me like that is worthy of a civic health in

i'm thrilled to be a partner to the ncoc. and i support all the work that our universities and colleges are doing to connect our students to opportunities to serve. and let's work on that group who are not enrolled in college, as well. i'm going to count all of you to join us in the americorps partnerships challenge, or any way you can find a vehicle, an avenue, for americans to serve our communities. thank you so much for having me today. really appreciate it. >> thank you, wendy, before bringing out our next speakers, i wanted to give you a sneak peek at the civic life data coming out. i want to share two numbers with you. two of them haven't changed much, but the third i find interesting, 88% of americans ate dinner with friends and family. 56% of americans trusted most or all of their neighbors. it's the last number, 55% have some or great deal of confidence in the media. that sounds like a majority and large number, but went down seven points since 2011. and that sounds to me like that's worthy of a civic health index re

ncoc's mission is to strengthen civic life in america. today to figure out the ways and means by which we do that together. claude debosi once said that music is the space between the notes. and i think that community like music is also the space between people. and the question is, how do we fill that space? do we fill it with trust? do we fill it with support? do we reach across the divide to work on common problems together? do we volunteer? do we vote? do we engage with the government? the answers to these questions are critical to our country because we know that when people are engaged, families are stronger. right? individuals tend to be more employed. schools are better. governments are more responsive. and of course, critical needs are met when all of these things happen. and it's this sort of activity that we define as civic life. so when we talk about strengthening civic life, this is what we're talking about. increasing that sort of engagement and making the space between people vibrant and alive. and when that happens, we hav

please welcome ncoc's executive director.ou so much, michael, for that introduction. can you join me in thanking michael for his commitment and his leadership at ncoc? [applause] i also want to thank michael and his wife julie as well as tom us match, gayle lev witch and phil duncan for their sponsorship of this conference. this year we invited a number of our partners to design and lead the learning summits that are happening this afternoon, so i want to ask those people to stand and be recognized and be thanks. don't be shy if you're in the audience. maybe they're getting ready. [applause] ncoc's mission is to strengthen civic life in america. it is very good to be with all of you today to figure out the ways and means by which we do that together. claude debuts -- debussy once said music is the space between the notes, and i think community is also the space between people. and the question is how do we fill that space? do we fill it with trust? do we fill it with support? do we reach across the divide to work on common pr

consulting, vendor selection and marketing assistance to the ncoc.just an advertisement. what we've really done is we've challenged corporate america in a $3 million challenge grant to encourage other organizations to join us and support this initiative. through the service year exchange, we will connect the right people with the right opportunities. this will give america's youth, young adults the opportunity to do good work and solve problems while they become better, stronger and contributing citizens. we welcome all u.s. companies. we challenge all u.s. companies to join us in making a national service year a reality for all young americans. this is important work and will have the impact on our cup's global competitiveness. thank you begun for the honor of participating. enjoy your lunch. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, for our final civic highlight from the points of light corporate institute, please welcome yvonne sue turner and jenny lawson. [applause] ♪ ♪ >> good afternoon. imagine a world where every company paid its employees to volunt

take it to the conclusion, the indicators that ncoc measures. we need to keep that civic data coming. tell us about the balance. like a thermometer. it has to work for as many as possible. everyone in basketball terms, everyone needs to have a legitimate look at the basket of success. this is one reason why in 2011, ncoc delved into unemployment. in many ways this panel discussion is a natural evolution of that work looking not, looking not at the downstream challenge of unemployment, but the more culturally engrained upstream challenge of economic equality. we don't expect to find a solution in the next 60 minutes, but we have gathered a group of distinguished thinkers, that's easy for me to say to shed light on this topic. bill is the brookings institution governance study program, a former adviser to bill clinton. an expert on domestic policy, political campaigns and elections, his current research focuses on designing a new social contract and the implications of political polarization. additionally, many of bill's best thoughts can be found