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Be Heard (formerly ePluribus) is a civic engagement platform I built with my brother Aidan while we were college students. Be Heard makes it super easy to contact your representatives in government — from the president down to your local Superintendent of Public Instruction. And it uses Verified Inc. (formerly Unum ID) so you can verify your identity and send messages as a verified constituent. That way, your representatives can be sure you're not a bot or foreign actor.
We're thrilled that, by now, thousands of people across 48 U.S. states have used Be Heard to contact their representatives and, well, be heard!
Tools
Be Heard provides all sorts of fun tools. On the website, you'll find:
- a web widget, which can be embedded on any website with a single line of code;
- a petition to #SecureOurDemocracy, which you can add your verified signature to;
- a mobile app;
- a Chrome extension (sadly no longer operational), which let you contact representatives directyl from millions of news articles; and
- lots of fun chatbots.
Crowdfunding
We had tons of support in building Be Heard. Part of that came through a crowfunding campaign, in which one of the perks was a spot on our We the People list shown below. The larger the donation, the larger the signature. It was fun to wait and see who would be our John Hancock. 🙂
Namesake
The unofficial U.S. motto is e pluribus unum, which means "out of many, one" in Latin. This phrase appears everywhere from the top of the U.S. Capitol Building to the back of the penny to the back of the dollar bill:
We were unfortunately forced to change the name from ePluribus to Be Heard due to a trademark issue, but the spirit of the name remains: each and every one of us is among the many people that constitute our country. We all deserve to be heard.