“Poverty and social injustice can only take root in poorly organized communities”
~ Bernardo Toro, Universidad Javeriana, Colombia

Mexico has one of the lowest civil society participation rates in the world

• Today, fewer than 8,000 official tax-exempt CSOs (donatarias autorizadas) exist nationwide and the total number of CSOs in Mexico is estimated at just 28,000 to 29,000.
  (Centro Mexicano para la Filantropía, 2007)
• Only .4% of the economically-active population in Mexico work as paid staff or volunteers in CSOs.
  (Johns Hopkins CCSS, 2004)

A weakness in civil society engagement means citizens are relatively not aware, not vocal, not active, and therefore, not impactful.

In Mexico, 90% of the population has not yet been involved in a civil society organization. As a Result:

• Citizen activism is not achieving its potential to benefit society through the good work of non-governmental organizations;
• Citizen activism is not sufficiently propelling or supporting action by the government (or even monitoring good governance at the federal, state, or local level).

For Mexico to combat its current crisis, one necessary component of stability is growth in civil society.