The Porching Challenge
Would you like to porch with me?
Gather your neighbors, read The Soul of Civility together, and build a culture of flourishing across difference right where you live. Your free Porching Toolkit is waiting.
Choose your place. Invite your people. Decide who hosts next.
Join the Porching Challenge
ALEXANDRA O. HUDSON:
The Leading Voice for Civility and Civic Renewal
Alexandra is passionate about the way that ideas and storytelling change people’s lives. She is an author, popular speaker, and the founder of Civic Renaissance, a publication and intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness and truth comprised of 50,000 intellectually curious people across the globe. A sought-after thinker and speaker, she has advised foreign governments—from The Parliament of Canada to the UK House of Lords—and is regularly heard speaking at venues such as Stanford University or Yale Law School. She was named the 2020 Novak Journalism Fellow, and contributes to CBS, PBS, C-SPAN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME Magazine, POLITICO Magazine, and Newsweek.
Alexandra earned a master’s degree in public policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and is also the creator of a series for The Great Courses called Storytelling and the Human Condition. Her bestselling book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, originally published by St. Martin’s Press and now available in an anniversary edition from Civic Renaissance Press, led her on a fifty-city book tour across the globe with her husband and two small children. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, with her family, where they are restoring their historic Italian Renaissance style home—a project that is an appropriate metaphor for her life work of reviving the wisdom and beauty of the past and melding it with the needs of the present.
It’s already happening
Communities are building
Leaders across politics, geography, and vocation are taking The Soul of Civility off the page and building cultures of flourishing across difference.
Carmel, Indiana
City leaders
After a divisive local election, Carmel’s city council reached out. Together we built a civility summit that brought more than 100 leaders, from mayors to members of Congress, to the same table.
Palmer Lake, Colorado
Becky, a citizen leader
When a fight over a proposed Buc-ee’s split the town, neighbors on both sides chose to rebuild trust together, with The Soul of Civility as their guide.
Urbandale, Iowa
Mayor Bob
A healthy city that wanted to be even better made The Soul of Civility its community read.
Texas Legislature
Legislators from both parties
What began with one representative reaching across the aisle is now a bipartisan, bicameral reading initiative, with legislators gathering over dinner.
St. Luke’s, Indianapolis
Pastor Rob
Amid a bitter local data center fight, Pastor Rob focused on what he could shape: the culture of his congregation, leading them through the book and practicing civility grounded in human dignity.
Arizona
City and county managers
Arizona’s city managers built a program around Discover, Ignite, Embody, Celebrate, equipping local leaders to lead well in divided times.
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Book Alexandra to Speak at Your Event
If you're looking for a speaker who brings wisdom, warmth, and hope to the conversation on civility and civic renewal, invite Alexandra to inspire your audience.
The Soul of Civility
By Alexandra Hudson
In an era of fraught political tension, civility– a respect for the dignity of others– is the key to bridging the divide.