Have you ever been part of a book club? Citizen circles are like book clubs, but with more than just a book and a determined bent for improving the world. Citizen circles begin with a common interest and experience, and something that the people involved want to learn. Maybe you’ve all read popular children’s books and want to understand how to communicate with children to help them improve the world. Or maybe your neighborhood is being polluted and you want to build a collaborative plan to stem the pollution. Citizen circles are a methodology by which you can explore these questions, while also building key skills of social innovation, like communication and collaboration.

A critical part of a citizen circle is the people you choose to learn with. Citizen circles are local and small, ideally including three people, but not exceeding six. To help you decide whom to create a citizen circle with, ask:

• Who do I already enjoy being and learning with?
• Who do I know but want to know better?
• What common interests or experiences do we share?

A course is the learning plan that a given citizen circle follows. To make sure that the course is something that all members of your citizen circle have equal stake in, it is really important that you build your course together. This way, you ensure that everyone agrees to and will benefit from the activities and assessments, and that you don’t pick a time commitment that’s too much or little for any person involved.

It is also helpful to create a circle contract – an outline of behavior and commitment that everyone agrees to abide by while participating in the course. This is intended to be pretty basic and primarily serves to ensure respect between the citizen circle members while participating in the course.