A New Governing Philosophy, A New Era of Smart Government

Neither philosophy truly delivered on the full promise of America. Neither fully combined compassion and justice with innovation, effective management, and citizen engagement. And neither philosophy fits the unique challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. So it’s time to move beyond the tired debate about big government versus small government to a new era of smart government. And that is exactly what America Forward is all about.

Social entrepreneurs in communities across America are succeeding—with innovation, energy, and a dedication to practical results—where both the government and the private sector alone are failing. But to fully leverage their power, we need to take the best and most successful organizations and innovations to scale. And we need to challenge all of our citizens through a new commitment to national service, to roll up their sleeves and put their energy and idealism to work to address our problems.

Government resources are essential to scaling effective organizations and in providing opportunities in a new universal voluntary national service program. And therein lies the potential for a new public-private partnership, and a new governing philosophy, that can meet the social challenges America faces. Government would play a key role—investing in social entrepreneurs and new solutions, but according to time-tested private-sector principles that promote competition and innovation, and reward success, results, and strong organization. And the private sector would continue to help provide the seed money and capacity-building resources to incubate social entrepreneurs and grow social entrepreneurial organizations that have an effective new idea or solution to an old problem. And citizens at every key life stage would be challenged to work side by side in common cause addressing social problems through new scaled-up opportunities for national and community service.

It’s an exciting prospect, with enormous potential for change and progress. America dominates the global economy today because we have developed the most advanced system for private sector entrepreneurship in the world. We need to develop a similarly comprehensive system for social entrepreneurship and citizen service to unleash the enormous creativity and idealism of the American people. If we do so, we can finally start addressing seemingly intractable problems in education, poverty, public health, the environment, and more. So, let’s embrace this vision and start moving America Forward.

Alan Khazei is the CEO and Co-Founder of Be the Change, which seeks to create a more idealistic and vibrant democracy in which citizens, and citizen action, are at the center of politics and policy making.