Putting it into Practice: Examples using the Research Recommendations

To rebuild support for government's fundamental mission to pursue the common good, people from all sectors of society must be engaged in reclaiming the balance between public and private purpose, between individual and collective responsibilities. While our efforts must go beyond improved communications, finding ways to make our everyday communications better is a logical place to start with this endeavor. After attending a Making the Case for Government training, many attendees begin to practice the framing techniques we teach and to use the concepts developed from our Talking about Government research.

We are gratified to see the lessons being practiced -- both in how individuals and organizations organize themselves to this task and to the new dedication and commitment to changing the conversation with the public at large. We see evidence of this in how our fellow "practitioners" are shaping their advocacy campaigns, drafting their policy materials, engaging the media, and developing their outreach and education efforts.

Here, we share with you examples they sent to us. In these, our colleagues:

• talk about government in concrete terms using the public structures simplifying model
• call attention to government's mission and the values that give rise to government in the first place.
• look to the future, highlighting government's role in planning for the long term.
• emphasize that government is something we do together; and
• engage the public as citizens.