About the Kettering Foundation
The Foundation explores ways that key political practices can be strengthened through innovations that emphasize active roles for citizens. Its work addresses the challenges of making democracy work as it should through interrelated program areas that focus on people, communities, and institutions.
Guiding Kettering’s research are three hypotheses. Democracy requires:
- Citizens who as “sovereigns” can make sound decisions about public issues
- Citizens who can act together to deal with their problems, beginning in their communities
- Citizens who can align the work they do with the institutions they created to serve them so that civic initiatives reinforce institutional efforts
The Kettering Foundation assists an extensive network of associates that collaborate with community organizations, government agencies, researchers/ scholars, and citizens that become “co-learners” in a learning-based theory of change. The Foundation makes discoveries by watching people experiment, and makes diagnoses based on its observations of citizens attempting to solve problems together.
Kettering shares its research findings through the publication of research reports, books, occasional papers, and videos posted on its website (www.kettering.org) and disseminates its research in three periodicals: The Kettering Review , The Higher Education Exchange, and Connections.
In addition, Kettering produces materials, including issue books and starter videos, for the National Issues Forums, a network of civic and educational organizations whose common interest is promoting public deliberation. The Foundation studies the work of NIF as part of its research efforts.
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