Citizenship in the Community Merit Badge

What this page is

The Citizenship in the Community merit badge, laid out so you can see what depends on what. It is not a copy of the requirements: each step is a short label with a link to the official requirements, which are what actually governs and which change from year to year. Read the wording there and tick the steps here.

How a merit badge is earned at all (the unit leader, the counselor, the blue card, and why the order of those matters) is a separate page, How to Earn a Merit Badge.

Two chains, and they run in one direction only

Most of this badge can be done in any order. Two parts cannot, and the requirements say so themselves.

Requirement 4 is an interview you have to earn the right to arrange. First work out which branch of local government owns the issue you picked (4a), then interview somebody from that branch (4b), then tell your counselor what you learned (4c). Interviewing first and deciding afterwards which branch they represented is not the requirement.

Requirement 7 ends in eight hours of volunteering. Identify three charitable organisations (7a), pick one of those three and research it (7b), then contact the one you researched and volunteer at least eight hours with them (7c). Three steps, one organisation, in that order.

Requirement 3 is smaller but works the same way. You attend the meeting, and then you argue about an issue raised at that meeting, not an issue you already had opinions about.

Start with the calendar

Requirement 3(a) is an in-person meeting of your city, town or county council, a school board, or a local court session. Those bodies meet when they meet. Look up the schedule before you plan anything else on this page; everything else here can be arranged around your own week, and this cannot.

The eight volunteer hours in 7(c) are the other long one, and they must be done while you are working on this badge: hours you gave last year do not count towards it.

Where there is no question to ask

Some plans on this site ask you a question and then remove the branches that are not yours. This one does not, and that is deliberate. Requirement 7(b) tells you to pick one of three organisations, but they are organisations you named. There is no fixed list for the page to narrow down. A question that cannot remove a branch is decoration, so there isn't one.