On January 21, 2009, President Obama signed the Memorandum on Transparency and
Open Government as his first executive action. The memorandum outlines three
core values for government: transparency, participation, and collaboration.
Click here to read the memorandum.
The memorandum outlines three core values for government:
Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides
information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal
Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law
and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.
Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their
operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and
agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government's
effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society,
and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and
agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide
their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments
and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for
public participation in Government.
Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the
work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and
systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit
organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies
should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new
opportunities for cooperation.
The Udall Foundation embraces the values of transparency, participation, and collaboration as it works
to implement its mission. This webpage highlights specific actions undertaken by the Udall Foundation
in response to the directive. These include: publishing high-value data sets, designating a senior
official responsible for the quality of the Foundation’s federal spending information, and creating
an open government plan to serve as a roadmap for embedding the principles of openness in the
Foundation's operations.