
ENVISION NEW AMERICA™
ONE MINUTE A DAY
A Civic Mindfulness Practice for the Public Good
- What We Do:
- Envision New America is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation (501(c)(3) pending) that invites citizens to pause for one minute each day to envision a positive, constructive aspect of a public institution or or other public-facing entity.
- Examples can be found on the VISION pages.
- The Practice:
- Silent envisioning.1 minute. Once a day.
- No debate, no politics, no criticism.
- Just positive intention for institutions that serve us all.
- Why:
- Research shows what a community consistently envisions, it moves toward.
- Public institutions reflect the attention we give them.
- By focusing one minute of positive envisioning daily, citizens strengthen their own connection to the community and build a shared cultural expectation of well-functioning public institutions.
- How It Works – The Minute & Juried Function List
- We maintain a list of desired positive attributes/outcomes for major public functions (entities or service)
- The list is vetted for positivity/impartiality through formal guidelines by a rotating jury.
- Citizens use their app to select from the list a function of their choice and one of its target attributes/goals and envisions those positive attributes/outcomes of the function for one minute, aided by an auio/visual countdown timer in their app.
- At the completion of the minute, a count is added to the database by date, function/attribute, individual, city, and state.
- The app shows the periodic and cumulative totals for the citizen, city, state an country.
- Citizens can propose amendments to these attribute lists through an online juried process.
- A rotating jury of educators, civic volunteers, and facilitators reviews submissions for clarity, positivity, balance and constructiveness.
- Partisan, negative, or personal content is excluded.
- Tracking and Scale:
- A free app (iOS/Android/browser) with one-minute timer, streak tracking, and optional submission of an attribute for review.
- Statistical dashboard shows aggregate anonymous participation by city, institution type, and attribute (no personal data sold).
- Daily SMS/push reminder: “Minute for America.”
- Certificates, badges, and school/church/civic chapter toolkits.
- Podcasts and 2-minute video guides teaching visualization technique.
- Annual survey measuring civic attitudes and sense of connection.
- Our services are:
- Meditation/guided visualization training.
- Promotion of civic engagement through mindfulness practice.
- Software for timing, tracking, and measuring participation in daily civic envisioning exercises.
- Community education via classes, workshops, public events, and online webinars.
- What We Are NOT:
- Envision New America is NOT a think tank, public policy research organization, lobbying organization, political campaign, or fellowship program.
- We do not publish policy papers, do not take positions on legislation, and do not conduct public policy research. (included to distinguish us from New America, a Washington-based non-profit engaged in those areas).
