OPEN FORUM FOUNDATION

This isn't for everyone - seriously!

There are very few people that are passionate about improving communication with elected officials. Are you one of them?

It's easy to understand people that are passionate about life and death issues like health care or immigration or abortion, but better communication? It's a little too abstract for the average person. Why bother with that?

The unfortunate thing is that better communication could have a significant impact on the ability of all those other people to be involved in the policy making process. Now that does sound cool, doesn't it? I mean, what if every one that cares could be part of the discussion in a meaningful way - not just filibustering and clogging up the process, but actually making meaningful contributions and moving issues towards resolution?

What if the discussions could move beyond partisan bickering and 'preaching to the choir' to meaningful discussion and even understanding?

What if new ideas could be vetted through a meaningful process that would improve them while taking into consideration the perspectives of everyone that cares and will be affected by the proposed policy?

Well, that's what we're doing - and there's lots to do, as you may be aware. Technology continues to evolve and so do the ways that people are using (and abusing) it. Here are some of our current and past projects:

• We're just getting the Open Model for Citizen Engagement up and running - It's a community of passionate individuals and organizations (are you one? http://om4ce.org/) with a core of organizations that build citizen engagement software. This is the foundation for building the future of governance.
• We built GovLuv - a website that connects elected officials with their constituents via Twitter ( http://govluv.org/ ).
• We hosted CongressCamp - an unconference to help Congressional staff figure out social media ( http://congresscamp.org/ ).

If you want to learn more about us, follow any of the links above, hit our website at http://openforumfoundation.org/, or get ahold of us - we're easy to find through any of those places.