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50,000 Strong

Today we as a community are hitting an awesome milestone.

50,000 members. That’s pretty crazy.

I vividly remember the day in my cubicle at DHS talking to my colleagues about how there should be an online community to meet other government employees and share best practices. They thought I was crazy and it would never happened.

The push to start GovLoop happened after my 10th straight project where I was tasked with and I had already known it had been done in government before – and I knew there had to be an easier way to leverage what others had already done.

3 years later, I never would have guessed we’d have what is here today – an awesome collection of government innovators from across the U.S. and around the globe. From California to Texas to Canada to Australia. From elected officials to political appointees to senior officials to new feds to future feds studying in public administration.

The diversity is the best part and what makes it fun. Topics can range from acquisition to technology to leadership. The common attribute is the passion for improving public service.

GovLoop is not about me. It’s not about the full-time team working hard day-to-day at GovLoop (mad shout-out to Andy, Megan, Doug, Stephen, Jeff, Shannon, Pat, Lauren, and the fellows).

It’s about you. It’s about the community.

It’s about members like #50,000 – Melanie Schoeppe, a Master’s of Public Policy student at UC-Berkeley.

It’s about the stories I hear every day. About a retired Fed and a new acquisition professional meeting in our GovLoop mentors program and building a lifelong bond. It’s about a local government leader looking for advice on pitching a new innovation program to their boss and getting 20 comments on GovLoop from their peers and then successfully getting their boss’s buy-in. It’s about 100+ comments on a threads on improving USPS and another 100+ comments on improving USAJOBS and then senior management at both places asking for summaries of how to improve based on the conversations. It’s about the GovLoop community coming together and raising $10,000 for a family with cancer and $20,000+ for Kiva micro-lending.

It’s about real impact and change.

In a couple weeks (in early December), we as a community will celebrate our awesome 50,000 member achievement together. We have some pretty cool events planned in DC where we are based. We have some great events outside of the beltway where most of our members live. We look forward to celebrating together as a community and having a blast.

Together we are just at the very beginning of an important journey. Every day, budgets are getting cut deeper. Public employees continue to be vilified in the media. Baby boomers are itching towards retirement.

Government needs to be smart and more collaborative and innovative.

I’m blessed to be able to spend time with the smart, passionate public servants on GovLoop. And I’m optimistic about the future of government because of it.

Let’s go create more awesomeness.

Our Google+ Hangout celebration….

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Kevin Dubs

It’s amazing what you and the GovLoop community achieved in 3 years…can’t wait to see where you are 5-10 years from now! Best of Luck.

– Kevin

John Wells

A huge congrats from ‘Down Under’ to you Steve and the GovLoop team. What a great achievement – and an inspiration to all of us working to make a positive difference in the gov space. Now on to the magic 100! 🙂

GovLoop

Sandy – we will compete for sressler for life 🙂

Keisha – You rock

John – Thanks a bunch. Can’t wait to get down to Australia one of these days

Dubs – Thanks buddy. Your help has been amazing

Michael – GovUp LA – lets do it

Neil – 3-peat?

Davied

Congrats, colleague!

Civil Servant 2.0 is at 7661 at the moment.

Pleio, the collaboration platform that Civil Servant 2.0 has set up, currently has about 19,000 users however! 😉

Lynnie Martin

Steve – Your vision is impressive! We are all reaping the benefits and then contributing even more!

While quite smaller, I still would like to compliment you on your first brainchild, YGL. I count myself among the many who have benefited from YGL – It has provided me an outlet for my interest in writing and a connection to other young feds in the area. Keep on dreaming – I can’t wait to see what other ideas you come up with in the future!

Good luck!

-Lynnie