The Civic Bond: Friendship as Democracy’s Essential Thread
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by Venu Gupta
With over two decades of experience in the nonprofit sector, Venu Gupta has learned that key to building a strong democracy is strong connections—and, more specifically, strong friendships. Gathering in Support of Democracy is a recurring column exploring the essential connections between gathering, community, and democracy building.
Democracy encompasses more than voting, but sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what “more” is. We often use civic engagement to describe what we mean, but where does that begin or end?
For me, civic engagement begins with friendship. The Survey Center on American Life wrote that “the shrinking of our friend groups is not an individual tragedy, but a collective one,” following a 2021 survey that showed a steep decline in close friendships for those surveyed. That is because friendship is, among other things, a vital aspect of civic life—our democracy rests on our capacity to build and sustain relationships across big and small differences.
