A quarter century of building a better government

Twenty-five years ago, the Partnership for Public Service set out with a big ambition of making our government work more effectively for the American people.

I’ve had the privilege of leading this organization since its founding. What has stayed with me are the federal employees I’ve met along the way, people whose names most Americans will never know but whose work touches millions of lives.

That ambition still drives the Partnership today: building a more effective government and a stronger democracy that serves the diverse needs of our nation.

25 years of investing in the people who make government run

Across five presidential administrations, a core part of our work has been developing the public servants who keep our government functioning, no matter who is in charge at the White House.

Through our Public Service Leadership Institute®, we have trained over 50,000 government employees, developing highly capable public service leaders and connecting them across agencies.

Our Go Government and Call to Serve programs have inspired the next generation of public servants, with more than 650 interns placed across federal, state and local government through the Future Leaders in Public Service Internship Program.

Along the way, we have championed 75 pieces of good-government legislation and built programs that have helped shape how government operates. Our Center for Presidential Transition® has helped incoming and outgoing administrations organize and carry out the peaceful transfer of power. And for 19 editions, our Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® rankings have measured employee engagement across agencies.

As government’s challenges have changed, so has our work

The demands on government look quite different today than they did 25 years ago, and we have grown to meet new challenges.

Recognizing the potential of artificial intelligence to reshape how government operates, we launched the AI Center for Government® to help federal, state and local government leaders build AI literacy and talent capacity.

We also have expanded our leadership training programs to include state government employees. In addition, our state government work includes an initiative supporting California’s gubernatorial transition, leveraging our deep expertise in facilitating the smooth transfer of presidential power.

And when the civil service came under an unprecedented attack last year, we built FedSupport, a resource hub that helps current and former federal employees navigate threats to the nonpartisan workforce.

Documenting the damage as it happens

In 2025, as the Trump administration moved to dismantle federal institutions, funding and infrastructure, we launched the Federal Harms Tracker to demonstrate what is at stake when the federal government is weakened from within.

Our suite of Federal Harms Tracker products pairs data on workforce and funding cuts with real stories of harm to show how a weakened government affects people’s lives.

Americans need to see the good work public servants do

Underlying our mission is a core belief in the importance of the nonpartisan federal career workforce in providing vital public services, the need to recognize their good work and for the public to understand and care about our government.

This year also marks the 25th celebration of our Service to America Medals® awards program that is known as the Sammies. This program has honored more than 800 career federal employees who keep our nation running and moving forward.

At a time of unprecedented challenge for the federal workforce, the Sammies remind us that career federal employees go to work every day in cities and towns across America to serve their country and their communities. Their work deserves to be celebrated.

Since 2021, our research on public perceptions of government has found a persistent pattern: Americans’ trust in major institutions is low and trust in the federal government is especially weak. But we have also found that the public’s view of civil servants has improved in recent years.

That progress is worth building on, and we have been telling the stories of the people behind government’s work to help inform the public and rebuild trust in our government.

Reimagining how government works for its next era

As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, we launched our Government for a New Era initiative to develop concrete policy proposals and advocacy strategies to make the federal government more effective, responsive and accountable.

The disruption of the past year has created a generational opportunity to rebuild government from the ground up rather than patch what’s broken.

We will protect government today and build a better one for tomorrow

Today, we are meeting the disruptions to the federal workforce, agencies and funding with a new strategy built on two goals: protecting our government from further harm and making it more effective, responsive and accountable for the future.

As we mark our 25th anniversary, I invite you to explore our refreshed website which reflects how we are meeting this moment.

For a quarter century, the Partnership has worked to build a better government and a stronger democracy. We intend to keep doing that work for decades to come and I hope you will join us.

Thank you to the federal employees who make our country better and to my colleagues at the Partnership and to the supporters who make our work possible. This work has never mattered more.

Author: Max Stier

Max Stier is the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service