DIGNITY
is the human experience
that may hold the key
to solving today's most pressing policy problems.
The Dignity First Project is developing the frameworks and tools
for institutions to recognize, account for, and design for
human dignity in policy and practice.
We're equipping future leaders with the power to harness
dignity's potential for the public good.
WHY DIGNITY
A sense of dignity is more than just our inherent worth.
It is built from how we feel about ourselves and how our experiences in the world reinforce or unsettle us.
Our "sense of dignity" is made up of perceptions like recognition, pride, agency, and fairness. It is impacted by humiliation, exclusion, and disrespect.
And today it is being exploited by polarizing politicians who manipulate dignity for their own gain, extremists who capture dignity to enable the harm of others, and even some tech companies that distort dignity for attention and profit.
Meanwhile, leaders in public institutions overlook dignity's potential to motivate action and secure loyalty. They miss how dignity impacts issues — from polarization and violence to declining trust and fragmentation — and how it is critical to the design of potential solutions.
Dignity offers a rare point of agreement across cultures, religion, and politics. Thinkers from the Vatican to leading economists are promoting dignity as a foundation for the future.
It is being measured
94% of Americans say they should be treated with dignity
Check out the Dignity Barometer and the World Dignity Metre.
It is being worked on
Over one hundred NGO, philanthropy, and multilateral efforts focus on dignity: human rights, health, and peace, with dozens of funders from Humanity United to the WHO.
Check out IDInsight’s Dignity Ecosystem.
It is being researched
Scholars across disciplines study dignity.
Check out its biological and social significance, role in global conflict and resolution, and some of the ways to account for it.
There are many promising people, ideas, tools, and experiments on dignity, and an unmistakable opportunity to connect and scale them into something that can make an institutional dent.
LEARN MORE
What if we could harness dignity for the public good?
Read more about what we're doing over on Substack as we build this in public.
Subscribe for updates delivered to your inbox.
Get in touch with us to learn more about our efforts:
we work with institutions, funders, and practitioners.
THE TEAM
Leanne Erdberg Steadman
Founder & Lead
Genna Mazor
Communications Chief
Research, Data, and Project Support
Advisory Network
coming soon
Leanne Erdberg Steadman is the founder of The Dignity First Project and a Senior Fellow with The Alliance for Peacebuilding. She is an international security practitioner who has spent nearly two decades working on global conflict, governance, and peace in senior roles at the White House National Security Council, State Department, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Open Society Foundations, and elsewhere. She has extensive experience developing strategy, organizing research, and creating initiatives that are innovative, rigorous, and norm-shifting.
Genna Mazor has almost twenty years of experience in communications, marketing, brand development, and project management. She has honed messaging and built audiences for cable networks, startups, and consumer products companies. She is an expert in translating complex concepts into clear, compelling narratives.
Research & Data Support will provide rigorous analysis anchoring the conceptual and measurement work.
Project Administration will coordinate operations across all efforts.
The project will draw in a wide range of thinkers to stretch the work, challenge assumptions, and generate inventive solutions.