This is where the Rules Change Project comes in. It began in 2013, in Amherst, Mass., when a small group gathered to consider how to respond to the challenge of fixing the game in an increasingly unequal and undemocratic nation. They adopted a vision statement. The Rules Change Project spotlights, amplifies and broadens support for economic and corporate rules change efforts. It is an informal, non-partisan collaboration – of individuals and independent groups – fostering a national conversation to help America to follow its democratic ideals. It illuminates how average Americans are finding answers to the tough questions, in hopes of stimulating even more Americans to follow.
If you talk to the people in Washington, D.C., who are in a position to make or change policy, they’ll tell you don’t look to them for initiative. They’ll say create public pressure on an issue and make that pressure visible.
Rules are changed by individuals who come together and refuse to accept the norm. Rules are changed through grassroots movements that grow from the ground level upwards, gaining power and influence as more and more people feel compelled to pursue change. This has been seen from the very inception of America, from the colonies that united in Revolution, to the Civil Right’s movement, to women’s suffrage, to the environmental movement.
The rules Change Project seeks to make change in cities, town states and regions more visible to Washington. One way to do that is to find examples of people and institutions sticking their necks out, above the crowd, to create change in the way we regulate, manage, or do business with corporations. So we’re looking for giraffes. Have you seen any?
In that effort, we collaborate with and link to the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning author, journalist and documentarian Hedrick Smith, and his Reclaim The American Dream initiative.
