ACTIVISTSOLUTIONS.ORG was created in 2005 by Mildred Gordon and David Greenson as a non-profit and non-partisan venture dedicated to grassroots education and empowerment. In 2007, Activist Solutions became a program of the Foundation for Feedback Learning, a 501(c)3 organization.

Our background is in communication, learning theory, group facilitation, dialogue, and conflict resolution -- not politics. We have always been interested in current events, and deeply concerned with many of our world's most pressing issues and our country's politics. However, all we actually did before 2003 was talk about these things a lot, occasionally write letters to legislators or newspapers, and vote in every election. We were both largely politically inactive for most of our lives.

Like many others, our increased involvement began because we were seriously worried about the direction of the country. We were also excited by the potential for participatory democracy that the Internet provided and felt that the time had come to expand our communication and dialogue work into the political arena. We began perusing an ever-expanding list of political websites. We signed Internet petitions and joined in other forms of web-based activism. We read a variety of political blogs, and participated in a number of different forums and chat rooms. We also began volunteering in person for various political advocacy groups. We attended a series of rallies, hosted multiple house parties, made brownies for bake sales, passed out fliers, registered new voters, and made phone calls. Starting in the summer of 2004, we began traveling each weekend to Pennsylvania, the nearest “swing state” to our home in Brooklyn, New York, often persuading a carload of friends to come with us. In October, we drove down to Florida to spend the last few weeks before the election knocking on doors and urging people to vote.

We communicated with hundreds, perhaps even a thousand people, during this period. We exchanged ideas online, spoke with people on the phone and at their front doors, listened to the professional political organizers charged with supervising us, and swapped stories with other volunteers like ourselves. In the end, we came away with two powerful conclusions.

• There is incredible problem solving talent buried in the grassroots, and there are not enough ways for people to actualize or express this power.
• There is a profound hunger in the land for dialogue about POSITIVE solutions to the many public problems we face, rather than so much debate about whose to blame for them.