The mission of the City Club of Central Oregon is “to build a conscious and civic minded community through dialog, education and research that results in responsible civic engagement.”
The primary method we use to achieve this mission is by hosting monthly non-partisan forums relating to public issues that are of interest to Central Oregon residents. We attract speakers with expertise in both the private and public sectors. These speakers are asked to share their viewpoints on timely and important policy issues so that our members may learn and, in the process, become informed and involved community citizens. Questions from the membership play an integral part in each forum’s design.
It is important to understand that the underlying purpose of the City Club is not to host presentations, but rather to generate dialog. The emergence of this dialog and the community involvement that will result is our focus and we intend to utilize special gatherings in addition to monthly forums to accomplish our mission. These gatherings may include research groups, discussion groups and reading groups.
As a regional non-profit organization, we desire to hasten the development of Central Oregon into a cooperative community aimed at creating our future by design, not default. We believe that the strength of each of our eight communities (Bend, Redmond, Prineville, Madras, LaPine, Sisters, Crooked River and Warm Springs) and the non-incorporated parts of our region are enhanced by the sharing of common goals and by our united populace working together to achieve them. We believe that open dialog about topics that impact the region can facilitate this building of community.
Additionally, we believe a key element necessary to accomplishing our goals is the creation and maintenance of an organization of discovery and learning. Understanding that a number of other organizations need to take positions on issues important to their selected membership, we instead serve our community by opening up issues with generative conversation (conversation designed to build and connect, as opposed to simply debate). Coupled with research on important issues, our focus on exploring issues through such generative conversation is designed to encourage individuals to better engage in civic duties.
Finally, the City Club of Central Oregon is committed to maintaining the element of diversity, not only in our membership but also in our menu of speakers and presenters. Our values of unrestricted dialog, mutual respect and civic duty are the manner in which we chose to foster this diversity.
The City Club is supported by the gracious generosity of Founding Sponsors, our Media Sponsor, annual membership fees, program sponsorship and the generous contributions of City Club donors.