Big Tent Nation

Bringing Americans Together to Renew the American Dream.

The Problem

Our current political process involves a very small fraction of our citizens and is driven by narrow interests rather than the needs of the nation as a whole. The insiders with a stranglehold on American decision making want us to believe that mainstream citizen engagement is a waste of time. However, history tells a very different story – and we’re not talking ancient history. Even in the current toxic environment, big things happen when ordinary citizens come together and speak out. The problem isn’t that citizens have no power, but that expressing it is too hard. Big Tent Nation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit initiative dedicated to substantially increasing the number of citizens working together to address America’s highest stakes economic challenges. We’ve done extensive research on what drives politics and economic strategy in this country, and we’re ready to bring the full power of information technology and social networks to bear on increasing mainstream citizen empowerment and furthering broad-based prosperity.

The Solution

We’re radically streamlining the civic engagement process so that you can express yourself without having to take a day off from work, skip dinner or pitch a tent! The online platform we’re building will support diverse, passionate and proactive communities committed to making America economically stronger and more inclusive. These communities will have an unprecedented number of citizens from across the political spectrum working together to put the American Dream within everyone’s reach. Lobbyists and special interests work the system full time and are therefore able to roam the halls in Washington. But our online platform is designed to level the playing field. Big Tent Nation will make it possible to take meaningful action in just a click or two – whether it’s contacting your Congresswomen or forming a group in your local community. We’re designing Big Tent so that if all you’ve got is five minutes to spare you can still make an impact.

While the project we're seeking funding for is in the prototype stage, we have a strong track record in launching meaningful projects that help bring America's together and celebrate civic collaboration. Two examples are the American Civic Collaboration Awards that have highlighted the work of over 100 civic renewal projects over the past two years and culminate in a national awards ceremony held in at the National Conference on Citizenship in DC every October and the National Week of Conversation that brought 130+ organizations in more than 30 states together to discuss our most divisive political issues with mutual respect and open minds.

Planned Use Of Funds

All our current funders are ordinary citizens who are in no way beholden to political parties or special interests. To realize the full Big Tent vision we need additional financial help – and the SharedNation model of fundraising is precisely up our alley. With your funding support we can work to launch our online platform, get more citizen engagement, and increase the reach of our project to get many more citizens signed up and ready to act. America has an unprecedented track record in pulling off big things when mainstream citizens come together – and the Big Tent team will work day and night to make coming together dramatically easier and more rewarding. We’ve developed a track record of making the dollars we have count – and we plan to do the same with any funds received from this SharedNation round. It's a great way to put your money to work to heal and strengthen America.