We are a diverse coalition of more than 80 respected established organizations committed to revitalizing democratic practice in America.
Since it’s often difficult for any one group to fully capture public attention or broadly popularize solutions, we are banding together to create great impact across three broad areas: civic engagement, governance and policymaking, and campaign and election processes.
June 14, 2018
Today is Flag Day, a holiday which celebrates the day we adopted the stars and stripes as our national flag. On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress resolved to represent the nascent union with a flag of thirteen stripes and thirteen stars, sewn by Betsy Ross. While our flag has changed in design over the years – we’ve waved 27 different versions since that first resolution – as a country, we have held tight to the story that Ross, a Colonial-era flagmaker, singlehandedly crafted the Old Glory in all its, well, glory. But the truth is a little more complicated – and a little more reflective of the iterative process and “many-hands” approach that is core to American life.
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June 08, 2018
How can public engagement evolve in order to meet the challenges and conditions of 2017? In my first post of this multi-blog series, I shared a list of promising directions for innovation in the field. Now, in Part 2 of the series, we'll explore in more detail the first item on that list: making engagement more social and versatile, so that it is more common, convenient and fun.
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June 02, 2018
Just last year SLLF signed up with Bridge Alliance, a new organization whose stated goal is to restore civility to our national discourse. We believe the Bridge Alliance is onto something, not just because they speak truth when they point out how damaging the current lack of civility is to the health of our democracy, but more because they are trying to do something about it. We’ve put our oar in the water, joined the BA family, and together with other like-minded organizations, we’re working to restore a measure of civility to the legislative discourse. The job is not easy.
Read More
June 14, 2018
Today is Flag Day, a holiday which celebrates the day we adopted the stars and stripes as our national flag. On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress resolved to represent the nascent union with a flag of thirteen stripes and thirteen stars, sewn by Betsy Ross. While our flag has changed in design over the years – we’ve waved 27 different versions since that first resolution – as a country, we have held tight to the story that Ross, a Colonial-era flagmaker, singlehandedly crafted the Old Glory in all its, well, glory. But the truth is a little more complicated – and a little more reflective of the iterative process and “many-hands” approach that is core to American life.
Read More
June 08, 2018
How can public engagement evolve in order to meet the challenges and conditions of 2017? In my first post of this multi-blog series, I shared a list of promising directions for innovation in the field. Now, in Part 2 of the series, we'll explore in more detail the first item on that list: making engagement more social and versatile, so that it is more common, convenient and fun.
Read More
June 02, 2018
Just last year SLLF signed up with Bridge Alliance, a new organization whose stated goal is to restore civility to our national discourse. We believe the Bridge Alliance is onto something, not just because they speak truth when they point out how damaging the current lack of civility is to the health of our democracy, but more because they are trying to do something about it. We’ve put our oar in the water, joined the BA family, and together with other like-minded organizations, we’re working to restore a measure of civility to the legislative discourse. The job is not easy.
Read More
