Projects

CMF tackles projects to provide Congress with tools, incentives, and options to become more efficient and effective in their daily delivery of services to their constituencies. As well, CMF endeavors through the Partnership for a More Perfect Union to help enrich the relationship between citizens and Congress through research and education, re-establishing trust, and providing innovative yet pragmatic tools to facilitate purposeful two-way communication. Overviews of CMF’s ongoing projects are below.

Democracy Awards

20180713 ENP CMF0002CMF created the Democracy Awards to recognize non-legislative achievement and performance both in congressional offices and by Members of Congress. At a time when the merits of best practices and constituent service are often overshadowed by hyperpartisanship and negative rhetoric, the Democracy Awards shine a light on effective leadership in Congress across the political spectrum in four distinct categories. Read More


Communicating with Congress

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The Internet spawned an explosion of electronic messages and forever changed how citizens and Members of Congress interact. The goal of this project is to reduce the challenges and frustration felt by both sides, facilitate increased citizen participation in the public policy process, and promote a meaningful democratic dialogue that benefits our country. Read More


Congress 3.0

thumb-flagsCMF was awarded a two-year grant from Democracy Fund to leverage existing CMF knowledge and conduct new research to improve the operational effectiveness of individual offices, enhance their citizen engagement practices, and benchmark Congress-wide attitudes and activities. Through the Congress 3.0 project, CMF and academics from four major U.S. universities conducted innovative experiments for engaging constituents with a cohort of 17 House and Senate offices to assess whether the enhanced engagements resulted in greater understanding and trust in Congress. Read More


Life in Congress

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The “Life in Congress” project is a partnership between CMF and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). The novel research series has two goals: to identify the factors that motivate employees in the Washington, DC and district/state offices, and to shed some light on Congress as a workplace. Read More