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We're a nonpartisan nonprofit that engages Americans directly to solve shared challenges and craft better policy. Our mission is to strengthen democracy by advancing informed, citizen-developed solutions to challenging public issues. We advance the public interest by creating opportunities for in-depth citizen education and deliberation that generates informed, inclusive solutions to today's toughest problems. To ensure the work of citizens makes an impact, we cultivate creative partnerships and pursue high-impact organizing and outreach strategies that help decision makers and the broader public work together effectively.

When most people think about economic development, the first thing that often comes to mind is, real estate, infrastructure and the recruitment of businesses. Although, these are indeed elements of economic development, there is more to economic development than only those types of actions. Economic Development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health. The scope of economic development includes the process and policies by which a nation or region improves the economic, political, and social well being of its people. Essentially, a nation's economic development is directly related to its human development, which includes, among other things, health, education, culture and job creation.

Citizen uptake to date has been, however less than was hoped. Part of it is the normal delay in innovation uptake, and part is linked to poor internet penetration and low connectivity in aid intensive countries. But the time has come to analyze more closely the reasons for this tepid demand side response or its lack of sustainability after an initial peak of interest. What may well be missing is the human element and the ability of people potentially interested in using this information to work together in conducive venues where they could exchange ideas, develop joint approaches, and train citizens and CSO organizations.

The Institute's mission is to provide innovative strategies, working models and timely information to support environmentally sound and equitable community development. To this end, ILSR works with citizens, activists, policymakers and entrepreneurs to design systems, policies and enterprises that meet local or regional needs; to maximize human, material, natural and financial resources; and to ensure that the benefits of these systems and resources accrue to all local citizens.

Welcome to the EDA Know Your Region project. Funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA), this research project explores regional and local approaches to economic innovation and competitiveness across the United States. The resources developed as part of the overall project curriculum, as well as the Know Your Region online clearinghouse, are intended to help local officials, economic development practitioners, community leaders and citizens assess local and regional assets, needs and visions in a global context, leading to long-term regional prosperity and sustainability.

At the Center for Wise Democracy we have developed a set of social innovations that offer breakthrough progress on these impossible-seeming issues. These innovations are being proven to work by citizen groups and government leaders. For example in Central Europe, government leaders are using the Wisdom Council to involve and empower citizens, build the spirit of community, break through partisan gridlock, and to leap forward difficult, impossible-seeming issues. Other examples are:

The Interactivity Foundation works to enhance the process and expand the scope and health of our public discussions by bringing people together in small group discussions of broad topics of public policy concern. Our Fellows conduct Project Discussions that engage separate panels of selected generalists and specialists on a public policy topic for a year or more of private (or "sanctuary") discussions to develop and explore multiple policy possibilities, which are then worked into a Discussion Report. We also conduct and sponsor shorter series (3-4 sessions) of small group Public Discussions, which are open to all interested participants and use the possibilities from our Discussion Reports as the starting point for further exploration and development. Finally, we collaborate with certain college faculty to develop and support facilitated, student-centered Classroom Discussions.

NetSciEd has evolved in response to escalating activity in the field of network science, and the urgent need for citizens to be able to access the field through education channels. NetSciEd reflects the multiple efforts underway in pursuit of this goal: intensive workshops for students, introductory workshops open to the public, participation in public science festivals, professional development for teachers, development of network literacy principles, curriculum development, YouTube videos and online courses - plus much more, all of which you will find here.

Participedia harnesses the power of collaboration to respond to a recent global phenomenon: the rapid development of experiments in new forms of participatory politics and governance around the world. We live in a world in which citizens of most countries are asking for greater involvement in collective decisions. Many governments, non-governmental organizations, and even some corporations are responding by experimenting with ways to increase public participation. Hundreds of thousands of participatory processes occur each year in almost every country in the world. They are adressing a wide variety of political and policy problems. And they often supplement and sometimes compete with more traditional forms of politics, such as representative democracy. Participedia responds to these developments by providing a low-cost, easy way for hundreds of researchers and practitioners from across the globe to catalogue and compare the performance of participatory political processes.

The first award, the Innovative Planning Tool Award, highlights the best new contribution to the development of open planning tools. This year's winner for goes to Infill Score, a free open source tool for measuring a community's readiness for infill. This tool provides citizens, planners, and elected officials with a self-assessment tool and action planning tools to focus public and private sector investment and accelerate the implementation of sustainable communities. Congratulations to Infill Score.

The LivCom Awards were launched in 1997 and are endorsed by the United Nations Environment Programme, (UNEP), with which it shares a Memorandum of Understanding. The LivCom Awards is the World's only Awards Competition focussing on International Best Practice regarding the management of the local environment. The objective of LivCom is to develop and share International Best Practice, with the further objective of improving the quality of life of individual citizens through the creation of 'liveable communities'.

The mission of the Governors' Institute on Community Design is to assist governors and their cabinets and staffs as they seek to guide growth and development in their states. A central goal of the Institute is to give governors practical solutions to the issues they face and a better understanding of how community design can be used to increase the social and economic well being of their states and citizens.

The focus was on creating "cities for life" - that is, on promoting equitable development in the urban environments in which a majority of the world's citizens already live, and in which two thirds will reside by the year 2050.

The Creative Learning Exchange was founded as a non-profit in 1991 to encourage the development of systems citizens who use systems thinking and system dynamics to meet the interconnected challenges that face them at personal, community, and global levels.

The Interactivity Foundation ("IF") engages citizens in small group discussions to develop and explore multiple and contrasting possibilities for long-term public policy and democratic governance. IF is non-partisan and does not engage in advocacy on behalf of any of the public policy possibilities developed by its projects or discussion processes. IF is an operating foundation and does not make grants.

PlaceSpeak is a location-based public engagement platform that vets citizen users to their actual addresses and connects them with proponents of relevant local issues. It informs evidence-based decision-making and public policy development by delivering verifiable data. It s customers include local governments, the property development industry, public and regulated agencies, utilities and community groups.

The Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership supports and promotes public participation as a way of developing more creative and sustainable policy decisions, and more engaged and informed citizens. To fulfill this mission, we assume three roles as we work with California's cities, counties, school districts and civic organizations:

Next City finds compelling projects that might inspire your own work or be worth replicating in your city. We ask practitioners to present the project, including the challenges, roadblocks and lessons learned. Then we moderate a live conversation with the audience.