Reclaiming human dignity for the public good.
Human dignity is often understood as worth, respect, and value for an individual.
But what if today, it is being manipulated by those who only seek their own gain?
The Dignity First Project is a think-and-do initiative that aims to map, measure, and deploy dignity for good before it is further captured for harm.
WHY DIGNITY
Dignity is an under-recognized terrain of power competition.
Today, those who care least about human wellbeing are often the most fluent in human needs. How people feel seen, valued, or secure—or humiliated, ignored, or excluded—shapes what they believe, who they trust, and what they are willing to accept or defend. Manipulative actors capture and exploit dignity in exchange for allegiance. Digital systems distort reality while eroding the ground on which real dignity depends. And public institutions are failing to prove that they can recognize, let alone defend, dignity.
Research from neuroscience to philosophy to peacebuilding has revealed dignity’s biological and social significance, how indignities fuel global conflict and systemic decay, and some of the ways dignity can be measured.
If we can see dignity more expansively, then we can understand its role in how people attach to, resist, or accept power. If we can map its components, then we can measure how it is shaping behavior, allegiance, and trust.
It is time to compete where it matters. It is time to reclaim dignity for the public good.
The Opportunity
To recognize dignity’s strategic potential, and to define it, measure it, and deploy it in ways that can reshape policy and practice for the public good.
The Potential
Dignity has unique universality across cultures, religions, and languages. It has been foundational when political orders were redefined. By harnessing its power, we can compete against the forces already scaling and redefining it.
The Approach
The Dignity First Project will translate research into policy and practice and develop a new framework for understanding dignity. Our think-and-do effort will integrate conceptual development, measurement, and application.
GET INVOLVED
We work with institutions, funders, and practitioners who want to treat dignity as strategic terrain—and use it for the common good.
Substack
Follow the project's thinking as it develops with updates delivered to you.
Collaborate
We are building a people-centered research process. Participate in convenings or research sessions.
TEAM
To translate dignity into practice, the Dignity First Project will create an iterative, people-centered think-and-do process that is fast, rigorous, practical, and humbly suited for our times.
Leanne Erdberg Steadman
Founder & Lead
Leanne Erdberg Steadman is the founder of The Dignity First Project and 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.
Research, Writing, & Data
Support Team
Communications, Writing & Editing will translate complex ideas for policy and public audiences.
Research & Data Support will provide rigorous analysis anchoring the conceptual and measurement work.
Project Administration will coordinate operations in across all efforts.
Advisory Network
Thinkers & Practitioners
The project will draw in a wide range of thinkers to stretch the work, challenge assumptions, and generate inventive solutions.