Citizen-led solutions to America’s social and political problems.
Virtual Public Think Tank (VPTT) is a think tank with no staff. The public does the work.
It is necessary because America’s political system is not designed to handle our social and political issues on a long-term, objective basis. Problems that take decades to solve get dropped, restarted, or diluted every time power changes hands. That gap doesn’t get filled by waiting for the next election. It gets filled by civil society stepping in directly — and that’s what VPTT is for.
Most think tanks are a small staff producing recommendations for the public to read. VPTT works differently: the research, the debate, and the plans come directly from the citizens who show up to do the work.
Big money already organizes to shape policy in its favor. Ordinary people can too — this is where.
What “public” means here
VPTT isn’t public because anyone can read it — it’s public because anyone can help write it. The audience is the author.
What we stand on
Three fundamental values. Everything else is open.
- Human rights — dignity, liberty, equal treatment, and the right to take part in public life. Not up for debate.
- Democratic values — America’s constitutional system, with ordinary citizens’ voices genuinely counting in it.
- Faith in collective judgment — a broad, informed public, deliberating well, reaches sounder conclusions than narrow interests acting alone.
We don’t tell you what to think. We follow the evidence where it leads, and leave the conclusions to the people.
[Read more about our fundamental values →]
How the work happens
Every issue moves through three connected spaces:
- Read — a home base where the issue is laid out in plain language: what’s at stake, what’s been proposed, where things stand.
- Deliberate — an open forum where the thinking gets questioned, argued, and refined by anyone willing to engage.
- Build — a shared wiki where what survives deliberation becomes a real, standing plan.
The three spaces are where the thinking happens. From there, the plan gets advocated for until it’s implemented — and watched after that, because implementation isn’t the end either.
New issues start the same way everything here does: someone shows up with the interest and willingness to build it out.
Where the project is right now
VPTT is at the beginning. The infrastructure is being built, and the first issue on the platform is VPTT itself — how it grows, how it’s run, and how it improves. That issue never closes.
Right now the project needs people more than anything else: contributors with something to say, feedback on whether this idea holds up, and anyone who might want to eventually take ownership of an issue they care about.
If that’s you, this is the ground floor.
Get involved
Learn more — the About page lays out the whole project, piece by piece.
Join the forum — the open front door, where the conversation is happening. Take part under your own name or anonymously; public advocacy can carry real risks, and no one should have to expose themselves to participate.
Read and build the record — help shape the wiki.
Follow on Bluesky — the quickest way to see what’s developing.
Sign up for updates — follow the project as it develops.