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Last week, Rich Harwood wrote a four-part series of blog entries to give people some important ideas to consider leading up to the president\'s annual State of the Union Address, scheduled for tonight. To read the entire \"State of Our Union\" blog series, click here

Today, Rich has posted a new entry that ties together the themes of last week. It poses a series of key questions for you to consider as you watch tonight\'s speech.

We encourage you to think about the questions, log on to Rich\'s Redeeming Hope blog, and let us know what you think, so that together, we can begin a national dialogue on what it will take to begin to forge an alternate path for politics and public life and build the kind of society we all seek.

Staff and executives from community foundations across the country joined Rich Harwood Jan. 24 to talk about the findings in his latest book, Hope Unraveled: The People\'s Retreat and Our Way Back, and how community foundations can play a role in helping forge an alternate path for politics and public life.

The Web cast was sponsored by Community Foundations of America and can now be found on their Web site by clicking here.

Because people are in retreat from politics and public life, it will take special kinds of \"boundary-spanning\" organizations - that can cut across sectors and bring people together - to fundamentally improve our communities. Unfortunately, far too few of these organizations exist today. Community foundations, however, are one such kind.

Over the next few months, The Harwood Institute will be featuring stories from some of the public innovators we have had the fortune of working with over the years.

Public innovators are highly pragmatic but also idealistic change agents. Along with catalytic organizations, these individuals are essential ingredients for making any community work. Much of The Harwood Institute\'s work in communities focuses on expanding the core competencies of public innovators.

Our first public innovator is Pete Hutchinson from Flint, Michigan. Pete was involved in The Harwood Institute\'s seven-year change initiative in Flint. Here are some excerpts from a document he recently submitted to the Institute on his recollections of his participation in Flint\'s Place for Public Ideas. The Place is the forerunner to the Harwood Public Innovators Lab.

Today marks an exciting turn in the relationship between the schools and communities that make up Orange County, Florida.

The Count Me In! Initiative - organized by The Foundation for Orange County Public Schools through a partnership with The Harwood Institute - is unveiling a \"Community-Wide Agreement\" that lays out residents\' aspirations for their community and schools, and what people are willing to do to achieve those aspirations. The agreement is the result of dozens of citizen-led authentic civic engagement conversations that included more than 1,000 residents over the past year.