CIVESTOR: Reclaiming Your Power As An Active Citizen

What if the most important shift in American civic life started with a single word?

For decades, politicians have called us "taxpayers" — reducing our relationship to democracy to a billing transaction. We pay. They spend. That's the deal.

Dan Devine rejects that identity. And this book will help you reject it too.

CIVESTOR: Reclaiming Your Power as an Active Citizen introduces a powerful new framework built around one concept: you are not a taxpayer. You are a Civestor™ — a citizen who actively invests time, voice, energy, and presence in the democracy you are supposed to own.

Drawing on his journey from a Hicksville childhood to elected Election District Leader in Suffolk County and founder of American Civic Power, Devine delivers both an inspiring civic identity and a practical toolkit for democratic action. CIVESTOR includes:

• The 12 Points of Good Governance — a framework for demanding accountable democratic institutions
• A deep investigative look at machine governance in action — Nassau County's IDA revolving door, law firms that profit from it, and the self-perpetuation cycle that eliminates electoral competition
• Practical chapters on digital civesting, holding representatives accountable, local government engagement, and the long game of sustained civic participation
• Primary source documents and case studies from Long Island's civic history

This is a book for anyone who has ever felt shut out, written off, or told their participation doesn't matter.

Civestors civest. Are you one?