When people ask how a country or region is doing, the answer -- especially on popular news venues -- tends to focus exclusively on the economy, or more particularly the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The GDP fails to even reflect the health of the economy, but what we really need is far richer and more whole feedback about how we are doing economically, socially and ecologically. Many new indicators have been researched and proposed in recent decades.
There are many ways to change electoral systems so that it is harder for money -- especially large corporations -- to unduly influence elections and the activities of elected officials. This site compares a number of them and provides excellent liinks to other groups concerned. (Destination Democracy was The Benton Foundation's superlative exploration of the trade-offs involved in many approaches to Campaign Finance Reform. The site is gone, that link is via The Wayback Machine.)
Diverse citizens are convened to seek, with the help of professional facilitation, shared understandings, solutions and wisdom about social concerns. Their unanimous conclusions are publicized to their entire community or country. Examples include Danish Citizen Technology Panels, Wisdom Councils, and The People's Verdict.