ADVISORY: Zeints Joins Podesta to Launch CAP’s “Doing What Works” Project

Thursday, February 18, 2010, 10:30am – 12:30pm

WASHINGTON, DC–On Thursday, February 18th, the Center for American Progress, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Campaign for American Workers, will launch a new project called “Doing What Works,” to advance smarter government that efficiently allocates scarce resources and achieves greater results for the American people.

This event will feature a major address by President Obama’s Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients. A panel discussion will follow the address featuring Geoffrey Garin, President of Hart Research Associates, Nancy Killefer, Senior Director at McKinsey and Company, and Matt Miller, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. The discussion will be moderated by CAP Senior Fellow Jitinder Kohli.

CAP is releasing two papers at this event. The first, by CAP’s President and CEO John Podesta, and Reece Rushing, who is managing the Doing What Works project, lays out the project’s philosophy and previews work over the next year. The second, “Golden Goals for Government Performance,” by former U.K. government reform expert and CAP Senior Fellow Jitinder Kohli, recommends ways government can use high-level, outcome-based goals to drive performance.

Opinion research shows the public does not believe government is capable of effectively and efficiently executing its responsibilities. This mistrust is a significant barrier to advancing policies to address even the most popular goals. For attitudes to change, the public first and foremost will have to see government acting responsibly and working to deliver maximum bang for the buck.

The nation’s fiscal health makes this especially urgent. In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama announced the administration’s intent to freeze discretionary, nonmilitary spending over the next three years. Major challenges in health care, energy, education, and other priority areas may have to be met with little or no additional funding. This reality demands that government operate efficiently and direct resources where they are needed most and to efforts that generate the greatest returns. Approaches that prove effective should be replicated. Those that perform poorly should be redesigned to boost results. And those that are redundant, misguided, or misdirected should be eliminated. We need a government that does what works.

Please join the Center for American Progress for the launch of our new "Doing What Works" project on Thursday, February 18^th, at 10:30am EST.

Featured Speaker:

Jeffrey Zients, Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director for Management and Federal Chief Performance Officer

Introduction and Opening Remarks:

John Podesta, President and CEO, Center for American Progress

Panelists:

Geoffrey Garin, President, Peter D. Hart Research Associates

Nancy Killefer, Senior Director, McKinsey & Company

Matt Miller, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

Moderated by:

Jitinder Kohli, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

Coffee will be served at 10:00 a.m.