The South Carolina Forum is a cross-partisan, statewide effort that empowers South Carolinians to set the agenda on the issues that matter most to us. We aim to mobilize thousands of our state's residents to share perspectives with each other on how South Carolina should improve, and to create pathways for people-powered legislative change.
In 2026, using simple text, voice, and video tools, we will gather input from South Carolinians across the state. Using all these ideas, we will identify solutions that more than 70% of us support. We will then convene an in-person civic assembly with 50-100 South Carolinians to deliberate, generate, and publish recommended actions for change.
Throughout this process, The South Carolina Forum is building relationships with bipartisan legislators who are inspired to draft, sponsor, and publicly champion enabling bills. Backed by plain-language briefs, district-level data, and resident testimony, we'll advocate to ensure our collective voice shapes real policy outcomes that reflect what South Carolinians across the state truly want and need.
We are building a better way to raise our voices, identify our shared priorities, and help our elected leaders understand and act on what matters most to the people of South Carolina.
From beginning to end, The South Carolina Forum is powered by people -- real humans who care about our state and want to fix what's broken together. To maximize and scale human participation, voice, and impact, we use technology, including some AI tooling, to assist our state and national teams in analyzing tens of thousands of participant contributions, uncovering areas where people agree and disagree, and pinpointing opportunities for collaboration and bipartisan legislative action.
AI "sensemaking" capabilities help us group related participant ideas into dozens of distinct thematic categories and then identify the issues with the greatest consensus among a broad diversity of citizens. AI helps us (1) generate summary descriptions of each issue, grounded in the words of human contributors; (2) compile exact quotes from citizens about how the issue affects them personally; (3) transcribe and organize solution ideas generated verbally during Community Conversations; and (4) quickly produce reports for our stakeholder audiences.
Our data analytics team and bipartisan state team review AI-based assistance at every step. AI is never used to make decisions or speak for individuals. Synthesized data is traceable and auditable back to original, quoted participant inputs. At the same time, no personally identifying information is included in the analytics process; all participant contributions are anonymized for purposes of synthesizing, reporting, and auditing data.
The South Carolina Forum is led by a politically diverse state team, with guidance from a legislative advisory council, a civic advisory council, and regional ambassadors drawn from local faith, education, veteran, civic, rural, and business communities. A nonpartisan national team provides technical, marketing, and program support.
South Carolina has the right mix of strong civic identity, diverse communities, and practical leadership—from rural towns to growing cities, from veterans to students—and is ready to show how residents can find common ground on tough issues.
We aim to spotlight South Carolina as a leader among states in using accessible online and offline deliberative approaches to produce trusted, >70% majority-backed solutions across political, economic, racial, religious, and geographic lines of difference.
From beginning to end, The South Carolina Forum is powered by people -- real humans who care about their state and want to fix what's broken together. To maximize and scale human participation, voice, and impact, we use technology, including some AI tooling, to assist our state and national teams in analyzing hundreds of thousands of participant contributions, uncovering areas where people agree and disagree, and pinpointing opportunities for collaboration and bipartisan legislative action.
In each of our three program states, AI "sensemaking" capabilities help us group related participant ideas into dozens of distinct thematic categories and then identify the issues with the greatest consensus among a broad diversity of citizens. AI helps us (1) generate summary descriptions of each issue, grounded in the words of human contributors; (2) compile exact quotes from citizens about how the issue affects them personally; (3) transcribe and organize solution ideas generated verbally during Community Conversations; and (4) quickly produce reports for our stakeholder audiences.
Our data analytics teams and bipartisan state teams review AI-based assistance at every step. AI is never used to make decisions or speak for individuals. Synthesized data is traceable and auditable back to original, quoted participant inputs. At the same time, no personally identifying information is included in the analytics process; all participant contributions are anonymized for purposes of synthesizing, reporting, and auditing data.
We want you involved! Become a Champion!
