The former secretary of state offered her most extensive description of her post-Obama administration agenda on Thursday since leaving her role as the nation's top diplomat, basking in loud applause from admirers at a Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Chicago. The former first lady, a longtime advocate for women and children, said the foundation would serve as ``my home'' on a set of public policy initiatives close to her heart.

``What I think we have to be about is working together, overcoming the lines that divide us, this partisan, cultural, geographic (divide). Building on what we know works, we can take on any challenge we confront,'' Clinton said. Reflecting the entire family's involvement, the foundation has been renamed the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

Clinton's speech at the start of a two-day annual conference touched on themes that could be part of a future Democratic presidential campaign, with the former New York senator stressing the need for private and public partnerships to tackle issues like economic and educational inequality. She said climate change, ``financial contagion'' and nuclear proliferation were ``too complex and cross-cutting'' for any one government to solve alone.

As secretary of state, Clinton avoided delving too deeply into domestic policy but signaled a desire to become re-engaged in pocketbook issues important to Americans. Pointing to efforts by a teachers' union and others to improve conditions in rural West Virginia, she said economic inequality was ``not limited to one county in West Virginia. There are too many places in our own country where community institutions are crumbling, social and public health indicators are cratering and jobs are coming apart and communities face the consequences.''

Clinton has emphasized similar issues in the past. In her 1996 book ``It Takes a Village,'' she discussed the importance of collaboration between families and community groups to help children thrive. As a presidential candidate, she was popular with many blue-collar workers whose wages had remained stagnant even as the economy flourished for many Americans.

As secretary of state under President Barack Obama, she promoted a number of initiatives to improve the standing of women and girls in developing nations. She said that work would continue at the foundation, both here and abroad.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a longtime friend of the Clintons, said at the conference that he was sure she would ``figure out what she wants to do in the future and we all look forward to hearing about it.''