Connective Tissue:
The Framework
Reimagining the role of policy in regenerating connection within American communities.
The decline and sorting of our civic life has left today’s Americans less connected to one another and their communities than at any point in the last century. Regenerating connection within communities will demand civic, cultural, and policy change, but this is an emergent area of policymaking, and government leaders often don’t know where to begin.
That’s why we created this framework: to provide policymakers with an organized, actionable starting point for connection-focused policymaking. With 150+ specific policy opportunities featured across 13 policy priorities, Connective Tissue provides both a holistic policy vision for regenerating connection within communities and tangible entry points for taking action. We invite you to read it (in part or in full), apply it to your particular context, and build on it further.
Explore the Framework
A mix of breadth, depth, and practicality to inspire policy action across sectors and levels of government.
With an experience as fundamental to being human as connection, and a setting as expansive as community, we needed to create a tangible way to think about organizing, devising, and implementing policy. We make the breadth of this framework accessible by structuring it into four complementary chapters, each including three to four related sections. But we also make it actionable: offering policy opportunities within each section, organizing them by the stakeholder group who can take action, and accompanying them with specific case studies and resources to inspire such action.
Chapters
Foundational Changes
What are the foundational changes necessary to prepare government to approach policymaking with a cross-cutting connection lens?
Community Institutions
What are the highest potential opportunities for institutional change to strengthen connection within communities?
Life Transitions
What are the most critical transition points throughout the life course where policy can help bolster connection?
Enabling Conditions
What forces operate beyond communities but wield an outsized influence on how Americans experience connection within them?
Sections
Measures: Develop and adopt a set of indicators to measure the strength of civic opportunity, community participation, and individual and community connectedness.
Personnel: Align personnel to coordinate connection-related priorities across policy, implementation, and outreach.
Connection Lens: Repurpose relevant government policies, programs, and practices to foster connection within communities—and create the support structures to do so.
Housing & Neighborhoods: Activate the housing sector and neighborhoods to become platforms for participation, overall connection, and bridging social capital.
Civic Infrastructure & Associational Life: Reorient government and philanthropy toward regenerating and strengthening communities’ civic infrastructure and associational life.
Care & Education: Strengthen the connectedness of care and educational settings by inviting in more peer, community, and bridging forms of participation.
Early Childhood & Parenting: Bolster social support for new parents and children, easing the transition to parenting and improving outcomes during life’s early years.
Adult Transition: Reimagine the adult transition to foster lifelong relationships across difference and habits of community participation.
Community Integration: Enhance local capacity to help all individuals—particularly veterans, immigrants, and the formerly incarcerated—integrate into new communities.
Retirement & Older Adults: Promote the overall and intergenerational connectedness of older adults—both during and after retirement—through housing, service, and education.
Work: Improve the stability and predictability of work, providing workers the agency to participate in community life and cultivate stronger connections outside of work.
Big Tech & Media: Reform the big tech and media ecosystem to enable—rather than compete with and hinder—community participation and connection.
Local News & Media: Revitalize local news and media ecosystems to be more community-embedded, community-driven, and participatory.
Explore the Database
An easy-to-use resource to navigate, organize, and engage with the policy opportunities in the framework.
We never intended for this report to collect dust on a shelf. That’s why we translated the framework into an accessible, interactive database, allowing you to explore policy opportunities and case studies by chapter, section, and level of government. We also recognize that the policy framework is a starting point, not an endpoint. As such, we created this form to encourage you to suggest additional policy opportunities, case studies, and resources to include within the database. We look forward to building with you.
Attend a Launch Event
Live, virtual events with policymakers and practitioners to engage deeper with specific framework sections.
Housing & Neighborhoods | 9/24 @ 4PM ET
Join the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) and Connective Tissue for an event exploring how housing and neighborhood policies can create connections and relationships between people from diverse backgrounds in current and new mixed-income neighborhoods. The event will be moderated by Chris Herbert (JCHS) and feature Nathalia Benitez-Perez (Boston's Office of Civic Organizing), Jamill Martinez (Lawrence Community Works' NeighborCircles), and Alyssa Nickell (National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities).
Community Practitioners | 9/26 & 10/10 @ 12PM ET
Join RSA US and Connective Tissue’s Sam Pressler to explore how community-building practitioners can help shape policy to strengthen connection in their communities. He’ll be joined by Ash Hanson of the Department of Public Transformation on 9/26 — and Frederick J. Riley of Weave: the Social Fabric Project on 10/10 — as we explore the intersection of social connections practice and policymaking. These interactive sessions will provide participants with the opportunity to interrogate how their work impacts and is impacted by policy — and empower practitioners to lean into their power as policy shapers.
Community Integration | 10/8 @ 2PM ET
What is the role of policy in helping integrate veterans, immigrants, and the formerly incarcerated into their communities? Join Welcoming America (WA) and Connective Tissue for a panel surfacing the shared opportunities to support the integration of veterans, formerly incarcerated people, and immigrants, along with the differences in welcoming each of these groups. The event will be moderated by Melissa Bertolo (WA’s Certified Welcoming Director), and will feature Melissa Hue (Portland’s Office of Economic Opportunity), Kelly Orians (UVA’s Decarceration & Community Reentry Clinic), and Kayla Williams (former Assistant Secretary of the VA).
The Adult Transition | 10/15 @ 2PM ET
What is the role of policy in reimagining the adult transition to shift from the great sorter to the great connector of American Life? Join The Maryland Department of Service & Civic Innovation, American Exchange Project, and Connective Tissue for an event exploring how two specific initiatives — state-level service years and domestic exchanges — can strengthen connection and participation in American life. The event will be moderated by John Gomperts, the former Director of AmeriCorps, and will feature Paul Monteiro, Maryland’s Secretary of Service & Civic Innovation, and David McCullough III, the founder of the American Exchange Project.
Civic Infrastructure | 10/23 @ 2PM ET
Join Main Street America, Reimagining the Civic Commons, and Connective Tissue for an event that’s all about imagining government's potential to boost our civic infrastructure and exploring tactical steps government can take to make this potential a reality. The event will feature Erika Poethig, former Special Assistant to the President for Housing & Urban Policy at the White House Domestic Policy Council, along with other panelists to be named shortly.
Get Involved Further
Connect
Schedule a 1-on-1 meeting with Sam to ask questions and learn more about the framework.
Collaborate
Partner with us to host events with policymakers, researchers, funders, and other relevant folks.
Contribute
Suggest policy opportunities, case studies, and resources to add to our living database.