Public Agenda is a nonpartisan research and public engagement organization dedicated to strengthening democracy and expanding opportunity for all Americans.
New & Noteworthy
Our Work:
Programs & Publications
The Public’s Agenda. Public Agenda applies its expertise in nonpartisan research and public engagement to foster progress on the issues people care about most, including:
Other Topics:
Criminal Justice, Immigration, Housing, Climate Change, and more.
Public Agenda’s Hidden Common Ground® initiative challenges the narrative that Americans are hopelessly divided and incapable of working together. Through research, journalism, and public engagement, Hidden Common Ground helps Americans identify and strengthen their common ground, productively navigate their differences, and create fair and effective solutions to the challenges of our time.
Hidden Common Ground explores issues including overcoming divisiveness, responses to the coronavirus, health care, economic opportunity, racism and police reform, and immigration.
The Kettering Foundation is a research partner of the Hidden Common Ground initiative. Hidden Common Ground is supported by a diverse group of foundations including Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Charles Koch Institute, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Civic Health Project and through the generosity of individual donors.
Learn more about Hidden Common Ground.
Americans are frustrated with the state of our democracy. How do they want to change it? How do they want to be engaged?
The Yankelovich Stronger Democracy Program contributes research, ideas and tools that support sound public judgment and meaningful public participation.
The New York Metro Agenda is our program specifically serving our home city and region through nonpartisan research, cutting-edge public engagement and local events.
New York is our home base. It is also a hotbed of democratic innovation, and we are supporting this civic energy through actionable research, cutting-edge democratic practices, and thought-provoking events. Recent local projects have supported better health care services for low-income families; better small businesses/community relations; and collaboration between residents and scientists on environmental resilience in Jamaica Bay.
Recent work:
How We Work
Public Agenda works to strengthen democracy and expand opportunity for all Americans through public engagement and public opinion research.
"...it [can be] hard to find agreement on where things stand, how we can do better, and what solutions are worth trying...Public Agenda provided a signal service in promoting civil discussion, clarifying what we do and don't know, and respectfully acknowledging different views."
- Frederick M. Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
Help Us Build a Democracy that Works for Everyone
Democracy in America and around the world has come under severe stress. It is Public Agenda’s privilege to work as hard as we can to make our democracy a more just, effective and resilient problem-solving institution, so everyone has a voice. Please make a gift to us today, at this critical moment in American history.