Engaging Voice is committed to building an informed and active citizenry through nonpartisan civic education and speech and debate programs.

The soft skills and educational benefits students gain from these activities — self-confidence, on-demand critical thinking, comprehensive research, intellectual accountability, effective writing, zealous advocacy, and civil argumentation — are especially important now given the dominance of social media and other technologies as students’ primary sources of knowledge and training.

We understand well the value of civic education and public speaking. But speech and debate and civic engagement programs are expensive. Each year, schools must budget thousands of dollars to train students and send them to intrastate, regional, and national tournaments or civic engagement initiatives. They must also hire coaches and supply their students with training materials and access to research databases.

The financial burdens are manageable for well-resourced schools. Those with limited budgets may struggle to meet the demands, however, so student potential goes to waste. An investment in civic education and public speaking training is an investment in the growth of our students and our country’s future.

Engaging Voice wants to help schools with this burden because access to proven educational opportunities should not depend on one’s address or socioeconomic status.

The human voice is the most powerful instrument played. Let’s help all students fine tune it.

At Engaging Voice, we are working to ensure students from all neighborhoods develop an engaging voice as early as middle school through quality civic education and fully-funded speech and debate programs.

Welcome, and thank you for your support and partnership.