Helping Citizens Grapple with our Most Critical Public Issues
We believe a thoughtful public contributes to a healthy democracy. We believe people can build knowledge and sound judgment more quickly through engagement and dialogue. And we believe that, when leaders engage the public in decision making, the result is policy that is sustainable and maximally beneficial.
To help better educate the public and bring leaders and citizens together to collaborate on solutions, Public Agenda provides both resources that encourage mindful, solutions-oriented discussion and guidance and assistance to facilitate productive dialogue between stakeholders.
Fostering solutions-oriented discussion. Our many Choicework discussion guides are nonpartisan, unbiased resources that help people think through a difficult issue in alternative ways, weighing and evaluating values, priorities, pros, cons and tradeoffs. Choicework can be used to start and guide unbiased and productive discussion for community and group conversations and in classrooms.
Helping citizens confront the trade-offs. Our Citizens' Solutions Guides examine a variety of approaches, from diverse perspectives, for tackling the Federal Budget, Energy, Health Care, Education, Immigration, and Jobs and the Economy. The guides are a resource for citizens to sort through and weigh the trade-offs of policy choices. Important resources for the 2012 elections, the guides remain vital tools for us to build common ground in spite of our differences.
Assisting public officials with public engagement. In St. Louis, we worked with FOCUS St. Louis to facilitate collaboration between local and regional leaders and the public on sustainable regional planning. In Connecticut, our work in the '90s helped communities build capacity for meaningful and productive public engagement on issues like school safety, Engagement remains a key part of the political process throughout the state.
Improving the public debate on key issues. To create a more comprehensive understanding of what success means and how more Americans can achieve it, Public Agenda, in collaboration with the GALEWiLL Center for Policy & Progress, is working to inject the public's voice into the conversation about this important topic. Through our public opinion research on Americans' views toward the American Dream, we hope to create tools and resources that will foster a more honest and productive national dialogue about the American Dream.