Global Interdependence Initiative

Our Vision
The Aspen Institute’s Global Interdependence Initiative (GII) encourages U.S. policies that respond more ably to issues that the US can't or shouldn't handle by itself: global warming, for example, or the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And we believe that visionaries who share this goal will benefit from careful thinking -- not just about where they want to go but about how they will get there.

What We Do
The GII created Continuous Progress Strategic Services (CPSS), a consulting practice, to help our clients plan and evaluate their efforts to develop and encourage better US policy.

In the past year, CPSS has been hired by major foundations and nonprofit organizations, including the Connect US funding collaborative (comprised of the Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Open Society Institute), Humanity United, World Learning, Americans for Informed Democracy, and The California Endowment.

CPSS works mostly with groups that are trying to change US foreign policy, but clients and prospective clients have asked us to apply our thinking and practice to policy change on domestic issues including rural community development and high school reform. We help our clients:

• Plan: Make realistic predictions about what they can accomplish and lay out an efficient strategy to achieve their objectives;
• Communicate: Think systematically about how to get the right message to the right audience;
• Convene: Bring the right people together;
• Evaluate: Identify and record information that helps them assess progress towards their goals; and
• Learn: Apply lessons learned from early experiences to make improvements along the way.

Our services build on the GII’s seven-year record of producing path-breaking tools and training for better policy advocacy. Our most recent tools:

• Continuous Progress: These web-based guides to planning and evaluating policy advocacy efforts draw on three years of consultations with foundations, advocates, strategic communications specialists, and evaluators.
• The Advocacy Progress Planner: A simple web-based advocacy planning guide. With the help of lively design, jargon-free definitions, and deceptively simple questions, even novice advocates and advocacy grantmakers can use the APP to create a thoughtful plan, and identify the benchmarks that will help measure progress.
• The Switchblog: This lively and eclectic conversation "where global issues, messaging and advocacy meet" offers fresh perspectives on the challenge of promoting smarter policy, and smarter policy advocacy.

Who we are
The Initiative's three person staff is directed by David Devlin-Foltz, with counsel from a diverse and distinguished Advisory Board.