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Observing Civic Engagement Lab Blog Indiana University

Bringing Research to Practice: Sharing Data with Local Organizations

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By Claire Woodward 

At the Observing Civic Engagement Lab, we are committed to sharing our data with local leaders in participating organizations—research can make the most impact where it’s actually being practiced.  

In November, we began sharing customized data handouts with participating organizations in Bloomington.  Each handout provides both organization-specific findings and Bloomington-wide data, giving leaders a clear picture of how their convenings function and how they fit in with other civic spaces in our community. 

Here is an example handout that would be catered to a specific organization alongside some Bloomington findings: 

Org Data Reports 2025 Sample

These metrics offer organizations another lens to see themselves and potentially lead to discussions about their strengths, identify opportunities for growth, and recognize patterns they might not have noticed from the inside. We plan to periodically distribute more organization-specific findings with participating organizations in Bloomington as well as those in our other participating communities (the Adirondacks, Dubuque, and Kootenai County). 

We take our responsibility as data stewards seriously. Organization-specific data is shared only with organizational leaders and participants, who can then decide whether and how to share it with others. We want organizations to have control over their own information while benefiting from the broader context our research provides. 

Data without context can be confusing or even misleading. We invite organizational leaders to sit down with us to interpret findings, ask questions, and help us understand what the numbers mean in the context of their specific mission and community. This dialogue enriches our research while ensuring that organizations can use what we’re learning. The leaders and members of these organizations are experts of their own communities – organizations often ask if we can help them be “more effective” but what that means looks different from every organization. Only they know what specific goals they are seeking, whether it be higher participant counts, collaborative decision-making, or clear organizing practices. They know their communities, understand their organizational culture, and can spot meaningful patterns that we might miss. When researchers and practitioners interpret data together, everyone learns more. 

If you’re a Bloomington organization interested in participating in this research, or if you’re a participating organization with questions about your data, we’d love to hear from you. You can reach us at: 

The Observing Civic Engagement Lab exists because organizations across the country have been generous with their time, space, and trust. Sharing data back with these partners isn’t just good practice—it’s central to our mission. We’re not here to study communities from a distance; indeed, our research relies on being in the room where it all happens. We’re here to learn with them, to share what we discover, and to contribute to the flourishing of the civic spaces that make democracy possible. 

Thank you to every organization that has participated in this research. Your openness makes this work possible, and we’re committed to ensuring that the knowledge we build together serves your mission and your community. 

OCE Lab Co-Director Spotlight: Professor Matthew Baggetta

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By Claire Woodward 

Professor Matthew Baggetta is one of the founding directors of the Observing Civic Engagement Lab and a driving force behind our innovative approach to studying civic life. This year, Professor Baggetta’s exceptional dedication to teaching and mentorship was recognized with the prestigious 2025 Trustees Teaching Award from Indiana University —one of the highest honors the university bestows on its faculty. He was celebrated at a reception in the spring and gets a bonus reception of recognition this month.

Professor Baggetta teaches courses that bridge theory and practice, including: 

  • Civil Society and Public Policy 
  • Urban Problems and Solutions 
  • US Policy and Administration 
  • Wars, Wealth, and Welfare: State-Building 

His 2025 Trustees Teaching Award highlights his expertise as well as ability to inspire students to think critically about civic life and their role in shaping it. Students in his courses don’t just learn about civic engagement—they learn to see it, analyze it, and participate in it more effectively. Professor Baggetta makes complex concepts understandable, both in and out of the classroom. During office hours, several eager students can often be seen waiting for their chance to talk with him about paper and project ideas. He regularly presents his research for programs, to organizations across Bloomington, and at academic conferences. You can find some of his talks online (Systemic Social Observation of Civil Society with Dr. Matthew Baggetta – Spark Talks and Do meeting spaces affect social interaction in civil society organizations? – Cogitatio Press). 

The Observing Civic Engagement Lab is Professor Baggetta’s brainchild, emerging from his original dissertation research at Harvard on Boston’s community choirs. What began as a focused study of how people come together in song (see his 2009 article “Civic Opportunities in Associations” and 2025 article “Can You Sing Your Way to Good Citizenship?”) has evolved into a sophisticated methodology for understanding civic engagement across diverse settings. Professor Baggetta recognized that to truly understand how voluntary associations shape their members and communities, researchers needed to be present—to observe the lived experience of civic participation as it unfolds in real time—at far more meetings, events, and activities than a single researcher could attend.   

His research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of how Americans engage with their communities. Through the Observing Civic Engagement Lab, Professor Baggetta has created a space where rigorous research meets practical application, where students become researchers, and where the act of observation becomes a pathway to deeper understanding of community life. 

Professor Baggetta currently serves on the board of directors of the Melos Institute, a think-tank focused on membership-based organizations, and has contributed to 

Mobilizing Ideas, an interdisciplinary blog on social movements. His scholarship has appeared in top-tier journals including the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Perspectives on Politics, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, and Sociological Methods and Research. 

 

We’re proud to have Professor Baggetta as a lab director and grateful for his vision, collaboration, and commitment to understanding how Americans come together to make a difference in their communities. 

 

Religion’s Pervasive Role in Civil Society: What We’re Learning Through Systematic Social Observation

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By Claire Woodward

At the Observing Civic Engagement Lab, we’re uncovering patterns about how religion shapes civil society organizations—not just in congregations, but across the broader landscape of civic life. Our systematic social observation (SSO) method reveals that religion’s influence extends far beyond houses of worship.

What’s more surprising is how often religion is present within nonreligious organizations. Religion is mentioned at least once in 40% of all convenings we’ve observed—that’s 600 out of 1,524 gatherings across our diverse sample. Religious practices like prayer and collective spiritual singing occur in 33% of convenings, many within ostensibly secular organizations.

This blurring of boundaries challenges any neat separation between “religious” and “secular” civic spaces. Ruth Braunstein demonstrates in Prophets and Patriots: Faith in Democracy across the Political Divide (2017) that civil society organizations across the political spectrum—both right and left—value religion, democracy, and government accountability. When we observe hobby clubs, advocacy groups, and community associations alongside faith-based organizations, these themes emerge regardless of an organization’s primary purpose. The sacred and secular weave together in everyday civic life.

In Congregations in America (2004), Mark Chaves notes that religious congregations depend on secular collaborations to fulfill their missions. Our data confirms this interdependence from multiple angles. While observing organizations, we note how often coalitions occur and are learning more about religious and secular collaborations and how frequently different kinds of organizations work toward shared civic goals.

One preliminary finding suggests that the bonding practices that build social trust occur at similar levels across both religious and secular organizations. Meaningful physical contact—high fives, hugs, handshakes—appears in 49% of religious convenings and 56% of secular ones.

Following Alexis de Tocqueville’s insights and the contemporary work of scholars like Robert Putnam and Theda Skocpol, we know that citizen participation in CSOs is crucial for democratic life. Religious organizations have historically been among the most significant of these associations. As Brad Fulton (Co-Director of the OCE Lab) documented in his 2020 research, religious congregations remain the most prevalent type of nonprofit in America.

But knowing that religion matters for civil society is different from understanding how it matters. This is where SSO’s strength lies. By capturing the actual practices, interactions, and norms that occur in convenings—the moments when people pray or sing together, make decisions, interact across differences, and mobilize for collective action—we are building a granular understanding of religion’s civic functions. With more than 2,000 total observations spanning 4 cities and including over 50,000 participants, we’re accumulating unprecedented data on how civil society functions. We’re seeing not just that religion matters for civil society, but exactly how it matters—in the moments when people pray or sing together, make decisions, interact across differences, and mobilize for collective action.

We regularly share our findings with local leaders, bringing the data to where it can have the most impact. Understanding religion’s role in civil society isn’t just an academic exercise—it’s essential for anyone seeking to strengthen democratic participation, build community connections, or foster civic engagement.

Civil Society (As Seen on TV!) – Gilmore Girls Edition 

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By Claire Woodward 

We study real CSOs in the real world but every so often, Hollywood offers its own stylized glimpses of the civic world. You might recall The Pawnee Goddesses and Pawnee Rangers from Parks and Rec, The Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality from the West Wing (in the cheekily named “Big Block of Cheese Day” Episode), or the Agricultural Society in the Canadian show Letterkenny (or the sequel series Shoresy, which showcases the minor-est of minor league hockey teams). You can find CSOs appearing on other popular shows like This is Us (pardon me while I grab my tissues) or Friday Night Lights. Impromptu, seasonal grassroots committees often pop up in Hallmark holiday films, organizing around trying to save a small bookstore or protect a local pumpkin patch. 

Although Robert Putnam has documented the decline of recreational CSOs such as card playing groups over the past several decades, Putnam is undoubtedly pleased that an informal poker group consistently appears across Star Trek: The Next Generation (there is hope for the future!).

One of the most prominent inclusions of CSOs was on the long-running series Gilmore Girls. For those who celebrate, fall is Gilmore Girls season. And for those who missed the Gilmore Girl era (and are not as excited as I am about the 25th anniversary documentary coming out), Gilmore Girls focuses on three women spanning different generations. The TV show highlights social tension (particularly that of class differences) through civic participation.

Our matriarch, Emily, is most in her element hosting a party or running a large fundraising meeting. She brings financial resources, connections, and organizational skills to various civic causes, but this also shapes which issues get attention and how solutions are framed. Her model of civic engagement requires credentials and social capital. She is heavily involved in The Daughters of the Revolution, an organization with a long history and support from those in the elite class, something explored by Elizabeth Kendall in her 2002 book The Power of Good Deeds. Kendall writes about the Emily Gilmores of American society (without actually mentioning our fictional Emily Gilmore) and how elite women gain and utilize social power, particularly women in their 40s and beyond.  

Next in line comes Emily’s daughter, Lorelei, who identifies with a different array of community organizations like quirky festivals and local fundraisers in the small (fictional) town of Stars Hollow. Lorelei chooses to raise her own daughter, Rory, in this setting where everyone knows everyone (and everyone attends town meetings, attends holiday celebrations, and participates in or helps organize town events). Such eager volunteers can be more difficult to find in small towns (in that there are fewer of them – see Christopher D. Merrett 2013’s article “Declining social capital and nonprofit organizations”), but the closeness of the community may suggest people are more likely to participate (see Anne White’s 2006 chapter exploring civic engagement in Russian towns, “Is Civil Society Stronger in Small Towns?”). We find Lorelei sewing costumes for school plays and neighborhood festivals, participating in a local snowman building contest, and dancing and knitting for charity events (though not at the same time). 

Rory pulls from both worlds in leaning into her small community (how many teenagers attend town halls?!) while also “coming out into society” through a debutante ball hosted by her grandmother, Emily. Rory’s elite education at both her expensive private school as well as her grandfather’s alma mater includes not just working toward a degree in journalism but also lessons in building social capital, particularly after she begins dating Logan whose family occupies the same world as Rory’s grandparents. 

So, if you want to enhance your Gilmore Girls annual autumnal experience, try watching while reading Kendall’s The Power of Good Deeds or simply through the lens of civic engagement. Make a list of all the community events or meetings that each Gilmore Girl attends and their role in each. We’d love to hear how you see each character participating in their community (and honestly, we’d love to send one of our observers to a Stars Hollow Town meeting if you’ve got an in for us). Or tell us about your favorite CSO as seen on TV – maybe we’ll do a deep dive into the important bonding role card games play in everything from rom coms to sci-fi! 

So…how many people will be there? 

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By Claire Woodward 

 

If you lean introverted, the first question you might ask when invited to go somewhere is… how many people will be there? You need to know if a hiking group will have 3 or 25 people. If it’s 3 people, it won’t be hard to talk with everyone (and you’ll likely already know them) . If it’s 25, you might have to interact with people you don’t know well. If you’re headed somewhere with 100+ people, you might have banded together with a handful of friends to navigate the large group social dynamics.  

One of the variables that we collect while observing organizations is how many people show up. We’ve found that most convenings (meetings, events, or activities) are quite small . Looking at data collected between March 2023 and March 2024, we see that having 2-10 participants in a convening is the most common distribution followed by the 10-20 range. In these small convenings, we suspect many participants are interacting with people they already know pretty well 

There is a noteworthy number of larger convenings (over 40). Many of these are religious congregations. However, if you think of showing up to an event with over 100 people, unless you lean extroverted, you’re more likely to still interact in a smaller groups. There will be lots of people in small groups that already know each other well. In turn, participants might be able to avoid interacting with new people. 

In our data, there is a noticeable drop off in the numbers of convenings where 20-40 people show up.  In this range, people might have to interact with new people depending on the kind of convening. 

Believe it or not, this trend holds across both in-person and virtual convenings!  

We’d love to hear what you think of this finding. The 2-20 range is the most common distribution, so is it the best? The most effective in creating relationships or building social capital? The least intimidating for the introverts of the world? Comment below! 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you know your Neighbor? 

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By Claire Woodward 

I moved into my current home in Bloomington during June 2020 (yes, that June 2020). My husband and I had just adopted a German Shepherd puppy and realized having a fenced yard would make our lives a lot easier than going on 8 walks a day around our townhouse complex. It was also the magical era of low interest rates and before huge housing price spikes. We were excited to move into our first home and felt very lucky. Despite these advantages, the early pandemic days also meant that when we moved into our well-established neighborhood, we didn’t end up meeting our neighbors.  

We’ve spent five years in that neighborhood now, still trying to figure out ways to meet the people we’ve been living next to for years. We wave when they walk their dogs, and they smile at our circus of stroller/kid bike/dog combo. But we still might run to Lowe’s when we can’t find our wrench, or to Kroger if we are short one cup of flour.

Neighborhood associations are one kind of civil society organization that can bring residents together to improve their surroundings, foster a sense of belonging, and advocate for shared interests (and lend that cup of flour!). We have a few neighborhood associations in our Bloomington sample, including the Park Ridge Neighborhood Association, which has chosen to be public in their participation. Such organizations can make a big difference in their towns and cities.  

Building Community Connections 

Neighborhood associations create opportunities for neighbors to meet, collaborate, and form lasting relationships. Through events like potlucks, monthly discussion groups, block parties, clean-up days, and even some seasonal festivals, they help turn streets into communities.  

Improving Local Infrastructure 

Associations often serve as a collective voice to advocate for better roads, parks, lighting, and public services. Their organized efforts can influence city planning and ensure that local needs are addressed. For example, The Park Ridge Neighborhood Association has been working on a Neighborhood Greenway project in recent months (a low-speed, low-volume, shared-space street that supports high comfort walking and bicycling connections). 

Encouraging Civic Engagement 

Neighborhood associations can empower residents to participate in local governance, attend city council meetings, and stay informed about zoning changes or development projects that affect their area. They teach civic skills such as leadership, collaboration, and problem solving. They might have guidelines or rules for their community that teach effective organizing or mobilizing practices.  

Preserving Neighborhood Character 

Whether it’s maintaining historical charm or promoting sustainable development, neighborhood associations help guide growth in ways that reflect the values of the community.  

Perhaps if my husband and I had moved into our house at a time when our neighborhood association was particularly active (or simply, not during a time when people were hesitant to share physical space), we would have developed the geographic connections and community that are particularly important when it comes to things like neighborhood relationships, safety, culture, and yes, that darn cup of flour (a tip for the wise: measure before you start baking!). Neighborhood associations are vital to creating vibrant, resilient, and connected communities. They remind us that when neighbors come together, they can shape the future of their neighborhoods (and by extension, towns, cities, and states) for the better. 

 

The Technologies that Support Civil Society

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Guest post by Ashlea Raemer

You likely have strong feelings and memories associated with March 2020. One minute, it was business as normal. The next, people were stockpiling toilet paper and told not to leave their homes for two weeks. Then for one month. Then for another. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced everyone to figure out how to get together without the risk of illness that came with physically being together.

People rose to this challenge by embracing the capabilities of virtual meeting platforms like Zoom (RIP Skype) to gather with their friends and family, colleagues, and clubs and membership organizations. These technologies offered the ability to keep each other safe, connect with people who were far away, and include more people in gatherings without the limitations of physical space.

It’s now been five years since the those initial lockdowns. Has this pandemic era trend of virtual meetings had a lasting impact on how civil society organizations (CSOs) bring people together? This is one piece of a broader question we are interested in at the OCE Lab: how does technology support civil society?

Through our observations of civil society between 2023 and 2025, we see that organizations have mostly returned to gathering in-person, but that hybrid meetings which combine both in-person and virtual participants still make up about 20% of all CSO convenings. The number of meetings that happen entirely online is quite small – perhaps a response to pandemic norms.

Despite the time and energy investment it requires to run an event in a hybrid format, and the opportunities for expanded connection that virtual meeting platforms offer, we find that hybrid convenings tend to be smaller than in-person convenings and that interactions between virtual and in-person participants are not really happening in most hybrid convenings. When we add up all the forms of hybrid interactions that could happen in a convening, most of the time there is none or not very many – “0” in the graph below is by far the most common number of interactions between those in-person and those participating online.

Through their experiences with these organizations, our observers note that the hybrid format is being used to include members that cannot join in-person but would still like to participate, or to broadcast an event to a large audience of people who do not participate. These broadcasts could potentially explain why so many hybrid events do not have any interaction among virtual and in-person participants.

How we meet with friends, family, and other members of our community changed overnight five years ago. Our data shows that things have largely returned to in-person convenings, though about a fifth of convenings offer the option of hybrid participation.

Expanding The Observing Civic Engagement Lab

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By Claire Woodward 

The Observing Civic Engagement Lab has been operating for 14 years, including projects in Bloomington and Indianapolis. We are excited to expand our research on communities across three new areas across the United States, generously funded by The Trust of Civic Life. The Trust for Civic Life works with more than two dozen civic hubs and communities throughout the country, primarily in rural areas. Their support of our research will lead to important insights about community life for local leaders and organizations. When describing our research, I like to say that the data we collect belongs to the organizations and communities we observe – our research assistants make the day-to-day dynamics of community life visible through quantifiable data. 

In addition to our Bloomington project, we will now collect data in three new communities, working alongside civic hubs in each location. 

  1. The Tri-Lake Region in the Adirondacks, New York (in partnership with the Adirondack Foundation)  
  1. Kootenai County, Idaho (in partnership with the Innovia Foundation) 
  1. Dubuque, Iowa (in partnership with the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque) 

We brought both our New York and Idaho teams here in June for an intensive in-person training, where they were able to observe some of our participating organizations alongside our experienced research assistants and learn more about the project and our methods. Our Iowa team will be here in July to complete their training.  

With this expansion, we’ve hired Eliza Brader as a project manager for Bloomington, and Claire Woodward is transitioning to managing our new areas. Julie Beasley, the lab’s project manager since 2022, has completed her PhD and will be starting as an Assistant Professor of Public Administration and Government with a focus area of public leadership and management at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government.  

Across all projects, our lab currently employs more than forty community members, undergraduates, and graduate students with more than twenty alumni who have contributed to the project in some way. We are looking forward to seeing our project continue to grow both in and beyond Bloomington!  

 

Participating Organization Spotlight: Tibetan Buddhist Mongolian Cultural Center 

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By Claire Woodward 

We continue to study community organizations, including several faith-based organizations in our research. The Tibetan Buddhist Mongolian Cultural Center (TMBCC) joined our research study in the fall of 2024.  

If you’re a Bloomington resident, you might know the TMBCC as a unique part of our city’s history. In 1950, Thubten Jigme Norbu, the brother of the Dalai Lama, fled Tibet and became a professor of Tibetan Studies at Indiana University. He established the TMBCC in 1979 “to acquaint people with the history and culture of Tibet and to support Tibetans everywhere.” It’s located on a beautiful 90 acres on the south side of town.  

They offer “workshops, teachings, seminars, initiations, retreats and ceremonies relating to the Tibetan exile communities, and the Mongolians of Mongolia, Kalmykia, Buyatia, and Tuvia.” Look at their website to learn more about them! 

Many of our RAs have enjoyed observing faith-based organizations, particularly ones that they were not previously acquainted with, such as Tibetan Buddhism. 

I observe the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center every week and it is my favorite to observe! I mostly just listen to the monks teaching/class and he has a lot of amazing things to say that really resonate with me, he often says to practice compassion and just do our best and when we do that then we can make a big difference in our lives and in other people’s lives. There is usually a Q&A where participants seek and share life advice. I think it’s really great to see people of all ages and different backgrounds come together to try to be better. It’s definitely made me see people in a better, more positive light and helped me to not be too hard on myself and others. They are all very kind and welcoming. 

Their meditation spaces are impactful for new research assistants. 

I had my first observation at the Mongolian Tibetan Buddhist Center. It was an eye opening for me as I have never gone to prayers of a different religion. 

Research assistants also enjoy seeing how Bloomington is connected with other cultures and countries as well as the diversity of their own midwestern town. 

Being an RA has brought a sense of pride and I’m very proud to be part of this project. TMBCC has been a fantastic experience. It’s been great to observe this community and see a side of Bloomington that is very integral to the culture of the city.  


When I started graduate school at Indiana University in 2017, one of the first places I visited was the TMBCC. On a hot and muggy September day,I enjoyed the peaceful walk around the center while admiring the sculptures and art, seeing people there meditating, and learning more about the TMBCC at their visitor center. I remember thinking how lucky I was to have moved somewhere with such a unique center that served such an important role in both its geographical as well as world community.  

We are grateful to have them participate in our research as we learn more about civil society organizations.   

 

Bowling Alone: Civic Engagement May Be Declining, But It’s Still Happening 

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By Claire Woodward

 

Twenty-five years ago, Robert Putnam detailed the decline of civic engagement over the latter half of the twentieth century in his iconic book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000). Putnam uses the example of bowling leagues to illustrate how Americans have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and democratic structures. People are still bowling, but instead of bowling in leagues, they are more often bowling “alone” — occasional one-off outings with small groups of friends instead of recurring contests with other teams in a league. This trend of declining community engagement has occurred across other communal activities as well—even less formal ones like book clubs, poker nights, and dinner groups.  

Putnam argues that social capital—the benefits from our social networks, shared norms, and social trust—has significantly declined. In Bowling Alone, Putnam provides extensive data showing decreases in various forms of civic engagement, such as voting, attending public meetings, and participating in community organizations (from PTO meetings to bridge groups). Such declines have led to negative impacts on both individual well-being and societal health. Putnam identifies several factors contributing to this decline, including increased work hours, suburbanization, television, and generational changes. He suggests ways to rebuild social capital, such as encouraging community involvement, fostering civic education, and creating policies that support family and community life. 

Our research in The Observing Civic Engagement Lab contributes to discussion around community life. Rather than focusing on its decline though, we are interested in what is happening when people do come together. We observe hobby organizations like book clubs, card groups, dinner clubs, service organizations like Kiwanis and Habitat for Humanity, and religious congregations. Community life is still happening, even if it might occur at a lower rate than it did in the 1970s.  

We hosted a team social for our research assistants at our university campus’s bowling alley last weekend. I haven’t been bowling in perhaps 15 years, but I immediately fell into a familiar cadence of talking with people in between the individual bowling frames. None of us were serious bowlers (I think our top scorer was around 115), but we enjoyed bowling together as a way to connect and strengthen community. We weren’t there to bowl alone but rather participate in Putnam’s iconic symbol of community life. But, of course… we weren’t there for league play. Perhaps we should consider finding other groups to bowl with us next time. 

The work that we do about what happens when community comes together has important implications for our society. Although ample research such as Putnam’s has discussed how civic life has changed over the past several decades, our work is novel in exploring the details of ongoing community organization life. 

 

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