About We Are Americans Foundation
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 how to comment on a rule before it takes effect, or which version of the citizenship test they are going to be given, and the room goes quiet.
That silence is not apathy. It is a gap in how information gets written. Government websites are accurate and close to unreadable. Law firm blogs are readable and built to sell you something. Classroom materials are written for fifteen year olds. Almost nobody writes for an adult who has a real question and needs the answer this week.
We Are Americans Foundation was built to fill that gap.
We are a nonprofit dedicated to nonpartisan civic education, practical guidance, community engagement, and leadership development. We are the plain language layer on top of official information, not a replacement for it. Every answer we give points back to the official source so you can check it yourself.
Learn. Navigate. Engage. Lead.
Learn
We teach the parts of government people are actually held responsible for knowing. What the Constitution limits and what it protects. Where your rights begin and where they stop. How a bill becomes law in your state, which rarely looks like the diagram. Which questions appear on the naturalization civics test, and why the version you take depends on the day you filed Form N-400, the application for naturalization.
The size of the problem
In 2018 the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation gave a national sample of Americans a multiple choice test drawn from the same civics exam immigrants take to naturalize. 36 percent passed. A follow up survey of 41,000 people across all fifty states found Vermont was the only state where a majority passed, at 53 percent.
Millions of immigrants pass a version of that test every year. Most people born here would not.
Navigate
Knowing how government works and knowing what to do on a Tuesday morning are different skills. We teach the second one.
Which office handles your problem. What a congressional caseworker can do about a federal case that has been stuck for months, which most people do not know is an option. How to reach an elected official in a way that actually gets read by staff. Where the official information lives and how to tell it apart from a page that is trying to sell you a service you can get free.
Engage
Every city council meeting in the country sets aside time for public comment, and most seats in the room stay empty. Federal agencies are required to consider substantive comments submitted on proposed rules, and most rules draw almost none.
We run educational sessions, workshops, and community forums that put residents, community leaders, and public officials in the same room. People come with questions. They leave knowing which door to knock on.
Lead
Local boards and commissions are filled by appointment, and openings go unfilled more often than most residents realize. Volunteer leadership, advisory seats, and community organizations are open to people who simply ask.
We help people build the confidence and the connections to step into those roles, whether that means advocating for a neighborhood, volunteering with an organization, serving on a board, or running for office.
Who we serve
Open to Everyone. Aimed Where the Barriers Are Highest.
These are not people who need to be persuaded that civic life matters. Many of them studied for a test on the Constitution in a second language and passed it. What they need is somewhere to find the next answer, and someone who is not selling anything.
We publish in English and Spanish. Spanish pages are written in Spanish, not run through a translator.
- 8.49 million
- lawful permanent residents were eligible to naturalize as of January 2025
- 23.5 million
- immigrants report speaking English less than very well
- 23.8 million
- naturalized citizens can vote, close to 10 percent of the electorate
What we do not do
We Do Not Endorse Candidates. We Do Not Tell You What to Think.
We do not endorse candidates. We do not take positions on partisan legislation. We do not tell you how to vote.
This is not neutrality for its own sake. It is the reason a Republican official and a Democratic official can both send a constituent to us without hesitating. That trust is the only asset this organization really has, and we protect it.
When a law is disputed, we describe the dispute. When a fact is contested, we say who contests it. When we do not know, we say so.
Where to Start
Our mission
Leadership
Contact us
Naturalization eligibility, English proficiency, and naturalized voter figures come from Department of Homeland Security and Census Bureau data compiled in January 2025. Civics test pass rates come from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation national survey of 2018 and its fifty state survey of 2019.
Source: USCIS, 2025 Civics Test