Departure Dialogues Project: Initial Findings
Turning federal experience into Congressional insight
Stewarding Federal Knowledge for Effective Government
When thousands of federal employees departed government service this year, they took with them decades of institutional knowledge about how programs actually work — and where statutory language creates burdens and barriers to efficient, effective program operations. Departure Dialogues captures that expertise before it's lost.
What We Found
Twenty former federal employees across agencies — from FDA to State Department, USDA to NSF — shared candid insights about the gaps between legislative intent and operational reality. Their observations reveal consistent patterns: outdated laws preventing modernization, well-intentioned oversight creating bureaucratic burden, and frontline expertise rarely reaching the lawmakers who need it most.
Explore the Full Report
Trouble viewing the report? Try this link.
Why This Matters
Congress writes laws, but often lacks insight into how those policies actually function on the ground. Former federal employees understand where systems excel and where they fail—but that knowledge typically walks out the door when they leave.
Departure Dialogues creates a new feedback loop: from those who implemented policies to those who craft them. By collecting and synthesizing insights from departing civil servants, we're building an evidence base that Congress, oversight bodies, and reformers can use to strengthen federal programs for the long term.
This first round demonstrates it's possible to gather this intelligence efficiently, respectfully, and in a way that transcends partisan divisions.
Round 2 is Open Now
Recently left federal service?
Your on-the-ground experience matters.
Whether you spent 2 years or 20 in government, you've witnessed what works and what doesn't. Share your expertise through Departure Dialogues—your insights will inform Congressional oversight and help build more effective government services.
Participate securely and on your terms:
Written responses, audio, or video submissions
Choose your level of attribution (fully attributed, anonymous, or anywhere in between)
Focus on implementation challenges, not politics
About the Project
Departure Dialogues is a nonpartisan initiative led by POPVOX Foundation in partnership with Foundation for American Innovation, Niskanen Center, Partnership for Public Service, and Democracy Forward's Civil Service Strong.
Round 1 collected insights from 20 former federal employees across multiple agencies. Round 2 data collection is now open, with findings expected in early 2026.
Learn more at popvox.org/departure.
Questions? Contact Anne Meeker, Managing Director.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Yes! You choose how your insights are attributed when you submit. Your options include:
fully attributed (your name and role),
partially attributed (agency and general role without your name), or
completely anonymous (no identifying information).
When you choose anonymity, we strip identifying information from your submission before including it in the public archive. Only the project team will have access to full submissions for verification and quality control.
POPVOX Foundation is a private nonprofit, not a government entity, so standard FOIA requests don't apply to our records. Your participation is entirely independent of your former agency — we don't notify agencies about individual participants. You can change your attribution preference after submitting by contacting us at caitlin@popvox.org.
Please note: If you share very specific program details or unique situations, colleagues might recognize your experience even without your name attached.
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The Departure Dialogues interactive report uses Talk to the City to identify themes and arguments from submitted comments, backing up each argument with direct quotes from participating former Federal employees.
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This project focuses on insights about program headaches, successes, frustrations, inefficiencies, etc. that can help specifically inform Congress to conduct better oversight and create better policy in the future. For example, some insights may include:
Statutory language requiring that all medical information is faxed, not electronically transferred — creating massive workflow bottlenecks, high costs, and delays for constituents.
Congressionally-mandated reports add hundreds of hours to staff backlogs .
Please note that allegations of fraud, criminal wrongdoing, and other malfeasance are outside the scope of this project and should be directed to agency Inspector Generals or Congressional committees with jurisdiction. This is not a whistleblowing platform.
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Our platform walks participating former federal employees through nine questions:
Tell me about your role(s) with the federal government. What agency did you work for, what programs were you working on, and what was the scope of your most recent role(s)?
How frequently did Congressional or legislative intent/language come up in your work, and in what contexts?
Can you describe a situation where conflicting, outdated, or overly-burdensome legislative requirements made your work/your program less efficient or less effective?
If you could rebuild your program/agency from the ground up, without changing its overall scope and mission, how would it look different when you were done?
How could Congress do a better job of learning about programs in your area of expertise, with the goal of legislating more effectively?
If you had 5 minutes to brief a Congressional committee about fixing bureaucratic inefficiency in your area, what specific legislative change would you recommend?
If you had 5 minutes to pitch agency leadership about changes they should make within the agency, what specific changes would you recommend?
Is there anything else we haven't asked that you would like to share about your career with the federal government?
What are your plans post government service?
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This project is nonpartisan, and focused solely on information that can be used by Congress to fix gaps, frustrations, and inefficiencies in federal programs. This project does not aim to capture pure “oral history,” but focuses on actionable program-related information for policy and oversight.
While we understand that partisan tensions are high, we encourage participating federal employees to remain as nonpartisan as possible in their responses — many of the longstanding program challenges have been the compounded product of both parties’ actions!
We work closely with other federal oral history projects, and are happy to help refer departing employees to other projects, including Georgetown’s Civic Tech project, and the Volcker Alliance’s Federal oral history project.
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Interviews and submitted testimony will be incorporated into a public interactive archive accessible to Congressional staff, researchers, civil society organizations, and the general public. POPVOX Foundation and partner organizations will also produce additional research, policy materials, and briefings based on this project for Congressional staff and committees.
To make this information usable to stakeholders including Congress, we plan to create an interactive archive that groups statements by common themes. For an example of what this might look like, please see here.
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No! We welcome insights, ideas, and comments from any and all departing federal civil service employees and contractors.
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Entirely up to you: the TheirStory platform will walk you through our set of ten suggested questions to answer, but you can skip any question or share anything else on your mind. There is no minimum or maximum length for videos — and you’re welcome to submit multiple videos to share different elements of your federal career.
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Yes! In fact, we encourage it: please feel free to share multiple videos focusing on different elements of your career, or submit a second (or third!) video if there’s something you forgot to mention in your original submission.
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Email POPVOX Foundation Deputy Director Anne Meeker at anne@popvox.org