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The Election Toolkit is a place where any election official can find communication tools that are recommended and tested by other election officials. Each tool includes information about why to use it, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to best use each tool.

Inspired by the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor, the Roosevelt Institute reimagines America as it should be: a place where hard work is rewarded, everyone participates, and everyone enjoys a fair share of our collective prosperity. We believe that when the rules work against this vision, it's our responsibility to recreate them. We bring together thousands of thinkers and doers-from a new generation of leaders in every state to Nobel laureate economists-working to redefine the rules that guide our social and economic realities. We rethink and reshape everything from local policy to federal legislation, orienting toward a new economic and political system: one built by many for the good of all.

Voter Participation. By keeping voters informed throughout the year on issues that matter most to them, more people will see how legislation affects those issues, and recognize the importance of voting and engaging with their representative year-round. Voters will have a more informed view their representatives during election season.

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 Creating Health Collaborative is a group of innovators working individually to understand and create health 'beyond the lens of health care'. The Collaborative is run by a nine-person Executive that believes our struggle to meet the growing demand for care is underpinned by an inability to see health as more than just 'the absence of disease'.

"In a new report, I reinforce what the goal of economic development should be, as summarized by decades of academic literature: to put a region on a path to higher growth by improving the productivity of firms and people in ways that leads to better incomes and living standards for all."

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.

The Sunlight Foundation is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization that uses the power of the Internet to catalyze greater government openness and transparency, and provides new tools and resources for media and citizens, alike. We are committed to improving access to government information by making it available online, indeed redefining "public" information as meaning "online," and by creating new tools and websites to enable individuals and communities to better access that information and put it to use.

The Athens Charter, or Charte d'Athènes was a document about urban planning published by the Swiss architect, Le Corbusier in 1943. The work was based upon Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse (Radiant City) book of 1935 and urban studies undertaken by the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in the early 1930s.

The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. As a priority Open Government Initiative for President Obama's administration, Data.gov increases the ability of the public to easily find, download, and use datasets that are generated and held by the Federal Government. Data.gov provides descriptions of the Federal datasets (metadata), information about how to access the datasets, and tools that leverage government datasets. The data catalogs will continue to grow as datasets are added. Federal, Executive Branch data are included in the first version of Data.gov.

Knowledge wants to be free! 1We've decided to produce world-class educational materials by elite professors and elite designers. And give them to you for free. 2 We think you deserve free access to materials written by the world's foremost authorities - worth thousands of dollars - whether you are from New York or New Delhi. In fact, we wrote a mission statement about what we want to continue to do for you and the rest of the world. 3 In short, we do it as a labour of love and because we know you will help us in return!

Popularise is the online platform that shares the power to build new places in your neighborhood with local residents like you How often have you thought, "Why doesn't someone turn that vacant building down the street into a bakery, bar, or restaurant?" Now you have the ability to be directly involved in transforming your neighborhood, rather than waiting for someone else to do it. By joining other people in your area on Popularise, you can create the kind of cool, authentic places you want in D.C. Submit your own ideas, and vote for what to build on projects posted by real estate developers and local business operators.

nef (the new economics foundation) is an independent think-and-do tank that inspires and demonstrates real economic well-being. We aim to improve quality of life by promoting innovative solutions that challenge mainstream thinking on economic, environment and social issues. We work in partnership and put people and the planet first. nef was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES) which forced issues such as international debt onto the agenda of the G7 and G8 summits. We are unique in combining rigorous analysis and policy debate with practical solutions on the ground, often run and designed with the help of local people. We also create new ways of measuring progress towards increased well-being and environmental sustainability.

UN-HABITAT's programmes are designed to help policy-makers and local communities get to grips with the human settlements and urban issues and find workable, lasting solutions. The organization's mandate is outlined in the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements, Habitat Agenda, Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements, the Declaration on Cities and Other Human Settlements in the New Millennium, and Resolution 56/206. UN-HABITAT's work is directly related to the United Nations Millennium Declaration, particularly the goals of member States to improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020, Target 11, Millennium Development Goal No. 7, and Target 10 which calls for the reduction by half of the number without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

"Community governance" refers to the processes for making all the decisions and plans that affect life in the community, whether made by public or private organizations or by citizens. For community governance to be effective, it must be about more than process, it also must be about getting things done in the community. And what gets done must make a difference. So, it is crucial to measure results. But what should be done, and what results should be measured? There is no standard answer. The most important results vary from one community to another, and different people within a community have different perceptions about what the community should try to improve and how success should be measured. So, it is vital to engage citizens in deciding what to do and to engage them in deciding what results to measure or what performance goals or targets to measure against. Then, when targeted results are achieved, they will be results that matter to the people of the community.

From Original Minds: Conversations with CBC's Eleanor Wahctel. Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Copyright © 2003 by Eleanor Wachtel. All rights reserved. Jane Jacobs is variously known as the guru of cities, an urban legend-"part analyst, part activist, part prophet." In the more than forty years since the publication of her groundbreaking book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), her influence has been extraordinary-not only on architects, community workers, and planners but also on Nobel Prize-winning economists and ecologists. As one critic recently put it, "Jacobs's influence confirms that books matter. It isn't easy to cite another writer who has had a comparable impact in our time."

Our Theory of Change The Network is about: Building community demand for results, by mobilizing residents and stakeholders around an equity agenda creating opportunity for families and transforming neighborhoods. The Network is about higher aspirations, and about providing both the expectation of a better future as well as the connections and collective power to pursue it. Creating new connections to systems and organizations by creating new avenues and approaches for interacting with systems that otherwise pose barriers. Transforming the environment to sustain the change, creating family-centered, equitable, results-focused systems that work for all families. Holding ourselves and others accountable for what we say we are doing in community.

We're very inspired by Ezio Manzini, the Italian design strategist and founder of DESIS network, who says: When we design, we search for problems to solve. If you take the capability approach, you search for capabilities to support. He continues, "You don't ask what you can do to make people behave differently. You ask what you can do to recognize people's capabilities and help people use those to solve the problems they face." In the social sector, problems and unmet needs are almost too easy to find. Rather, we look for assets-the people, resources, behaviors, relationships, and systems-that are already working well. Our designs leverage those assets to create more and better life. A structured process We believe strongly that design is a process, and we've often found the design process to be transformative for both students and clients. Ours can be represented by a "double diamond," a two-part sequence of broadening and narrowing.

Our Philosophy & Guiding Principles Social systems work as they do because of how we work - how we think and interact. Our habitual ways of thinking and acting typically lead to change efforts shaped by mechanical problem solving and unproductive competition, often among otherwise well-intentioned interveners. In effect, we try to control complex processes that cannot be controlled, and in so doing miss the real opportunities for deeper and more long-lasting change. By contrast, natural systems demonstrate harmony, balance, integration, and ongoing evolution. The new knowledge we see emerging in the world shapes organic processes of change that result in social systems that are more resilient, sustainable, and adaptive. These "integral" learning and change processes knit "inner" and "outer" change, and are both deeply personal and inherently collective.

Stephen Kearney (CEO) and Nick Gardham (Projects Director) introduce RSLM as an educative process for systematic neighbourhood change RSLM™  or Root Solution - Listening Matters™, is the process for democratic engagement and civic renewal developed by Action to Regenerate Community Trust (reg. charity no. 1078551) over the past 25 years. It is a community engagement framework, strategy and process which is at the heart of the effective animating and organising of communities, groups and organisations. It has been proven to: develops trust, respect and relationships engages local people in conversations that lead to networks and action supports established and independent organisations and service providers to collaborate with communities in meeting their needs and aspirations. demonstrates a model of practice that may be utilised by existing and new project partners and communities. RSLM techniques allow trained Community Animators and Organisers to listen and to explore things that people love about their area that they can build on, things that concern them most - their motivations and their ideas for action , whilst focusing on and drawing out solutions.