Michigan's Defining Moment

From the Desk of Kristie Martin on behalf of the Center for Michigan
October 10, 2007

"Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

It’s no secret that Michigan is at the most critical period in our lifetimes. Economic, governmental, and A group of more than 100 diverse Michigan leaders is guiding this unfolding discussion. In collaboration with the Center for Michigan, an IRS-approved 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in 2006 by Phil Power, these leaders are launching an ambitious campaign to combine broad state, regional, and community leadership with public engagement and action to move our state to a new era of prosperity. This transformational campaign is called "Michigan’s Defining Moment" (MDM). Public Sector Consultants, the Lansing public policy research firm, is assisting in planning and execution. Economic, governmental and social systems are floundering. We need energized, mobilized, pragmatic leadership to navigate through our present crisis and lay the foundation for our future prosperity. And we need an intense, inclusive statewide discussion about our future and concerted action to achieve it.

Goals

Michigan’s Defining Moment has three goals:

• Widespread and In-Depth Public Engagement. Use the transformational principles to engage many more people—champions—w ho are committed and prepared to take action in the best interest of the future of our state. Across Michigan, champions will meet and deliberate in small groups—structured "Community Conversations"—that will involve: 
  • Discussing why now is Michigan’s Defining Moment;
  • Listening to champions as they tell stories of their vision, fears, and hopes for Michigan today and tomorrow;
  • Facilitating champions’ deliberations and consensus on what matters most to transform Michigan (strengthening the principles) and how best to do so (proposing strategies and trade-offs that reflect the principles); and
  • Enlisting the commitment of champions throughout Michigan to act now and continually for the best future of our state.
• This process will offer a clear and engaging narrative—in words, pictures, and moving images—of a prosperous Michigan future and the strategies and choices to get us there. This is the public agenda for transformational change.
• Public engagement must be broad and deep—a citizen movement. This plan lays out the ways for 10,000 Michigan residents to engage in deliberative democracy and action for our state’s future.  

Action

The engagement campaign will provide the compelling public agenda, opportunities for continued dialogue on the agenda, and tools to inspire citizens to act on behalf of the future of our state. It will also link the consensus public agenda with current vibrant regional initiatives: Michigan’s public agenda can be woven into these regional initiatives because many MDM champions are also engaged in similar efforts at the regional level, where an infrastructure for change already exists. MDM provides an architecture for statewide reform that can, in turn, boost regional reform and prosperity. In addition, champions will lead debates across the state in which candidates for the state legislature and governor will discuss their commitment to implementing the transformational public agenda.

An overarching, long-term goal of the campaign is to call forth a new generation of forward-looking, pragmatic civic leaders who can implement the shared public agenda developed through the multi-year Michigan’s Defining Moment campaign. To this end, it’s worth noting that Michigan’s upcoming election cycles represent a watershed era in which term limits will require the election of a new governor and new senators and representatives in more than two-thirds of all state legislative districts.

Michigan’s Defining Moment is aimed at long-term, comprehensive reform, not one-time fixes. More than 100 statewide Michigan leaders to date have debated and refined guiding principles and participated as MDM founding champions. This roster of champions will grow as we embark on the large-scale public engagement campaign that will bring at least 10,000 community leaders and citizens from across the state together to forge common ground on Michigan’s best future.

This campaign will, by 2010:

1. Engage thousands of community leaders and citizens in coming to consensus on how best to position Michigan for growth and success, including the strategies and trade-offs necessary to achieve transformational changes. 
2. Provide civic action tools to greatly increase public understanding of Michigan’s economic predicament, bountiful assets, and choices to transform our state. More important, these tools will inspire citizens and local leaders to take action in their own communities. 
3. Produce a clear, far-reaching, shared public agenda for a new Michigan: An agenda tested and refined through in-depth public engagement that frames the debate for the crucial 2008 and 2010 elections and drives cohesive momentum for the change that is imperative for Michigan’s future.

Governance

The MDM campaign must be firmly rooted in the diversity—g eographic, gender, and ethnic—of our state. The campaign is co-chaired and governed by seven diverse, experienced Michigan leaders:

• Paul Hillegonds, Senior Vice President, DTE Energy 
• Mark Murray, President, Meijer, Inc.
• Phil Power, President, The Center for Michigan 
• Glenda Price, President Emerita, Marygrove College 
• Doug Rothwell, President, Detroit Renaissance 
• Marilyn Schlack, President, Kalamazoo Valley Community College 
• S. Martin Taylor, retired executive, longtime community leader, and University of Michigan regent

Why This Approach Can Succeed

Our theory of change, as expressed in the design of the Michigan's Defining Moment campaign, has three aspects:

1. The first has to do with how large scale public opinion is formed. Based on research done by Daniel Yankelovich, it postulates that people do not come to judgment merely by being lectured to. Of course, people need information as a prerequisite to forming attitudes, but they also need a safe, non-judgmental space in which to consider and discuss the information that has been provided them. The community conversation process and protocol that rests at the core of the Michigan’s Defining Moment campaign are designed to align with this research.
2. The second is how to inject a strong sense of emotion and motivation into the process. Most public policy discussion is aimed at "wonks" and simply flies over the heads of most folks. We propose to initiate the community conversation portion of the campaign by asking participants to express their grand vision of Michigan – what makes them want stay here, what would bring them back if they were to move away, what would lead their children and grandchildren to stay here or move back. Having expressed their own visions for Michigan, we propose to invite them to talk about what steps are required to make real those visions. Stressing the emotional aspects of the campaign helps make it into a self-generating movement.
3. The last part of our theory of change has to do with how we propose to push the political system to assimilate the policy choices that are developed during our campaign. This has two prongs. The first has to do with igniting a citizen movement that is sufficiently large – we’re aiming at 10,000 people – to achieve critical mass in the minds of players in the political system. Developing external pressure on the system is necessary to move it. But an external citizen movement, in and of itself, it is not sufficient. Sufficiency is achieved by bringing forward 1,000 insider champions, community leaders who are perfectly capable of engaging with the politicians to get them to accept and execute a new agenda for a new Michigan.

Why this approach? Because nothing else has worked and few efforts have focused on the state as a whole. Short-term budget battles continue to paralyze Lansing. At best, politicians do not have the time, expertise, and vision to focus on a long-term future strategy for our state. At worst, elected leaders are mortgaging Michigan’s future with short-term budget band-aids and fierce partisan rhetoric. Regional and community alliances are doing promising work, but no statewide effort is looking comprehensively at the future of Michigan as a whole. MDM is needed to fundamentally recast the way leaders and residents think about and act to take back Michigan’s future.

For the Michigan’s Defining Moment campaign, we will set clear benchmarks and measure results, with the assistance of an independent evaluator. We are currently in discussion with the Harvard Family Research Project, which has expertise and experience in evaluating large-scale public engagement efforts, to act as evaluator.

The Three Phases of MDM

The Michigan’s Defining Moment campaign has three phases between now and the end of 2010.

From January-June 2008, the 1,000 Community Conversations participants will reconvene with decision guides (brief overviews of key issues linked to the principles) to identify strategies and the tradeoffs necessary to move Michigan forward. Concurrently, the public will have the opportunity to engage individually, on their own schedules, with an online replication of the Community Conversations. And "Michigan’s Story" will invite all Michigan residents to submit essays, stories, art, photography, and short videos that capture their emotional ties to this great state and their visions for Michigan’s future. The Community Conversations, online comment, and Michigan stories will culminate in a late spring 2008 report that tells—in words and pictures— "Michigan’s Story" and outlines a consensus public agenda for its future.

1. First phase (June 2007-May 2008) features two rounds of Community Conversations, a Michigan’s Story competition, and a compelling narrative report that captures the breadth and richness of the future that 1,000 leaders and engaged citizens want for our state. To begin the first phase, MDM’s founding champions refined principles to transform Michigan and are now identifying leaders in their communities to convene 80 Community Conversations with 10-15 people in each, involving a total of 1,000 participants across the state. In the first round of Community Conversations (October-December 2007), participants will describe the Michigan future they want, refine principles to transform Michigan, and identify priorities.
2. Second phase (July 2008-May 2009), these 1,000 architects of Michigan opportunity and prosperity will grow to 10,000 as the report is released and publicized, champions recruit still more champions in their local communities to participate in eight large town hall meetings across the state. At these meetings, even more residents will weigh in on what is necessary to transform our state. Time will be devoted to discussions of how best to link the consensus Michigan public agenda for change to similar initiatives in each region, as the regions are often where the work of transforming Michigan will be carried out. Champions will also be encouraged to hold state legislative candidate debates and forums on the public agenda. To prompt action, MDM staff will develop and distribute multifaceted citizen action tool kits that will include questions to ask every candidate for the state legislature; what citizens need to know to assure their families and communities are poised to compete in the 21 century; profiles of innovators and innovations, things that work and leaders who are thriving in Michigan; and down to earth, easy to understand portraits of how taxing and spending affects ordinary Michigan families.
3. Third phase (June 2009-December 2010). This conference will bring together the growing ranks of state and community champions who have committed to the public agenda. At the conference we will review our progress and chart a course for the future. The conference’s break-out work sessions will identify the most effective actions on behalf of the public agenda, especially the best ways to link state and regional actions, and develop questions for gubernatorial debates and candidate debates in every legislative district in Conclusion

Ultimately, we believe that the consensus public agenda created through public engagement can provide common ground to transform the way that leaders in the private sector, the public sector, and philanthropy think about and act for Michigan’s future.

What we do now as a state will determine our future. We must now forge a new path that builds on our state’s unique human and natural assets. We must recreate the Michigan community. We must call forth better leadership. Michigan’s Defining Moment can accomplish these crucial tasks. We invite your participation and support.

A Consensus Public Agenda for the Transformation of Michigan. Build strong, passionate consensus on a public agenda for far-reaching changes that best provide momentum for our future prosperity. This begins with a set of clear, compelling principles to transform Michigan that thousands of Michigan citizens will have the opportunity to shape through public engagement.

FOUNDING CHAMPIONS

Tom Anderson
Vernice D. Anthony
John Axe
Jim Baker
Charles Ballard
John Barfield
Richard Bernstein
Jesse Bernstein
Rebecca Blank
Richard Blouse
Bill Bobier
Brian Boyle
Bruce Bragg
David Brandon
Tino Brighthaupt
Jim Brooks
Paul Brown
John Brown
Andy Buchsbaum
Dave Campbell
David Canter
Tom Clay
Matt Clayson
Howard Cohodas
Richard Cole
David Colev
Tom Cook
Paul Courant
Matthew Cullen
Dan DeGrow
Neeta Delaney
Bob DeNooyer
Paul DeWeese
Fred Dillingham
Paul R. Dimond
James Duderstadt
Aaron Dworkin
Anthony Earley
Dave Egner
Ken Fischer
Michael Flanagan
Randolph Flechsig
Eugene Gargaro
Dan Gaydou
Elisabeth Gerber
Ralph Gerson
Don Gilmer
Alan Gilmour
Larry Good
Steve Hamp
Pat Harrington
David Haynes
John Hertel
Tom Hickner
Jim Hilboldt
David Hollister
Veronica Horn
Mike Jandernoa
Dottie Johnson
Kevin A. Kelly
Dan Kildee
Kurt Kimball
Ron Kitchens
Birgit Klohs
Mary Kramer
Gary LaPlant
Mel Larsen
Bob Larson
Jack Lessenberry
Thomas Lewand
Sam Logan
John Logie
Albert Lorenzo
Doug Luciani
Richard McLellan
Hank Meijer
Anne Mervenne
Dan Musser
Brent Nickola
Greg Northrup
David Page
Lana Pollack
John Porter
Keith Pretty
Margaret Ann Riecker
Marvin Roberson
Milt Rohwer
Doug Ross
Sharon Rothwell
Doug Rothwell
Matthew Roush
Nancy Schlichting
Paul Schutt
Marc Schwartz
Joe Schwarz
Dan Scripps
Maureen Smyth
Rick Snyder
Helen Taylor
Paul Todd
Gail Torreano
Margaret Trimer-Hartley
Jan Urban-Lurain
Amanda VanDusen
Peter Walters
Tom Watkins
Dennis West
Gil White
Cynthia Wilbanks
Dan Wyant
Gil Ziegler