Commonwealth Club of California

The Commonwealth Club of California is a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization based in Northern California. Founded in 1903, it is the oldest and largest public affairs forum in the United States. Membership is open to everyone.

The Commonwealth Club has over 21,000 members who sponsor over 450 events each year on topics ranging across politics, culture, society, and the economy. Around 80,000 people attend these events in person annually. It is currently headed by an expert on international security and arms negotiations and former Pentagon official, Gloria Duffy. Club events are broadcast on many public and commercial radio stations in the longest-lasting continuous radio program in the nation. Recordings of these programs are deposited at Stanford University's Hoover Institution Archives.

The club has broadcast its fora since 1924, and current broadcasts are carried weekly by about 230 public and commercial radio stations across the nation. Local residents in the Bay Area can view televised programs from The Club on KGO TV, and video of nearly 500 club programs is carried on the FORA.tv web site, as well as video posted on the Club's website. The club also issues podcasts each week that are accessible through iTunes.com and on the club's website and a bi-monthly magazine, The Commonwealth, which is available to club members.

In addition to hosting speeches and panels, the club has initiated several recent public policy projects. These have included Voices of Reform, a nonpartisan effort to bring together California's policy makers and opinion leaders to improve state governance. Voices of Reform became the independent organization California Forward. Similarly, the club's California Media Project merged into California Watch, part of the Center for Investigative Reporting. The club also offers travel programs, with educational trips abroad each year to destinations such as Turkey, Southeast Asia, and Iran.

The Commonwealth Club occasionally comes under criticism from people who think it represents one or another political philosophy, and they often center upon criticism of specific speakers with whom the critics disagree. But the club's more than 400 events a year feature speakers from a wide range of viewpoints—conservative and liberal and moderate and radical, religious and secular, pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian.

The Commonwealth Club sponsors the California Book Awards, which were initiated in 1931 to honor "exceptional literary merit of California writers and publishers". Medals (gold and silver) are now awarded in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, First Work of Fiction, Californiana (fiction or nonfiction relating to California), Juvenile Literature (up to age 10), Young Adult Literature (age 11–16), and Notable Contribution to Publishing. The winning books are selected by an independent jury.

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