Imagine Chicago is a catalyst for creative connections, especially those which result in the development of a civic identity for individuals and organizations. To cultivate hope and and to actively engage people in identifying with and creating a positive and hopeful future is a critical part of our mission. Imagine Chicago has particularly challenged individuals and groups to generate meaningful opportunities for those who have not been involved as civic actors, to discover ways to link their considerable gifts to the communities in which they live.

This is important, both as a matter of social justice and as a foundation for reinvigorating democracy. Democracy depends fundamentally on our freedom to create, to participate in shaping the discourse and institutions by which we live.

How can we reconstitute our identities as owners and creators of Chicago’s future? Imagine Chicago encourages people to think of cities as a constructive context, where meaning is created through connections. Ideas and actions emerge out of uncommon dialogues and innovative partnerships that bridge racial, cultural, generational, and geographical boundaries. Imagine Chicago’s frameworks foster inclusion, model positive communication and harness hope. How do we do that? By encouraging people to see community, not as a given, but as a set of systems constantly under construction, and governed by the values, choices and activities of individual citizens and groups. Imagine Chicago listens and encourages the articulation of what is possible and practical.

A good example is Imagine Chicago’s civic literacy program, "Reading Chicago and Bringing it Home" (see opposite page). We offer public school parents, who have often been objects in a depersonalized system of education and welfare, the opportunity to understand and shape the systems at the heart of a city’s life and a family’s budget — transportation, energy, education, food, communication, wealth creation, recreation, housing, health. We see parents as subjects who contribute, so we treat them as such by respecting their intelligence and interest in learning and their commitment as involved parents. By learning to read their city, they re-envision themselves as community leaders and thinkers, not as objects or victims. Acting as agents of change within their families, their schools and their communities, engages them and reshapes their self-understanding as citizens. Re-imagining and consequently re-organizing, their relationship to the city and its systems shifts power away from unresponsive bureaucratic structures to families and neighbors who act on their values.

In this and other initiatives, Imagine Chicago encourages participants to shift from being "objects" of city life, in a city which is an IT, to being "subjects" (I decide, I create, I connect, I think) within a city which is a WE. It’s important not only to learn to think "WE" but also to live "WE". So Imagine Chicago designs and facilitates imaginative partnerships for developing civic identity and effective citizenship skills. In this way, organizations, as well as individuals, experience being part of a WE, who act together to create a positive future.

In the last ten years, Imagine Chicago has seen whole families imagine and create new ways to enrich their own lives and the future of their communities. We have seen schools reorder themselves as centers of imaginative community education, and teachers rededicate themselves and renew their commitment to their vocations. People are experiencing themselves as creators of life and meaning, not just inheritors of a fixed set of information, institutions and systems. They are coming alive as citizens.