Civic GYM
Build Your Civic Muscles Across Campus Divides
Civic Gym is the nation's only intercollegiate civic preparedness platform bringing thousands of college students together for guided conversations across differences.
Meet a student from another campus who sees the world differently. Discuss pressing issues. Find common ground. Discover you can disagree without conflict.
Join the Next Challenge →
The Polarization Crisis on Campus
College students today face an unprecedented challenge: how to engage meaningfully across political, cultural, and ideological differences in an increasingly divided society.
For a high-functioning civil society, we need the skills of disagreement and collaboration. Yet most college students graduate without ever having a structured conversation with someone who holds fundamentally different views.
The result: A generation entering the workforce and civic life without essential skills for working across differences, finding common ground, and collaborating on shared challenges.
How Civic Gym Works
Civic Gym uses technology and structured dialogue to create safe, engaging experiences where students build and flex their civic muscles through peer-to-peer conversations.
What makes Civic Gym unique:
🎯 Intentional Matching
Students paired across ideological, geographic, and institutional differences
📋 Guided Structure
Professional facilitation guides ensure respectful, productive conversations
💻 Virtual Access
One-on-one video conversations that work with any schedule
🎓 Course Integration
Seamlessly embeds into curricular, co-curricular, and first-year programs
The Civic Gym difference:
- Low-risk, high-impact: Safe environment for practicing difficult conversations
- Research-backed: Grounded in behavioral science and civic engagement research
- Scalable platform: Serves hundreds of institutions simultaneously
- Turnkey programming: Complete materials, facilitation guides, and live support for educators
- Measurable outcomes: Students report increased civic confidence and reduced contempt
- Cross-discipline application: Works across STEM, business, humanities, and all fields of study
Two Ways to Build Civic Muscles
Unify Challenge College Bowl
One-hour guided conversation covering 15-20 pressing national issues. Held three times per year (Fall, Spring, Summer). Perfect introduction to civic dialogue.
Learn More →Deep Dive
Focused exploration of one critical issue. Students discuss single topics like gun ownership, voting, or free speech in depth. For those ready to go deeper.
Explore Deep Dive →What students experience:
- Meet face-to-face with a student from a different campus, background, and worldview
- Share perspectives on issues like mental health, gun laws, immigration, climate change, and free speech
- Find common ground on shared goals for America
- Discover you can have respectful conversations without conflict
- Build skills in empathy, critical thinking, and collaborative problem-solving
- Practice civic engagement in a low-stakes, high-support environment
For educators:
- Flexible scheduling with multiple dates and times
- Classroom materials and facilitation guides provided
- Live support during events
- Integration across academic disciplines
- Works for political science, civic engagement, public service, STEM, business, and humanities
- Fits curricular, co-curricular, extra-curricular, first-year, and workforce development frameworks
Proven Impact Across Campuses
Student outcomes after participating:
- Increased interest in participating in civic life
- Greater confidence discussing contentious issues
- Reduced contempt for those with different views
- Stronger belief that respectful disagreement is possible
- Enhanced skills in empathy and active listening
- Broader understanding of different perspectives
Institutional diversity: Civic Gym serves all types of higher education institutions including two-year and four-year colleges, public and private universities, military academies, HBCUs, faith-based institutions, and community colleges.
What educators say:
- "Students rate the experience highly and come back for more"
- "High-impact, low-risk, engaging experiences that educate and empower"
- "Effective, scalable experiential learning"
- "98% of faculty and staff would recommend to colleagues"
- "Bridges ideological divides and fosters respectful dialogue"
About Unify America and Civic Gym
📅 Founded
January 2020, Civic Gym launched Fall 2021
📍 Headquarters
Chicago, Illinois
⚖️ Legal Status
501(c)(3) nonpartisan nonprofit
🎯 Mission Focus
Replace political fighting with problem-solving
Leadership:
- Harry Nathan Gottlieb — Founder (also founded Jellyvision and Jackbox Games)
- Abby Ferguson — Partnerships Director
Founder's background:
- Created Jellyvision (employee benefits software used by 10+ million people)
- Founded Jackbox Games (240 million individual players in 2020)
- Brown University alumnus (Class of 1988)
- 25+ years making complex subjects simple and engaging
- Expert in using technology and games to bring people together
Unify America's broader mission:
- Leverage technology and games to reduce political polarization
- Teach civic and problem-solving skills so Americans can work together
- Help people bust out of their bubbles and build civic muscles
- Create interactive experiences to master critical civic skills
- Foster collaboration across cultural, political, racial, geographic, and religious differences
Beyond Civic Gym: Unify America also operates Democracy League, which provides community members with structured ways to collaborate on real problems and generate shared solutions.
