America's Shared Voice

More in Common (MIC) is a nonpartisan research and civic organization whose mission is to understand the forces that are driving Americans apart, to find common ground, and to bring people together to tackle our shared challenges. MIC pursues its mission through three strategic pillars:

Research: MIC produces field-leading insights through original research grounded in the science of social psychology and touching on Americans’ attitudes around a range of issues from politics to faith, social connection, civics, immigration, American identity, and democracy.
Partnerships: MIC partners with organizations and leaders across civil society, philanthropy, religion, media, business, government, and other communities to help them understand and expand their audiences, craft effective communications, and develop strategies to bridge divides and disrupt polarization.
Ecosystem Leadership: MIC helps shape networks of learning, of practice and of coordinated external communications among its wide array of partners concerned about political division and extremism.

MIC focuses on five interconnected outcomes: reducing hostility among groups; closing perception gaps; surfacing alignment; elevating voices of the “exhausted majority” who do not belong to extreme ideological camps; and providing ecosystem leadership that enables mission-aligned partners to do their work more effectively. In pursuit of these outcomes, a priority initiative for 2024 and beyond is America's Shared Voice.

The America’s Shared Voice project will build a unifying narrative that resonates with Americans of all genders, generations, races, regions and parties. Drawing on their previous work, and deploying qualitative listening and quantitative research methods, MIC will identify meaningful commonalities across our moment (emotions and perceptions), our future (what we fear, what we want), and our role (commitment to our ideals and to each other). MIC will then iteratively write and test versions of a narrative of our moment that maximize its credibility, emotional resonance, and capacity to be shareable and impactful.

More in Common will produce a compelling report, website, and videos of this narrative for adoption and application by a wide range of mission-aligned partners. MIC’s partner network includes over 400 organizations including groups like Listen First, New Pluralists, Search for Common Ground, Starts with Us, StoryCorps, and UNITE, who More in Common can invite to engage with this initiative.

Research

More in Common’s research is frequently cited by national figures across the political spectrum, by academics and authors, and in the media. In 2023 alone MIC released 11 original research reports, including an article submitted for academic publication. Since its founding, MIC has seen thousands of media citations and quotes in publications including The Economist, New York Times, Fox News, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. They have received 212 citations on Google Scholar across their reports and studies.

MIC’s best known report is 2018’s Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape. Grounded in a survey of 8,000 Americans, it is among the most cited studies on political division in the country and has served as a resource for dozens of organizations in the depolarization field. The concept of the “exhausted majority”, first described in Hidden Tribes, has been used in campaigns and speeches by political actors across all parties.

Partnerships

MIC works with hundreds of partner organizations and leaders in civil society, democracy, faith, veterans’ affairs, business, government, TV studios and media, and elsewhere. A few examples of their work with partners include:

Content testing for StoryCorps’ One Small Step program which brings together strangers with different worldviews to learn about each other as people rather than political opponents.
Measurement, evaluation, and learning for Cross the Lines, a collaborative focused on building a movement within Christianity to reduce polarization and improve how communities engage on issues of race.
Research and thought partnership for Unite, helping to launch their trusted measure of the levels of respect, dignity, and contempt observed in our political discourse.

Ecosystem Leadership

In 2023, MIC’s ecosystem leadership work included:

Co-leading and sharing insights with the Democracy Communications Collaborative partner table, a hub which brings together more than 80 organizations working to counter disinformation, support free and fair elections, and prevent political violence.
Co-designing and co-hosting a ‘Research to Impact’ convening, which brought together more than 60 researchers, practitioners, storytellers, and funders to help assess and strengthen the knowledge infrastructure necessary to support a vibrant pluralism field.

Effective Narrative Interventions

MIC developed a “Journeys of Persuasion” video intervention which outperformed the 25 interventions tested by Stanford’s Strengthening Democracy Challenge at reducing hostility between Democrats and Republicans by a significant margin.

MIC has seen positive indications that the America’s Shared Voice narrative project can have the emotional resonance necessary to grow and generate momentum. In January 2024, a member of MIC’s team tested a draft version of a unifying narrative in Des Moines, Iowa to a group of 200+ conservative leaning businesspeople resulting in a standing ovation.

More In Common

Model and Strategy

Impact

Leadership

Kate Carney

Stephen Hawkins

Ashley Fabrizio

Jazmin Kreimer

Julia Coffin