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About The Harwood Institute

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The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that seeks nothing less than to spark fundamental change and authentic hope in American public life. <!--[endif]-->

Founded by Richard C. Harwood twenty years ago in reaction to the cynicism and distrust that permeates much of politics and public life, the Harwood Institute is today a leading change organization, recognized nationally for a unique approach to breaking down barriers and empowering people to make progress in improving their communities.

Since its inception in 1989, the Harwood Institute has worked with communities, organizations and individuals across the country – from Flint, Michigan to Las Vegas, Nevada and from Binghamton, New York to San Francisco.  Harwood principles have been successfully applied in the public, private, academic, and non-profit sectors, including, public libraries and school systems, newspapers and public broadcasting, United Ways and other community-based organizations.  Harwood helps these organizations and individuals turn outward and engage with their communities in new ways. <!--[endif]-->

During years of hands-on innovation in communities across the country, The Harwood Institute created a set of field-tested tools and frameworks that have become the foundation of our approach. These ideas will soon be available for groups and individuals online at: http://www.theharwoodinstitute.org/.

 In addition, the Institute has three signature offerings that comprise what participants dub “The Harwood Experience.”  These include:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->Ø    <!--[endif]-->Public Innovators Lab – A highly focused 3 ½ day learning experience for cultivating the sensibilities and practices of public innovators to create change and authentic hope through the applications of the Institute’s ideas, frameworks, and tools.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->Ø    <!--[endif]-->Annual Public Innovators Summit – Our yearly, invitation-only retreat where senior public innovators from across all sectors and all geographies find a safe space to connect with one another, explore underlying issues in public life, and rejuvenate themselves.

The Public Innovators Corps – A network of coaches who are trained and certified to share Harwood content with groups, communities and individuals. The Public Innovators Corps enables communities to quickly and efficiently embed and adopt Harwood ideas, frameworks and tools.

We are currently focusing on diffusing our work to make it available and affordable to individuals, organizations, or communities with a desire to . . .

“make good on your urge to do good.”

Richard C. Harwood

“If we are to improve politics and public life,” says Richard C. Harwood, founder and president of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, “then we need to release ourselves from our resignation that public life and politics has to be the way that it is today, and declare that it can be better, that we can be better!  We must turn outward and re-engage with our communities.”

Over the past 20 years, Rich has become a leading national authority on improving America’s communities, raising standards of political conduct and re-engaging citizens on today’s most complex and controversial public issues. Harwood, who has been called "one of the great thinkers in American public life," has dedicated his life to helping people make good on their urge to do good.

Rich Harwood seeks to uncover answers to some of the most pressing questions of our time. He has worked with thousands of people in dozens of U.S. cities, spreading a vision for what American society should be, and putting innovative practices to use on the ground to turn that vision into reality.  

Rich is the author of Make Hope Real (2008) as well as Hope Unraveled (2005), and numerous articles, essays and op-eds.

A dynamic and inspirational public speaker, Harwood has been featured at hundreds of events and is a frequent keynote speaker for foundations and national organizations. He is a commentator and contributor on national and syndicated television, newspapers, radio and web sites, including MSNBC, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN's Inside Politics, The Jim Bohannon Show, Special Report with Brit Hume, C-SPAN, and many other media outlets.

In October of 1999, Harwood was a featured speaker along with Colin Powell and Doris Kearns Goodwin at the White House Fellows 35th Anniversary Program. He is a faculty member of the Public Affairs Institute and also has lectured at the prestigious Poynter Institute, a national school of journalism.

Rich did his undergraduate work in Political Economy at Skidmore College. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was a Harry S Truman Scholar. He received his M.A. in Public Affairs from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Rich lives in Bethesda, Maryland with his wife Jackie and their two children.