A Model Happiness Proclamation for use by your city council, mayor's office, county council, campus administration, campus president or others

1. Happiness Alliance
Home of the Happiness Initiative &
Happiness Index Survey
MODEL Happiness Proclamation
WHEREAS The United Nation’s resolution 69/305, adopted July 19, 2011 “Happiness: towards
a holistic approach to development” recognizes “that the gross domestic product indicator by
nature was not designed to and does not adequately reflect the happiness and wellbeing of people
in a country” and encourages “additional measures that better capture the importance of the pursuit
of happiness and well-being”;
WHEREAS, ____________ understands that “…the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred
from a measure of national income,” as stated by Simon Kuznets, who created the standard that
became Gross Domestic Product;
WHEREAS, ____________ acknowledge our role and responsibility for the happiness,
wellbeing, quality of life, resilience and sustainability of our nation;
WHEREAS The idea of measuring people’s happiness and satisfaction with the way their lives
are going is an important tool that will help to create a just, healthy and resilient society, economy
and environment;
WHEREAS ____________understands the importance of creating a broad assessment of the
happiness of its residents, using both objective and subjective indicators of well-being, using the data
to inform policy decisions, planning and program implementation;
WHEREAS, ____________ is known for its leadership and quality of governance;
NOW, THEREFORE, be it proclaimed by the ____________
____________ supports the concept of wider measures of wellbeing to guide public policy and
allocation of resources.
____________intends to explore available happiness and wellbeing subjective and objective
metrics and data and application of happiness and wellbeing metrics to guide public policy and
allocation of resources.
____________encourages people and organizations to participate in publicly available surveys
and encourages efforts to conduct a random sampling of our population using surveys and
ensuring surveys results are representative of the population.
____________ encourages the commencement of local town meetings in town halls,
community centers, and other public gathering spaces in neighborhoods, where our community
revitalizes and reframes the debate and provokes richer broader conversation on a local and
national level about subjective and objective metrics.
____________will consider the issues and ideas raised our community at the town meetings
and in other activities in its exploration of happiness and wellbeing subjective and objective
metrics.
Signed on this day ______________________ at ________________________
happycounts.org