When first formulating our original Grand Bargain Framework Agreement, we sought input from an extensive network of former federal officials, think tank leaders, stakeholders, and political advocates. From their crucial feedback, we developed a refined set of policy reforms which addressed six national objectives that 96% of Americans identified as critical to their future:

Boosting economic opportunity, productivity, and growth

Reforming education so students, K–12 and beyond, reach their potential

Making healthcare more effective and less costly

Curbing the national debt

Promoting more efficient, cleaner, and reliable energy

Making the tax code fairer and simpler

At the core of our mission was to uplift the aspirations of the American people and identify a roadmap that could achieve that goal and evolve as the country’s needs shifted. That remains our mission, which is why we realized our framework needed three more reforms to support a key additional proposal – a seventh shared aspiration that will prove to be the vehicle to achieving the other six:

• Congress refocused on tackling America’s problems

These seven proposals and, now, 39 policy reforms became the foundation of the Grand Bargain Project. Having outlined the core aspirations of most Americans and a clear set of interconnected reforms serving as a roadmap to reaching those aspirations, the next logical step was to seek input from the general public.

Yet, even with the detailed framework and clear set of reforms, there was still something missing. 

People could read the proposals. They could agree or disagree in theory. But there was no real way to interact with the policies or for the Grand Bargain team to gauge how each reform resonated with individuals - from policy makers to stakeholders, to the general public.

And perhaps, most importantly it was impossible to understand and measure, at scale, whether people would be willing to support a broader package - the Grand Bargain as a whole - accepting the parts they disliked in order to secure the ones they cared about most.

According to solid polling, the framework’s seven objectives represent the shared aspirations of the American public. But in order to credibly show to Congress that the Grand Bargain is representative of all Americans, we needed a way to hear from the people and assess if they wanted a different route forward for the country. 

But what was that way? 

The answer came in the form of an email from our CEO who had just met with a high-level policy maker. In the email he had a seemingly simple request for a new website feature.

“When I deal with very high-level policy makers they have a very hard time grasping the concept of the framework agreement.

The way to get around this I think is to create a feature on the website where anyone can highlight each policy statement and pop it into one of five buckets: like very much, like somewhat, don’t care or not sure, dislike, dislike intensely.

Then each visitor could ask themselves: is the stuff in buckets one and two so valuable to me, my family and the country that I could live with buckets four and five.

This will obviously require all kinds of technical refinement as we move along. But incorporating this feature is I think necessary for us to move The Grand Bargain to the next level.”

The team had its marching orders, but the next question was what should this feature look like? What is the best way to engage people in a world where everything is competing for our attention? How do we make it convenient and accessible for the user without compromising the depth of the policies and thereby receive as much feedback as possible?

The solution: an interactive WebApp, designed so that anyone could easily access the Grand Bargain’s platform and comment on it from their computer, tablet or mobile phone. 

Highlighting the Grand Bargain’s six national objectives, the WebApp takes the user through each specific policy proposal, allowing them to consider which are most important to them and which are not. With merely a Wi-Fi signal and a click of their fingers, Americans from all over the country could reflect on and share their aspirations. 

More importantly, they could determine if they believed that the Grand Bargain was a better route to meeting those aspirations than the current direction the country is headed.

Unlike all the noise emanating from news channels and social media, where people more often talk at one another instead of with one another, the WebApp provides a space for individual voices to come together. No matter where they live, The People are heard and help shape the evolving platform of the Grand Bargain. 

The Webapp is a meeting point: it meets the users where they (and we) are standing right now, and where they (and we) want to be in the future. 

Some apps report data. Some apps provide information. No other app does what this one does.

At its most fundamental, the app is a platform to tangibly measure how users feel about the Grand Bargain proposals, data that can be brought before Congress and shared with other like-minded groups. On a more personal level, it is an invitation for users to reflect on what they value and how that can be achieved. 

If most Americans share similar aspirations – and our research shows they do – then it becomes a matter of forging the best path forward. The Grand Bargain WebApp was built as a first step towards repairing the system so that it works better for the country as a whole. 

For too long, Congress has listened to the few for the benefit of themselves. Now, they can listen to all of us for the benefit of everyone. 

Experience the WebApp for yourself TODAY!