Our nation aches for a moral vision.

Not a talking point. Not another hero, politician, or billionaire. A vision, the kind that tells us who we are, where we’re going, what we owe each other, and how to build our future. We’ve lost that vision. And we all feel it.

It’s like everyday in our nation is opposite day. Each day we are less safe, free, equal, healthy, and happy. We have become a people that don't trust each other, that talk past each other, and increasingly are violent to each other.

The path out of the daily moral injury that our system inflicts on us is a moral vision we dream together. From here we can forgive ourselves and others. From here we can heal and build together.

The National Assembly meets this moment to summon a moral vision for our next chapter.

The National Assembly

All US adults (over the age of 18) were invited to take part in structured, facilitated rounds of conversation about the questions that matter most:

• What do we value as a people?
• What would it take for this nation to be a great place to be a parent, a kid, and an elder?
• What do we owe to future generations?

These are the inputs to a real non-partisan dialogue process, through a novel consensus-building platform, Synanim.

Participants from across the country (different ages, backgrounds, beliefs, and zip codes) engaged in multiple online rounds of dialogue, with each round building on the last.

At the end of the process, one person, Bea Boccalandro, emerged as the storyteller of the Assembly and flew to Chicago to deliver the new narrative that emerged from the people.

HOW THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WORKED

For a large-scale project like defining “A Moral Vision for the Next 250 Years,” the Synanim platform enabled a digital town hall designed to transform millions of individual perspectives into a single unified manifesto.
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While typical surveys would just give you a list of "top 10 values," the Synanim system produced a shared piece of prose that everyone helped write.

Learn more about Synanim's industry-leading consensus building process.

The Final Outcome

The new "Moral Vision for the Next 250 Years" captures the collective values, purpose, conscience, and culture of the nation. Unlike a traditional research paper written by "experts", this is a living document that was created by the people, for the people. Here is the final version delivered live by Bea Boccalandro in Chicago:

“We pursue flourishing. We promote and protect life, liberty, inner growth, peace, and our fundamental interconnectedness so that every person might attain not just a comfortable existence, but a fulfilling life.

We ensure dignity. Every citizen shall have shelter, food, water, healthcare, education, safety, and belonging, not as rewards for merit or employment, but as inalienable rights. A nation’s greatness is measured by what it guarantees to all, not by what it grants to few.

We free ourselves from that which diminishes us. Prejudice and hatred have no rightful home here. We confront these forces continually, without becoming them, for the means we choose shape the nation we become.

This is our promise to each other, renewed each generation.”