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Goals and Strategies

Goals and Strategies – Existing unmet needs and Heartland Democracy’s positioning and value can be summarized in the following unique combination of distinctive goals and strategies. In coming months and years, Heartland Democracy will focus on the following strategies to complement existing groups:

1.  Integrate progressive thinking across all values and issues, showing how Midwestern pragmatic progressive values relate to each other to bring progressives together.   Progressive thinking is more persuasive to Midwesterners when it is presented as a whole. 

2.  Direct Public Engagement and Empowerment:   Provide public education on values, stories, lessons of history, facts,  and solutions through an aggressive public engagement program using  educational, marketing, and grassroots strategies.   Heartland Democracy is engaging the public directly through group discussions, grassroots networks, email and web exchanges with Midwesterners in schools, houses of worship, clubs, and other forums. 

3. Regionalize thinking and action, restoring pride in the Midwest’s unique traditions of pragmatic, open, reformist, and community-based governance.  Many of us live, work, commute, travel, and observe media across state lines; we have strong familial ties and friendships across the region.  Progressives and the region will do better when its states tackle common challenges together.

4.   Coordinate:  Progressive leaders have asked Heartland Democracy to coordinate with, and complement, policy development; messaging; and research on values, history, persuasion, and trends. 

Public-spirited Americans desiring a just and sustainable society have a strong interest in building an institution that can achieve these goals in the heart of the country.