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Nonprofit. Nonpartisan. We Are Americans Foundation is a private nonprofit organization organized for charitable and educational purposes under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. We publish nonpartisan civic education for people in the United States. We are not a government agency and are not affiliated with or endorsed by any government entity. We do not endorse or oppose political candidates or political parties. We charge nothing, sell nothing, and do not require visitors to provide personal information to access the educational content on this site.

About We Are Americans Foundation

In one line. We answer the questions government websites assume you already know. Nonpartisan, in English and Spanish, with nothing to sell and no account to create.

Ask almost anyone whether they care what happens in their community and they will say yes. Ask them who sits on their school board, or which body sets their property assessment, or how to comment on a rule before it takes effect, and the room goes quiet.

That silence is not apathy. It is a writing problem. Government sites are accurate and close to unreadable. Commercial sites are readable and built to sell you something. Classroom material is written for fifteen year olds. Almost nobody writes for an adult with a real question and a deadline this week.

We were built to fill that gap. We are the plain language layer on top of official information, never a replacement for it, and every page names its source and the date we last checked it.

What We Are Building

Civic infrastructure is an unglamorous name for something simple: the connective tissue between a person and the institutions that decide things on their behalf. When it is strong, an ordinary person knows which office to call, when the meeting is, and what happens if they walk in. When it is weak, the decisions still get made. They just get made by fewer people.

We work on four parts of it. Civic education, so people understand how public institutions are built and what each one is actually allowed to decide. Practical guidance, so that knowing turns into doing: how to read an agenda before the vote, speak at a hearing, comment on a rule while it can still change. Community engagement, because civic habits form more reliably in groups than alone. And leadership development, because boards and commissions across this country sit with empty seats and a shortage of people who know they are allowed to fill them.

A stronger civic infrastructure gives more people the standing to participate, contribute, lead, and shape the place they live. That is what opportunity looks like from the inside, and it is a large part of what people mean when they talk about the American Dream.

The Gap We Are Trying to Close

These are not opinion numbers. Each comes from a national survey with a published method.

13%

of American adults cannot name a single branch of government. Annenberg Public Policy Center, 1,684 adults, August 2025.

12%

named the right to petition the government when listing First Amendment rights. About nine percent named all five.

4%

of Americans aged 18 to 24 answered all four of a standard civics quiz correctly. Institute for Citizens and Scholars.

The pattern underneath those numbers is the part that decides what we work on. Civic knowledge in this country tracks income, school district and language more closely than it tracks interest. The last national assessment of eighth grade civics, in 2022, found gaps by race, income and language that were enormous. Nobody chooses not to know how a county board works. They were never told.

What We Publish

Learn

How government is actually built. The five levels and who decides what at each one, how a bill becomes law, how an agency rule gets made, and what the Constitution sets up and limits.

Navigate

Which office owns your problem, and what to do when a federal agency has gone silent on you. Most of what people experience as bureaucratic runaround is the cost of starting at the wrong desk.

Engage

Voting, ballots, public comment and the meetings where decisions actually get made. Every council in the country sets aside time for the public and most of those minutes go unused.

Lead

Boards have seats, commissions have applications, and ballots have filing deadlines. Local appointments go unfilled every year for want of anyone asking. We publish the steps.

Open to Everyone, Aimed Where the Barriers Are Highest

Everything we publish is open to anyone at no cost, and it stays that way.

Our focused outreach goes to minorities, immigrants, and communities that have been underserved and underrepresented in civic life. Not because anyone there is less capable, but because the practical barriers stack up: material written above the reading level of the people it is meant for, a system that assumes you already speak its vocabulary, a first language that is not English, and often nobody in the family who has done any of this before.

We write in Spanish as well as English. The Spanish section is smaller than the English one today. We would rather say so than pretend otherwise, and it is growing.

What We Do Not Do

  • We do not endorse candidates. No endorsements, no party framing, no positions on partisan legislation. When a policy is disputed we describe the dispute and say who is on each side.
  • We are not the government. We are a private nonprofit. We are not a government agency and we are not affiliated with one.
  • We do not collect anything. There is no account, no newsletter and no form anywhere on this site. Not one page asks for your name or your email address.
  • We do not charge. Every page and every tool, with nothing behind a wall.
  • We do not give legal advice. We explain how a process works and point you at the official source. For advice about your own situation, talk to a lawyer.
  • We do not overstate what we know. Every page names its source and the date. When we do not know, the page says so.

Nonpartisanship is not a personality trait here. It is the reason a Republican official and a Democratic official can both send a constituent to us without thinking twice, and that trust is the only real asset this organization has.

Sources

Branch and First Amendment recall: Annenberg Public Policy Center Constitution Day Civics Survey, fielded August 2025 by SSRS, 1,684 adults, margin of error 3.5 points. Young adult civic knowledge: Institute for Citizens and Scholars, The Civic Outlook of Young Adults in America. Eighth grade results: National Assessment of Educational Progress, civics, 2022. Last checked August 23, 2026.