Dear Founding Champions & Community Conversation Participants,

Through the Michigan's Defining Moment Public Engagement Campaign (MDM), you are establishing a sweeping, common ground agenda for Michigan's future. Now we invite you to begin the work to implement that agenda and engage thousands more state residents in Michigan's long-term transformation.

This letter is an executive summary of the unprecedented statewide series of community conversations held in October and November. It also outlines what comes next, including the Round Two community conversations which begin in mid-February.

ROUND ONE SUMMARY

The campaign's goal was 80 conversations involving 1,000 participants. In the end, 1,150 community leaders and citizens engaged in 96 conversations throughout the state. An additional 350 participants joined via online conversations. We welcome your review of the attached full report which details every aspect of the community conversations. In short, you have collectively demonstrated breathtaking passion and pride for our state. You have created a transformational vision for Michigan's best future. And, you have worked together to outline clear, common ground principles and strategies to make that transformational vision a reality.

YOUR VISION FOR MICHIGAN'S FUTURE

We have analyzed and grouped your thousands of individual vision statements for Michigan's future into 11 key categories, listed in order of most mentioned during the community conversations.

1. Economic development and diversification.
2. A highly educated populace – from pre-schoolers, to K-16 students, to workers in mid- or late-career – with constant and easy access to ongoing learning.
3. Better government – less polarization, more courageous political leadership, shared public services, and greater accountability.
4. Pride and a new brand for the state.
5. Natural resources – a sustainable balance between preservation and development.
6. Stronger civic engagement – a citizenry that is much more informed and involved in the public affairs of local communities and the state as a whole.
7. Diversity – bridging racial, ethnic and cultural divides to strengthen our state's uniqueness, enrich our culture, and foster a more productive workforce.
8. Vibrant and attractive cities.
9. Youth – exciting opportunities for young people to flourish.
10. Health – universal access to health care and prevention and management of chronic illness.
11. Michigan as a destination – a place that attracts, retains and fosters talent, business development, and family homesteading.

YOUR PRINCIPLES FOR MICHIGAN'S TRANSFORMATION

The Michigan's Defining Moment Public Engagement Campaign began in spring 2007 when more than 100 diverse statewide community leaders from business, education, the non-profit sector, and the public sector came together in large roundtable meetings to develop a succinct common ground agenda for Michigan's transformation. Those MDM "Founding Champions" endorsed three broad guiding principles for Michigan's future:

1. A talented and globally competitive workforce.
2. A vibrant economy and great quality of life.
3. Effective, efficient, and accountable government.

One of your jobs in the community conversations was to discuss, debate and refine those principles. You overwhelmingly endorsed the principles. Participants' relatively few revisions to the principles are detailed in the full attached report. When participants were asked to rank the principles, a vibrant economy and great quality of life was ranked highest, followed by a talented, globally competitive workforce, and then effective, efficient and accountable government. Yet the differences in the ranking of the three principles were modest. In fact, many of you made clear in the conversations that the principles were all essential, interrelated, and equally important.

YOUR STRATEGIES FOR MICHIGAN'S TRANSFORMATION

Through the voting exercises and discussion in the community conversations, participants also winnowed a long list of possible ways to implement the principles into nine key strategies:

1. Pre-school thru college education – dramatically improved overall learning and completion rates.
2. Affordable access to lifelong learning.
3. Economic development and diversification.
4. Entrepreneurialism.
5. Quality of place – rejuvenating communities to assure they have the amenities, culture, and diversity to develop, attract and retain talented people.
6. Rebrand Michigan as the "North Coast."
7. Accountability and bipartisan leadership.
8. Clear taxing and spending priorities.
9. Government collaboration and service sharing.

NEXT: ONE MORE CONVERSATION AND ACTION

Almost all Round One community conversations participants agreed to get together again early this year to dig deeper and launch into the action steps necessary to bring your common ground agenda to fruition. The Round Two community conversations will be held from mid-February thru early April.

Michigan's Defining Moment staff will begin working with Round 1 conveners immediately to reconvene your full conversation groups. Round Two participants will:

• Discuss the conclusions from Round One.
• Examine a Michigan Scorecard with statistical benchmarks showing where Michigan currently stands on the principles and strategies you've outlined. MDM staff will distribute electronic copies of the Michigan Scorecard to all participants in advance of the Round 2 conversations and print copies will be available at the conversations.
• Brainstorm action steps for implementing your nine strategies for Michigan's transformation.
• Consider the tradeoffs and consequences of those actions.

Beyond the Round Two conversations, our staff will soon send you a save-the-date invitation to the Michigan's Defining Moment first anniversary celebration we are planning for either May 20th, 21st, or 22nd. The event will feature prominent speakers, a vibrant slide show of Michigan photos, and the awarding of more than $30,000 in college scholarships, vacations and other prizes for the EnvisonMichigan story contest so many of you are currently working to promote. (Hint: email us at info@thecenterformichigan.net if you can distribute more postcards and posters for the contest, which runs thru the end of March.) Most importantly, the May event will serve as a rallying call for MDM participants to swing into action. Through the action pledge forms more than 1,000 of you have submitted so far, we know you are eager to do much more than talk. So far:

• More than 400 of you have volunteered to help plan regional town hall meetings and citizens conferences to spread the MDM agenda.
• More than 200 have volunteered to develop a Defining Moment Speaker's Bureau.
• More than 150 have volunteered to write guest columns for local and/or online publications.
• Nearly 250 have volunteered to send positive " North Coast" postcards to distant contacts to reinforce Michigan's high quality of life and combat negative images about our state.
• Nearly 300 want to communicate directly with state legislators to advance the MDM agenda.
• More than 200 have volunteered to attend local meetings and ask what officials are doing to advance the transformational reform ideas you've outlined.
• More than 150 have volunteered to recruit and support candidates for public office and/or ballot issues consistent with the transformational reform principles and strategies you've endorsed. In fact, 49 of you have expressed running for office on an MDM platform.
• More than 80 have volunteered to convene political debates (especially for legislative races) themed around the transformational reform agenda you've created.

WHO YOU ARE

As we've often made clear, MDM is not about electing Republicans or Democrats. Instead, it's about changing the overall political and policy dialogue across the state and steadily implementing a transformational agenda regardless of the party affiliation of Michigan's future elected leaders. We invite you to review the appendix of the full Round One report for the detailed demographics of the community conversation participants. We're proud to say that the hundreds of you who have joined together in this common ground effort are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. You come from rural, urban and suburban locales. You met in 96 locations in virtually every corner of the state. Your rich ethnic diversity reflects the overall diversity of the state as a whole. You range in age from high school seniors to senior citizens. Your overriding common characteristic is a deep pride in and passion for Michigan and its future.

MORE ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN

We will continue to distribute via email monthly updates on all Michigan's Defining Moment activities. Our "Fresh Thoughts for Michigan's Transformation" weekly current events newsletter now has more than 3,000 subscribers. If you're not getting it, simply shoot a line to info@thecenterformichigan.net and we'll sign you up.

The campaign continues to garner considerable press coverage. To read what they're saying about your efforts, go to www.thecenterformichigan.net/media. The

Michigan's Defining Moment Public Engagement Campaign is a $2.5 million effort thru 2010. We have a long way to go to reach that goal. We welcome the support of organizations and individuals interested in joining the growing list of MDM sponsors. We offer our deepest thanks to the following Michigan corporations, foundations, and individuals for providing seed money to launch this campaign and the accompanying EnvisionMichigan Story Contest…

AbsoluteM ichigan

David Arend

AT&T Corporation

The Betsie Bay Inn

Boyne Resorts

Jim and Donna Brooks

The Dan Cameron Family Foundation

Crystal Mountain Resort

The Consumers Energy Foundation

Davenport University

Steve Dobson

Domino's Pizza

The DTE Energy Foundation

Linda French

The Grand Hotel

James Gregart

James Jacob

David Hollister

The Kresge Foundation

Meijer Corporation

The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

The Power Foundation

Presidents Council State Universities of Michigan

Theodore St. Antoine

Lawrence & Marilyn Schlack

The Stryker Johnston Foundation

Stryker Corporation

Thunder Bay Resort

The Richard & Barbara Van Dusen Fund

Together, the more than 100 Michigan's Defining Moment Founding Champions and 1,500 community conversations participants are creating the environment for a better Michigan. By gathering on common ground, we'll make it happen. As the managers for the community conversations program, we're very grateful for the time, effort, thought, and enthusiasm so many people have devoted to this cause.

Sincerely, John Bebow, Executive Director, The Center for Michigan

Peter Pratt, Senior Vice President, Public Sector Consultants