This "Civic Index" is intended to help communities evaluate and improve their civic infrastructures, as well as look at the issues and find approaches to dealing with them. The 10 components of the Civic Index serve as a description of the types of skills and processes that must be present for a community to deal effectively with its unique concerns. The Civic Index is meant to assist communities in developing their problem-solving capacity by providing a method and a process for first identifying and recognizing their strengths and weaknesses and then structuring collaborative approaches to solving shared problems. The 10 components of the index are the following: (1) civic participation; (2) community leadership; (3) government performance; (4) volunteerism and philanthropy; (5) intergroup relations; (6) civic education; (7) community information sharing; (8) capacity for cooperation and consensus building; (9) community vision and pride; and (10) intercommunity cooperation. Each component includes a checklist with which communities can evaluate their situation. The publication also contains 96 references (some annotated), a list of the programs of the National Civic League, and a list of the officers and directors of the organization. (KC)