The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation developed the Harwood Barometer for Political Conduct with citizens from across the country. Through citizen assemblies over a number of years, Americans expressed their aspirations for political conduct and a set of specific behaviors they seek from political leaders, news media, and citizens. We call these behaviors America's Aspirations for Political Conduct.

We took America's Aspirations and created a "Rating Political Conduct" scoring grid. Together, they are a practical, hands-on tool you can use to track the performance of political leaders, news media, and citizens over the course of an election - and throughout the year. The Harwood Barometer is not another way for people to express their frustrations with politics. Rather, it gives people a way to clearly set forth their aspirations for political conduct and how well we're moving toward those aspirations.

After years of using and helping others use the Harwood Barometer, we know it works. Americans tell us again and again that this tool: provides a concrete framework for thinking about politics, inspires hope for how to improve conduct, and offers new path for taking effective action. Since the factors used in the Barometer are rooted in people's aspirations, they inspire meaningful and robust conversations that can lead to meaningful action.

You can take action with the Harwood Barometer in a number of ways:

1. Download the PDF versions of America's Aspirations for Political Conduct and the Rating Political Conduct scoring grid. Then, follow the tips below to get started. If you want more information about scoring the barometer, read the step-by-step scoring guide.
2. Score the Harwood Barometer Online

Tips for Using the Harwood Barometer

Tip #1 - Decide how you will use the Harwood Barometer.

• What will you score?
  Decide what you will score. Is it the political conduct in a particular election campaign, or of the community generally, a neighborhood, or something else?
• Who will you score?
  Decide whose conduct you want to gauge. Will you look at all three groups - political leaders, news media, and citizens? Or just one or two?
• When will you score?
  Decide how often you want to gauge political conduct performance. Will you score over the course of an election campaign, or throughout the year? Or just once, at a key moment?
• How will you score?
  The Harwood Barometer works to gauge the overall conduct of political leaders, news media, and citizens. It was not created to use as a tool to complain about or praise one individual leader or news media outlet.

Tip #2 - Recruit participants for the scoring session(s).
You can score the Harwood Barometer by yourself, but it works best when you join with other people. Here are three ways to do that:

• Score the Harwood Barometer with any community group with which you are involved - whether it's a neighborhood association, civic organization, religious group, housing development group, senior citizen alliance, or youth group.
• Identify 10 to 15 citizens from different walks of life to bring together to score the Harwood Barometer.
• Randomly recruit a representative sample of people from your community. Doing this requires some technical knowledge. Contact a knowledgeable source at a local college, university, or other local organization to learn more about how.

Tip #3 - Set a good time and place.

• Set an easy place for everyone to find, close to where most people live. Make sure it is part of the community - avoid an office or government building; try instead using a public library, community center, volunteer fire station, restaurant meeting room, or someone's home. Make sure the place is safe and not too noisy.
• Set a time of day that works for people with jobs or children, etc. Plan at least 1 hour for the meeting, maybe 2. Serve light refreshments.

Tip #4 - Be conscious of your frame of mind.
Here some things to keep in mind as you score the Harwood Barometer:

• Be specific. Focus on specific conduct you see going on among political leaders, news media, and citizens.
• Be fair. Think about both the weaknesses and the strengths in the conduct you see.
• Be honest. When it comes to conduct, there are always shades of gray. Make sure to wrestle with those gray areas.
• Be open to learning. Depend on each other. Ask others in the group what they know about the issues. Go out and find new information if it is needed.