The Fund for Our Economic Future, a collaboration of 70 Northeast Ohio philanthropies working to advance the region’s economy, has raised nearly $60 million for economic development. Knight’s grant money will support two projects and a charrette aimed at engaging citizens in their government. An administrative staff, contractors, a public relations and marketing firm and an online development firm will be hired. The first project, the Citizens' Choice Awards, will deal with government collaboration, with the expected results of creating a comprehensive citizen engagement platform, increasing awareness of and demand for local government collaboration, efficiency and reform efforts; and the development of citizen-based policies. Experts on traditional and social media, advocacy journalism and civic engagement will lead the charrette in developing a recommendation for integrating new media, advocacy journalism, online data portals, social networks, grassroots community outreach, grant making and policy development into the citizen engagement platform. The Citizens' Policy Program will focus on such topics as sprawl, tax-revenue sharing and school consolidation with a goal of developing policy options that will be put to an online vote to select plans to be advocated to local and state officials. The fund anticipates an increase in the number of governmental bodies involved in collaboration and efficiency projects and in the number of projects implemented, plus at least one citizen-based policy reform effort considered and perhaps adopted by the Legislature.