Nexus is part of a national dialogue on Civic Engagement, yet there is no clear definition of the term. The Pew Charitable Trusts defines civic engagement as individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern...from individual volunteerism to organizational involvement to electoral participation. It can include efforts to directly address an issue, work with others in a community to solve a problem or interact with the institutions of representative democracy. Others prefer the term Civic Involvement; for our purposes, these terms are interchangeable.

Social Capital is another term used throughout the conversation. Harvard's Saguaro Seminar defines social capital as the collective value of all social networks - who people know - and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each others. The Saguaro Seminar terms those inclinations norms of reciprocity. Social capital creates benefits for those connected to the networks, and sometimes for bystanders, too. Again, variations on this term - Civic Capital, Social Benefit and others - are merely different phrasings, not meaningful distinctions.

Most critically, when we speak of civic institutions we do not limit our conversation to legally incorporated organizations holding 501c3 status from the Internal Revenue Service. While philanthropy and many forms of volunteerism apply most directly to a typical nonprofit organization, civic engagement and social capital concepts encompass more than these organizations. For simplicity's sake, we favor the term "third sector," as it can include volunteer firefighters and grassroots political organizers, parents volunteering in public schools and fellow church members helping each other in times of difficulty. However, solutions can come from socially responsible corporations, innovative governments and individual citizens.

Anyone can play.