The Project to Find America is part social activism part journalism; it is aimed at making our government – most specifically the United States Congress, more effective and more representative. We believe that the United States is an amazing country and the American system of government – the best that mankind has yet devised. But we also believe that there are forces at work that threaten our way of life and the future of our children. Rampant and irresponsible partisanship in Congress, special interests that skew the electoral process, a media landscape that struggles to disseminate unbiased and useful information on the issues that most affect us and an increasingly apathetic citizenry all contribute to a cycle of ineffectiveness and inaction that endangers the United States position as a global leader – politically, economically and socially. Our hope is that by strengthening the connection we all have with our local representative and holding that representative to a higher standard of performance we can reverse a trend toward the nationalization of local politics and allow the voice of all American citizens to be heard.

The Internet is littered with seemingly well meaning Web sites and organizations behind them that hope to solve the many issues in government today. It’s not hard to find them. Google voter advocacy or stop partisanship or election reform and dozens will appear. Many of these organizations are defunct but many others have been doing and continue to do important work and making real progress. Why, you ask, do we need another and why would this one be any more successful?

The first question is easy. The problem is still here and it is worse than its ever been. For a detailed essay on this, we hope you will find the time to read Finding America. To accept that there is no solution to government gridlock is to accept that our Democratic Republic is fundamentally and fatally flawed. That is something we are unwilling to do and we believe a majority of Americans are too. We think we can make a difference and we ought to try. The second answer is more complicated and the most honest answer is – we don’t know if it will be more successful. In addition to the titanic obstacles we can already see, there are probably even bigger icebergs we can’t below the surface and behind closed doors.

But there a few things we believe at our core and we’re counting on the fact that others agree:

1. What’s best for the majority of Americans is best for the country
2. For those in that majority, there are many more issues we have in common than those that divide us
3. In the places where we differ we can come to reasonable compromise rather than succumb to intractable idealism and dogma

We believe that to believe these things is to believe in Democracy and, to not….is not.

About Bill Craib

Bill Craib has spent his career trying to first understand and then explain a variety of complex topics. A 1986 graduate of the S.I Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University with a minor in Political Science, Craib spent the early part of his career working in small-market radio news. As the young News Director of a station in the early primary state of New Hampshire, Bill had occasion to interview most of the presidential candidates in the 1988 election cycle.

Later, Craib embarked on a journey that was meant to combine two passions – baseball and travel. In 1991, with traveling companion Sue Easler, Bill visited each of the 178 major and minor league professional baseball parks across the U.S. and Canada shooting video and narrative for a popular weekly ESPN segment entitled Bill & Sue’s Excellent Adventure. He did most of it again for a 2003 endeavor called The Extra Innings Tour and along the way penned daily updates from the road in a pretty early version of a travel blog.

But most of Bill Craib’s last two decades at work have been spent in business education. For the last 14 years, he has served in a variety of executive positions with the Human Capital Institute, a professional association that helps organizations improve their practices in strategic talent management. Most recently, as the Senior Vice President of Enterprise Learning, Bill has worked with HCI corporate clients to bring its training programs onsite and adapt to their specific needs and Craib continues as a senior member of HCI’s faculty. Prior to joining HCI, Craib was a founding member of AIRS – a recruitment training and services organization where he wrote much of the original curriculum and delivered training worldwide.

Bill Craib lives in beautiful Hartland, Vermont with his wife Elizabeth and 12-year old son Alistair.

Contact Us:

Project to Find America

13 Barber Lane

Hartland, Vermont 05048

bill@findamerica.org

802-999-0895