The Council for Excellence in Government was a public/private partnership organization initiated in the 1980s designed to improve the effectiveness of federal, state, and local government in the United States. The organization ceased to operate in 2009 and the majority of its staff and programs moved to the Partnership for Public Service. [1]
Originally, the Council was a brainchild of several ex-government officials who had moved on to success in the private sector. They felt that government services and responsiveness to public needs would improve if there were an organization that could bring the private and the public together to meet and exchange ideas.
The Council commissioned public polls, attempted to engage citizens and generate interest in public service, and provided generous awards for innovation in government. Council supporters, called principals, provided advice, assistance, and monetary sponsorship for the Council's activities.
The Council was non-partisan in nature, and had former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton as honorary chairs of its board. Former President Gerald Ford was also an honorary co-chair until his death.
Virginia philanthropist Alan Voorhees, whose architectural firm designed the Metro system in Washington, D.C., and many other capital cities around the world in the 1960s and 1970s, provided seed money and office space in the early 1980s. Voorhees was always interested in applications of technology to public problems, and was the inventor of the "gravity theory" of traffic flow which was used in transportation planning since the 1950s.
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recognizes U.S. organizations in the business, health care, education, and nonprofit sectors for performance excellence. The Baldrige Award is the highest formal recognition of the performance excellence of both public and private U.S. organizations given by the President of the United States. It is administered by the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, which is based at and managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Louis Wade Sullivan is an active health policy leader, minority health advocate, author, physician, and educator. He served as the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services during President George H. W. Bush's Administration and was Founding Dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine.
The Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP) is an independent, national, bilingual, not-for-profit organization based in Montreal, Quebec. Its mission is to "improve public policy in Canada by generating research, providing insight and informing debate on current and emerging policy issues facing Canadians and their governments." It publishes peer-reviewed research and acts as a convenor of policy debates by organizing conferences, round tables and panel discussions among stakeholders, academics, policy-makers and the general public. It is also the publisher of Policy Options magazine and the home of the Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation.
Roxanne Qualls is currently an Executive Sales Vice President with Sibcy Cline Realtors in Cincinnati OH.
Frances Lankin,, is a Canadian senator, former president and CEO of United Way Toronto, and a former Ontario MPP and cabinet minister in the NDP government of Bob Rae between 1990 and 1995. From 2010 to 2012, she co-chaired a government commission review of social assistance in Ontario. From 2009 to 2016, she was a member of the Security Intelligence Review Committee.
John D. Welty, a native of Amboy, Illinois, was the seventh and longest-serving president of Fresno State University before retiring on May 8, 2013. He was appointed president on July 29, 1991. Before coming to Fresno, he had previously served as president of Indiana University of Pennsylvania for seven years. Welty has a doctorate in administration of higher education from Indiana University.
The Urban Land Institute, or ULI, is a global nonprofit research and education organization with regional offices in Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, and London. ULI aims to help its members and their partners build more equitable, sustainable, healthy and resilient communities.
EngenderHealth is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. active in sexual and reproductive health (SRH) that operates in nearly 20 countries throughout Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
Mouchel Group was an infrastructure and business services company headquartered in Woking, United Kingdom. It provided advisory, design, project delivery and managed services associated with infrastructure and business services across the highways and transportation, local government, emergency services, property, health, education and utility markets across the world.
Indu Shahani is a leading Indian educationist, who currently serves as the founding Dean of the Indian School of Management & Entrepreneurship (ISME) and a former Sheriff of Mumbai.
Irene Hirano Inouye was the founding President of the U.S.-Japan Council, a position she held ever since she helped create the organization in 2009 until her death. Hirano Inouye focused on building positive relations between the United States and Japan, and was also a leader in philanthropy, community engagement, and advancing social causes. She served on a number of prominent non-profit boards, and was chair of the Ford Foundation's board of trustees. She previously served as president and founding chief executive officer of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles from 1988 to 2008, which is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution.
Daniel A. Biederman is an American urban redevelopment expert and public space management consultant. He is the co-founder of Grand Central Partnership, 34th Street Partnership, and Bryant Park Corporation, three Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and private park managers operating in Midtown Manhattan, and is also the President of Biederman Redevelopment Ventures, a place-making consulting firm. Biederman has been cited for his success in using private funding to revitalize urban public spaces.
The Partnership for Public Service is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C. whose mission is to inspire a new generation of civil servants and to transform the way government works.
The Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation was an office new to the Obama Administration, created within the White House, to catalyze new and innovative ways of encouraging government to do business differently. Its first director was the economist Sonal Shah. The final director was David Wilkinson.
The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics is a multi-agency working group within the Department of Education charged with strengthening the nation's capacity to provide high-quality education while increasing opportunities for Hispanic American participation in federal education programs. In addition, the Initiative serves as a resource for information related to closing the educational achievement gap for Hispanic Americans. Finally, the Initiative provides staffing to support and coordinate the mission of a President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.
In his "A New Beginning" speech on June 4, 2009, at Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt, President of the United States Barack Obama stated that "I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings." During the speech, he also committed to "host a Summit on Entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world".
Barbara Hackman Franklin is an American government official, corporate director, and business executive. She served as the 29th U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 1992–1993 to President George H. W. Bush, during which she led a presidential mission to China.
The National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) is a United States government advisory council, which advises the President of the United States on the security of information systems in banking, finance, transportation, energy, manufacturing, and emergency government services. The George W. Bush Administration's executive order 13231 of October 16, 2001 created the NIAC, and its functioning was last extended until September 30, 2021 by executive order 13889 of the Donald Trump Administration.
Alfredo "Fred" Espinosa Pascual is a Filipino international development banker and finance expert, currently serving as the Secretary of Trade and Industry under the administration of Bongbong Marcos since June 30, 2022. He also served as the 20th President of the University of the Philippines (U.P.) System, from 2011 to 2017. He was a member of the U.P. Board of Regents, the university's highest policy-making and governing body, representing the alumni, just before he was elected as U.P. President, the first non-faculty member to hold the position.
Janet Lippe Norwood was an American statistician and the first female Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) when she was appointed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. She was reappointed twice by President Reagan. She left the Bureau in 1991 and joined the Urban Institute as a Senior Fellow, a position she held until 1999. She was also appointed as the Chair of the Advisory Council on Unemployment Compensation, first by President George H. W. Bush in 1993 and then re-elected by President Bill Clinton. She stepped down from that position in 1996. She received numerous awards including several honorary doctorate degrees from academic institutions, including Harvard University.