In 1995 and 1996 Principals of America Speaks spent 8 months traveling around the country to communities that had successful stories of citizen initiated and led projects taking action on specific issues impacting the quality of life in their community. As we listened and interacted with people from every walk in life and in vastly different circumstances, we heard consistent themes over time of what supported people being involved and what were barriers to people being involved in the community's work.

America Speaks developed the following criteria for sustainable citizen engagement as a result fof that experience.

• Political, civic, and corporate leadership who have vision and understand the importance of listening to all voices in the community.
• Community activists who have vision, are self-initiating, and focus on the common good.
• Institutional and grass roots leaders recognize that the changes necessary are systemic and both individuals and institutions carry responsibility for making the necessary changes.
• Media outlets - print, television, radio, and the internet - that have embraced civic/public journalism values and commit resources to building community.
• Sufficient technology infrastructure - hardware and software - to support community wide and region wide dialogue and deliberation processes.
• Project includes and area that crosses traditional political jurisdictions, and reflect a natural ecological and economic region.
• There is an existing infrastructure of citizen involvement so that people who participate in the project will have opportunities to stay involved for the long term.
• Resources are committed to capacity building for people at all economic levels in the community; reflecting the skill sets needed for leadership in the next century.
• There is an established and an expressed public valuing of trust, respect, and compassion among the people engaged in the civic life of the community.