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About EPI. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank created in 1986 to include the needs of low- and middle-income workers in economic policy discussions. EPI believes every working person deserves a good job with fair pay, affordable health care, and retirement security. To achieve this goal, EPI conducts research and analysis on the economic status of working America. EPI proposes public policies that protect and improve the economic conditions of low- and middle-income workers and assesses policies with respect to how they affect those workers.

Mission, Goal, Vision and Values The Institute for Local Government promotes good government at the local level with practical, impartial and easy-to-use resources for California communities. Goal The Institute's goal is to be the leading provider of information that enables local officials and their communities to make good decisions. Vision The Institute envisions a future in California in which: People value their local public institutions. Local agencies effectively deliver public services. All segments of the community are appropriately engaged in key public decisions. Decision-makers make informed policy choices based on their best sense of the public's interest.

Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. We are dedicated to informing and improving public policy in California through independent, objective, nonpartisan research. PPIC is independent, with no government, university, or charitable affiliations.

From Facebook page: Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. We are dedicated to informing and improving public policy in California through independent, objective, nonpartisan research.

For almost a decade, the Davenport Institute has been researching, training, and consulting with public officials to improve the ways in which governments involve their residents in making tough policy decisions. This work has taken us throughout California and across the country, learning about and teaching the latest techniques in effective participatory governance. We continue to hear from public leaders seeking to capture a "30,000-foot view" of their government's practices in this area. That is why we are launching "How are WE Doing?" to be that lens through which you can evaluate your municipality's public engagement processes.

Since our founding as a multi-partisan and non-profit organization in 2005, The Davenport Institute (formerly Common Sense California) has worked to engage the citizens of this state in the policy decisions that affect our everyday lives. It is our firm belief that, in today's world of easy access to information, and easy connectivity to others, California's municipal and education leaders are seeking ways to involve the residents of their communities in the important issues they confront. Done legitimately, this new kind of leadership produces better, more creative policy solutions and better, more engaged citizens committed to the hard work of self-governance.

The PPIC Water Policy Center builds on the successful model of strategic research and engagement that defines all of PPIC's work. It connects nonpartisan, objective research to real-world water management debates, with the goal of putting California water policy on a sustainable and constructive path. The center has fostered a vibrant, multidisciplinary research network and strengthened the bridge between science and policy.

The Hamilton Project seeks to advance America's promise of opportunity, prosperity, and growth. The Project's economic strategy reflects a judgment that long-term prosperity is best achieved by fostering economic growth and broad participation in that growth, by enhancing individual economic security, and by embracing a role for effective government in making needed public investments. We believe that today's increasingly competitive global economy requires public policy ideas commensurate with the challenges of the 21st Century. Our strategy calls for combining increased public investments in key growth-enhancing areas, a secure social safety net, and fiscal discipline. In that framework, the Project puts forward innovative proposals from leading economic thinkers-based on credible evidence and experience, not ideology or doctrine to introduce new and effective policy options into the national debate.

Informed by research, NICD's programs are designed to create safe spaces for elected officials, the media, and the public to engage different voices respectfully and take responsibility for the quality of our public discourse and effectiveness of our democratic institutions. NICD identifies opportunities to drive change across all three groups while deepening the networks among and between them. Our vision is of elected officials who work collaboratively to tackle the big issues facing our country, a media that accurately informs and involves citizens, and a public that engages a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.

The Think Long Committee for California aims to offer a comprehensive approach for repairing and renovating California's broken system of governance while proposing policies and institutions vital for the state's long term future. It will make its recommendations to the legislature and newly elected governor and, as necessary, take issues to the public ballot through initiatives.

The University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE) is committed to transforming democracy by creating a more fully engaged community with more effective leaders. We create opportunities for scholars, concerned citizens, students, community leaders, elected officials, and the public to actively participate in social discourse, research and educational programs on policy issues and social trends.

Involve are public participation specialists; bringing institutions, communities and citizens together to accelerate innovation, understanding discussion and change. Involve makes a practical difference by delivering the highest quality public participation processes possible as well as undertaking rigorous research and policy analysis into what works.

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:

What this report finds: Income inequality has risen in every state since the 1970s and in many states is up in the post-Great Recession era. In 24 states, the top 1 percent captured at least half of all income growth between 2009 and 2013, and in 15 of those states, the top 1 percent captured all income growth. In another 10 states, top 1 percent incomes grew in the double digits, while bottom 99 percent incomes fell. For the United States overall, the top 1 percent captured 85.1 percent of total income growth between 2009 and 2013. In 2013 the top 1 percent of families nationally made 25.3 times as much as the bottom 99 percent.

The Centre for Civil Society is a social innovation and public policy institute for the empowerment of ordinary people and strengthening of civil society.

The term 'civil society' refers to the relationships and associations that make up our life at grass-roots levels of society, in families, neighbourhoods and voluntary associations, independent of both government and the commercial world. Our aim is to strengthen civil society and empower people within it. 

"The shift in what employers think of as their role not just in the community but [relative] to their workforce is quite radical, and I think it has led to the last two jobless recoveries," said Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology.