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Citizenship and Government - USA

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National Organizations & Programs

• Federal Government
• Committee on Ways and Means  This website, part of the House of Representatives’ work, allows you to access information on the U.S. House, Senate, legislative process, how to write your Representative, and more.  This may be helpful if you’re trying to find or track specific legislative efforts in Congress.
• Congress.org  Use this site to find information like who are your state Senators, Representatives, and legislators. You can then follow links to find out their phone numbers, offices, and more.   With the Local Elected Officials Director (left sidebar), you can even look up township or city officials, committee members, and office information.  You can also find letters and messages to elected officials (or later write some).  You can also find media, bills, and other information.
• GovFresh — Government 2.0: GovFresh is a live feed of official news from U.S. Government Twitter, YouTube, RSS, Facebook, Flickr accounts and more, all in one place.
• govPluse:  GovPulse is a Federal Register browser. The Federal Register is the official journal of the federal government of the United States. In it, you find any kind of notice, notification and solicitation that a federal agency puts out. GovPulse parses it and gives you a way to browse the tens-of-thousands-of-pages-log register by agency, category or date. 
• FedThread:  a new way of interacting with the Federal Register. FedThread gives you: (a) collaborative annotation: Attach a note to any paragraph of the Federal Register; start a conversation; (b) advanced search: Search the Federal Register (back to 2000) on full text, by date, agency, and other fields; and (c) customized feeds: Turn any search into an RSS or email feed, which will send you any new items that match the search query.
• USA.gov : The U.S. Government’s Official Web Portal on the usa.gov site, you can access information about all aspects of the United States’ government, including on the federal, state, local, and tribal level.  This includes an A-Z Agency Index, which allows you to find relevant governmental agencies and offices.  You may research by topic, using a comprehensive listing (sidebar).  This doesn’t stop at federal level information (though that may be more prevalent); on the local level, you can look up in-person service centers, majors, statistics and more.
• USAspending.gov: USAspending.gov, a re-launch of www.fedspending.org, provides this information to the public, as collected from federal agencies, in an easy to use website. The data is largely from sources: the Federal Procurement Data System, which contains information about federal contracts; and the Federal Assistance Award Data System, which contains information about federal financial assistance such as grants, loans, insurance, and direct subsidies like Social Security.
• GovTrack.us: GovTrack.us is a tool by Civic Impulse, LLC to help the public research and track the activities in the U.S. Congress, promoting and innovating government transparency and civic education through novel uses of technology. You'll find here the status of U.S. federal legislation, voting records in the Senate and House of Representatives, information on Members of Congress, district maps, as well as congressional committees and the Congressional Record.
• United States Conference of Mayors: an organization that brings together the mayors of the USA that lists legislation, reports, and many other things affecting the whole of the nation.
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• Think Tanks / Research Centers
• The American Immigrant Policy Portal Update:  Policy-related reports, news and information about immigrant issues in New Jersey and around the country.   

• Governing.com

  As a resource for states and localities, particularly with information for professionals dealing with public policy issues, this is a great place to start. Key features include news stories, statistics and web sites.  Try the State and Local sourcebook (sidebar:http://sourcebook.governing.com/) which has a searchable database of a compendium of data (such as budgets) on the states and the largest U.S. municipalities.  For those of you focusing on small localities, this information can still point you in the right direction for identifying policy options and issues to address in your research and meetings locally. 

• National Associations / Advocacy
• American Immigration Council:   The mission of the American Immigration Council is to strengthen America by honoring our immigrant history and shaping how Americans think and act towards immigration now and in the future. 
• Diversity Inc.: DiversityInc’s mission is to bring education and clarity to the business benefits of diversity.
• Institute for Domestic and International Affairs: sponsors a variety of programs and initiatives designed to make government and society more accessible and understandable by way of educational simulation and other proven teaching methods.
• Leadership Conference on Civil Rights - News
• National Conference for Community and Justice: the only nonpartisan human relations organization in the region dedicated to fighting bias, bigotry and racism in America. 
• National Immigration Forum: advocates for the value of immigrants and immigration to our nation.
• Other
• Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: CREW uses high-impact legal actions to target government officials who sacrifice the common good to special interests.
• Alliance for Justice: works to ensure that the federal judiciary advances core constitutional values, preserves human rights and unfettered access to the courts, and adheres to the even-handed administration of justice for all Americans. 
• GovTwit Directory 

• GovSpot

  This is a directory of government information, including information arranged by subject and a section of frequently asked questions.  Use the top searchbar to find out how your state government is organized, for example.  The simple organization of this site can help you get oriented in your research process.

Research Reports / Policy Analysis

• A Place to Call Home: What Immigrants Say Now About Life in America
• National Conference of State Legislatures  This is a bipartisan organization that serves the legislators and staffs of the U.S. 50 states, commonwealths, and territories.   Provides research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers to exchange ideas on key state issues.  Under the tab “State & Federal Issues,” try accessing the “Issue Areas: A to Z” to find overviews on a comprehensive array of topics.  You can also find information about legislators, staff, meetings, and more.
• Center for American Women and Politics: a leading source of scholarly research and current data about American women’s political participation.  

Statistical Data

• Data.gov: Data.gov provides descriptions of the Federal datasets (metadata), information about how to access the datasets, and tools that leverage government datasets. The data catalogs will continue to grow as datasets are added. Federal, Executive Branch data are included in the first version of Data.gov.
• USA.gov/stats: Government's link page for statistical information at state and local levels.
• Federal IT Dashboard: The IT Dashboard provides the public with an online window into the details of Federal information technology investments and provides users with the ability to track the progress of investments over time. The IT Dashboard displays data received from agency reports to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), including general information on over 7,000 Federal IT investments and detailed data for nearly 800 of those investments that agencies classify as "major". 

Miscellaneous

• SolutionsU Database for Stories on Public Affairs, Philanthropy: SolutionsU™ connects educators and students to credible news stories about responses to society’s toughest challenges, and to the tools that help them incorporate those stories in their teaching and learning.
• The Conversation - The Conversation is a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good. We publish trustworthy and informative articles written by academic experts for the general public and edited by our team of journalists.   

Funding Opportunities