Leadership Compass Activity

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

This five-page activity from Everyday Democracy titled, Leadership Compass Activity, was published January 2015 and helps to determine the leadership styles of participants within an action group. The activity is meant to be done with an organizing or action group on its first or second meeting.

The group individually answers 27 questions to determine whether their leadership style is that of a: Nurturer, Teacher, Mobilizer, or Visionary. After finding out your personal leadership style, the group breaks into smaller groups to discuss positive aspects of their leadership style. The group then comes back together to discuss how to balance the group’s leadership style variety and how to work with challenges that may arise. The activity is available for free download on Everyday Democracy’s site here.

From Everyday Democracy

This is a team building activity for an organizing coalition or action teams to use during their first or second meeting.

Teamwork begins with self-awareness and awareness of other people’s leadership styles. We can’t be good at everything so we need to bring together people with different styles and talents. This worksheet will help you and your team figure out how you can work collaboratively across leadership styles

About Everyday Democracy
Everyday Democracy (formerly called the Study Circles Resource Center) is a project of The Paul J. Aicher Foundation, a private operating foundation dedicated to strengthening deliberative democracy and improving the quality of public life in the United States. Since our founding in 1989, we’ve worked with hundreds of communities across the United States on issues such as: racial equity, poverty reduction and economic development, education reform, early childhood development and building strong neighborhoods. We work with national, regional and state organizations in order to leverage our resources and to expand the reach and impact of civic engagement processes and tools.

We have learned that some of the key components to ensuring racially-equitable systemic change include building relationships, establishing a diverse coalition, having trained peer facilitators during dialogues, building on assets, and linking actions to individual, community, and policy change. We provide online tools and in-person trainings on organizing, racial equity, facilitation, communications, and action planning. We act as a catalyst and coach for communities, knowing that the people of each community are best suited to carry out and sustain the work that will make a difference. The communities we serve are the focal point of our work. Our ultimate aim is to help create communities that value everyone’s voice and work for everyone, and to help create a strong national democracy that upholds these principles.

Follow on Twitter: @EvDem

Resource Link: http://everyday-democracy.org/resources/leadership-compass-activity

How Kettering Discovered Democracy (Connections 2015)

Posted on January 11, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The four-page article, How Kettering Discovered Democracy by David Mathews, was published late Fall of 2015 in Kettering Foundation‘s annual newsletter, “Connections 2015 – Our History: Journeys in KF Research”. The article gives highlights of what Kettering has learned since the first issue of Connections in 1987 and how KF continues to evolve research practices to improve democracy.

In the article, Mathews shares how Kettering research pulled together many different concepts and ultimately, became unified by the concept of democracy. The alliance between Kettering and National Issues Forums created the opportunity to put KF’s research into practice and in turn, how NIF forums sharpened KF’s research to focus on a citizen-centered view of democracy. Below is an excerpt from the article. Connections 2015 is available for free PDF download on Kettering’s site here.

From the article…

Seeing democracy as a system in which the people collectively generate the power to shape their future has given the foundation a unifying concept for all of its research. We began to look at everything from the perspective of citizens and the work they need to do in order for democracy to realize its full potential. What we learned by using this perspective has become a distinctive characteristic of the foundation’s research. The litmus tests for Kettering have been (1) whether the research would respond to citizens who feel pushed to the political sidelines and aren’t sure how to make a difference, (2) whether it would be useful to communities that can’t solve their most wicked problems without the work only citizens could do, and (3) whether it would help institutions that are losing the confidence of citizens even as they struggle to reengage them.

This citizen-centered view of democracy pointed the way to a host of new studies and significantly shaped the way the foundation goes about its research, particularly the way the foundation relates to the networks that have developed around major areas of research. In fact, the foundation’s understanding of democracy helped Kettering recognize the value of networks.

…

For Kettering, the opportunities for collaboration are in networks of organizations that are interested in learning better ways to do their work. We all should learn from others, but no one can learn for someone else. In these networks, no one is dependent on others for answers; the relationships are based on a shared struggle to know more in order to be able to do more. As such, no one is at the center of these networks, like a hub of a wheel with all of the spokes attached. Communications flow in such a way that anybody can reach anybody else as directly as possible; that is, without having to go through someone else.

About Kettering Foundation and Connections
The Kettering Foundation is a nonprofit operating foundation rooted in the American tradition of cooperative research. Kettering’s primary research question is, what does it take to make democracy work as it should? Kettering’s research is distinctive because it is conducted from the perspective of citizens and focuses on what people can do collectively to address problems affecting their lives, their communities, and their nation.

Each issue of this annual newsletter focuses on a particular area of Kettering’s research. The 2015 issue, edited by Kettering program officer Melinda Gilmore and director of communications David Holwerk, focuses on our yearlong review of Kettering’s research over time.

Follow on Twitter: @KetteringFdn.

Resource Link: www.kettering.org/sites/default/files/periodical-article/Mathews_2015.pdf

Making Ends Meet: How Should We Spread Prosperity and Improve Opportunity? (NIFI Issue Guide)

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The issue guide, Making Ends Meet: How Should We Spread Prosperity and Improve Opportunity?, from National Issues Forums Institute and Kettering Foundation, was published December 2015. This guide will provide the framework for deliberation that will happen in 2016 between January and May. The results from the deliberation will be given to U.S. policy makers and elected officials in May 2016. Below is an excerpt from the guide and a short video about the guide. Download a free copy of the PDF on NIFI’s site here.

From the guide…

For many Americans, the recovery from the 2007 recession, a recovery that officially began in 2009, feels very remote, or nonexistent. Even as the stock market surges and millions of jobs have been created, they see a very different picture.

This issue guide presents three options for deliberation:

Option One: “Create New Opportunities”
We should make it easier for people to start new enterprises that will improve their circumstances. Whether it’s starting a house painting business on the side or opening a restaurant, when individuals start new firms, it helps spur economic growth. More skilled tradespeople are needed, for example, as construction bounces back. Half of all private-sector jobs in the US are at small businesses, and in recent years small businesses have supplied two-thirds of all new jobs.

Option Two: “Strengthen the Safety Net”
We should secure and expand safeguards so that changes in the economy don’t push people into poverty or leave families with children homeless or hungry. In the last decade, millions of people found themselves unemployed or underemployed with few or no benefits, sometimes indefinitely. Fewer people work with one company for decades, employee benefits have shrunk, technology and globalization have eliminated jobs, and more people are employed in freelance work. We need to make sure people will not face catastrophic losses as they adapt to these changes. To do this, we should strengthen the unemployment insurance program, protect workers’ retirement, and make benefits more portable.

Option Three: “Reduce Inequality”
We should shrink the income gap. Today, the richest 10 percent of the country’s population earn more than half of its total income. It is not right that CEOs make hundreds of times more than their employees, even as their companies cut workers’ hours to avoid paying overtime and offering benefits. Some inequality helps drive people to succeed and become wealthier, but if people can’t move into or stay in the middle class, or if the wealthy manipulate the system to their benefit, then we all lose. To reduce the large gaps between the very rich and the rest of society, schools should be funded more equally, we should do more to control college costs, and people who don’t go to college should be able to get decent-paying jobs that allow them to stay in the middle class.

About NIFI Issue Guides
NIFI’s Issue Guides introduce participants to several choices or approaches to consider. Rather than conforming to any single public proposal, each choice reflects widely held concerns and principles. Panels of experts review manuscripts to make sure the choices are presented accurately and fairly. By intention, Issue Guides do not identify individuals or organizations with partisan labels, such as Democratic, Republican, conservative, or liberal. The goal is to present ideas in a fresh way that encourages readers to judge them on their merit.

Follow on Twitter: @NIForums

Resource Link: www.nifi.org/en/groups/new-issue-guide-making-ends-meet-how-should-we-spread-prosperity-and-improve-opportunity

Deliberation in the Classroom

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Keiva Hummel

The 19-minute video, Deliberation in the Classroom, created for National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI), was published January 2013. The video shows examples of students engaging in deliberation using NIFI issues guides at two different schools, one in Alabama and one in Wisconsin. The video shows the students getting ready for their deliberative forums, during the forums, and reflections afterwards from the students and teachers. Read more about the video and watch it below, or find the original on NIFI’s site here.

From NIFI…

This 19-minute YouTube video features students in Wisconsin and Alabama as they participate in deliberative forums using materials from the National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI). In Birmingham, Alabama, teacher, Zakiya Jenkins, with assistance from Peggy Sparks, of Sparks Consulting, reflects on eighth-grade student deliberations about Youth and Violence. And in Wausau, Wisconsin, teachers Sarah Schneck, Shannon Young, and Kevin Krieg, discuss student deliberations about America’s Role in the World. The student forums in Wausau were hosted by John Greenwood of the Wisconsin Institute for Policy and Service.

Watch the video below:

About NIFI
Based in Dayton, Ohio, the National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI), is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that serves to promote public deliberation and coordinate the activities of the National Issues Forums network. Its activities include publishing the issue guides and other materials used by local forum groups, encouraging collaboration among forum sponsors, and sharing information about current activities in the network. Follow on Twitter: @NIForums.

Resource Link: www.nifi.org/en/groups/watch-video-deliberation-classroom

Protecting Communities Serving the Public

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Keiva Hummel

The 42-page discussion guide, Protecting Communities Serving the Public (2000), from Everyday Democracy, is designed into five session to help build trust and respect between residents and police officers to co-create a safer communities together.

The guide reviews what the community-wide study circle program is, and each of the five sessions:

Session 1- Starting out study circle: sharing our experiences
Session 2- What’s the nature of the problem?
Session 3- What do we expect from each other?
Session 4- How can we make progress?
Session 5- Committing to change: What needs to happen in our community?

Read the intro below and download the full guide here.

From the intro…

In most communities, residents and police departments have good relationships. Yet many communities are looking for ways to improve those relationships. This may be particularly true where cultural tensions, policing practices, and a lot of media attention lead to distrust, anger, and fear. Everyone is affected.

* Citizens think the police are prejudiced and have unfair policies.
* Police feel blame for all kinds of social problems. They feel they don’t get credit for doing their jobs.
* Local elected leaders feel pressure to reduce crime.

Many things cause problems between residents and police:

* race, culture, and class background
* community history and politics
* laws and policies from outside the community
* the culture of the police department itself

People from different backgrounds or experience often view issues in different ways. For example, some people blame police for profiling when they arrest people of color. Other praise police for arresting the people who commit crimes, no matter what their color. Finding common ground for solutions is hard. Most of the time, people who see things differently don’t take the time to talk to each other, much less work together. To make matters worse, problems between police and citizens often get talked about only after a crisis. Then, people are very upset and it’s even harder to address the problems.

Read the full guide on Everyday Democracy’s site here.

Follow on Twitter: @EvDem

Resource Link: http://everyday-democracy.org/resources/protecting-communities-serving-public

Creating Spaces for Dialogue – A Role for Civil Society

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Keiva Hummel

Creating Spaces for Dialogue – A Role for Civil Society, is a publication released December 2015 from the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). It is a compilation of different case studies about dialogue processes that have taken place among polarized societies.

From GPPAC…

Dialogue and mediation is at the heart of the work of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). GPPAC members employ dialogue and mediation as a means for conflict prevention, to decrease tensions during conflict, or as a tool for reconciliation in post-conflict situations. Last week, GPPAC presented its new publication dedicated to dialogue and mediation “Creating Spaces for Dialogue – A Role for Civil Society” in Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The stories presented in this book are authored by GPPAC network members who initiated a conversation between communities and societies polarised and divided as a result of conflict. Each story shows how civil society plays a vital role in rebuilding trust and enabling collaborations.

The authors describe how the dialogue processes unfolded, and share resulting lessons and observations. They also present their views on the questions that need to be addressed in designing a meaningful process. Is there such a thing as the most opportune moment to initiate a dialogue? Who should introduce the process? How is the process of participant selection approached, and what are the patterns of relationship transformation? Lastly, what follows once confidence and trust have been established?

The first two stories provide an account of civil society contribution to normalising inter-state relations between the US and Cuba, and Russia and Georgia. The following two chapters offer chronicles of community dialogues between Serbians and Albanians in Serbia and Kosovo, and Christians and Muslims in Indonesia.

On June 10th, GPPAC’s experts on dialogue and mediation convened in Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, for a seminar co-organised by the Korean National Peace Committee and GPPAC. The seminar marked the first public presentation of the book.

In Pyongyang, the GPPAC delegation reflected on the case studies presented in the book. They also shared and examined specific examples of dialogue and mediation initiated and facilitated in different contexts, including in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia.

You can download the full publication in PDF here.

About GGPAC
The Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC, pronounced “gee-pak”) is a global member led network of civil society organizations (CSOs) who actively work on conflict prevention and peacebuilding. The network consists of fifteen regional networks of local organisations with their own priorities, character and agenda. These regional networks are represented in an International Steering Group, which jointly determines our global priorities and actions for our conflict prevention and peacebuilding work.

Our mission is to promote a global shift in peacebuilding from solely reacting to conflict to preventing conflicts from turning violent. We do this through multi-actor collaboration and local ownership of strategies for peace and security. Together, we aim to achieve greater national, regional and global synergy in the field of conflict prevention and peacebuilding, and to strengthen the role of local members in the regions affected by conflict.

Follow on Twitter: @GPPAC

Resource Link: Creating Spaces for Dialogue – A Role for Civil Society

Deliberation: A SUNY Broome & Windsor Middle School Collaboration

Posted on November 30, 2015 by Keiva Hummel

Deliberation: A SUNY Broome & Windsor Middle School Collaboration (2015), is an eight-minute video documenting the collaborative experience of students engaging in deliberation during the Fall 2014. The video shows the experience between SUNY Broome Civic Engagement Center and Windsor Middle School, where students used deliberation to better understand the American Revolution. Check out the video below or read more about in on NIFI’s blog here.

From NIFI…

Watch this eight-minute video about a collaboration between Windsor Middle School students and teachers; and State University of New York (SUNY), Broome, that introduced 7th and 8th graders to the practice of deliberating events in U.S. history as difficult choices among several possible approaches. The video was published to YouTube on June 24, 2015.

The following is excerpted from the YouTube description of the video:

“SUNY Broome and Windsor Central School District are working together to promote deliberative thinking and active participants in society. In Fall of 2014, with help from Lisa Strahley at SUNY Broome, Stefani Olbrys began deliberations with her 7th and 8th grade US History students using the American Revolution as the historical context.”

For more information about this project please contact:
Lisa Strahley, Chair of Teacher Education and Civic Engagement Coordinator,
SUNY Broome Community College
at strahleyla[at]sunybroome[dot]edu

Resource Link: www.nifi.org/en/groups/watch-video-middle-school-students-deliberate-about-historical-choices

Reaching Out Across the Red-Blue Divide, One Person at a Time

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Keiva Hummel

The four-page conversation guide, Reaching Out Across the Red-Blue Divide, One Person at a Time (2009), was written by Maggie Herzig from Public Conversations Project. This useful guide provides a framework for navigating highly polarized conversations and includes several starter questions to help keep the dialogue open. Read the intro to the guide below and download the PDF, as well as, find the original guide on PCP’s blog here.

From the guide…

What this guide offers
This guide offers a step-by-step approach to inviting one other person—someone whose perspectives differ from your own—into a conversation in which • you both agree to set aside the desire to persuade the other and instead focus on developing a better understanding of each other’s perspectives, and the hopes, fears and values that underlie those perspectives; • you both agree to pursue understanding and to avoid the pattern of attack and defend; • you both choose to address questions designed to open up new possibilities for moving beyond stale stereotypes and limiting assumptions.

Why bother to reach across the divide?
Many people have at least one important relationship that has been frayed by painful conversations about political differences or constrained due to fear of divisiveness. What alternatives are there? You can let media pundits and campaign strategists tell you that polarization is inevitable and hopeless. Or you can consider taking a collaborative journey with someone who is important to you, neither paralyzed with fear of the rough waters, nor unprepared for predictable strong currents. You and your conversational partner will be best prepared if you bring 1) shared hopes for the experience, 2) the intention to work as a team, and 3) a good map that has guided others on similar journeys. We hope this guide will help prepare you to speak about your passions and concerns in ways that can be heard, and to hear others’ concerns and passions with new empathy and understanding—even if you continue to disagree.

Are you ready?
Are you emotionally ready to resist the strong pull toward polarization? What’s at the heart of your desire to reach out to the person you have in mind? Is pursuing mutual understanding enough, or are you likely to feel satisfied only if you can persuade them to concede certain points? What do you know about yourself and the contexts in which you are able—or not so able—to listen without interrupting and to speak with care? Are you open to the possibility—and could you gracefully accept—that the other person might decline your invitation?

Are the conditions right?
Do you have a conversational partner in mind who you believe will make the same kind of effort you are prepared to make? Is there something about your relationship that will motivate both of you to approach the conversation with a positive spirit? Will you have a chance to propose a dialogue in ways that don’t rush or pressure the other person? Will you be able to invite him or her to thoughtfully consider not only the invitation but the specific ideas offered here— ideas that you might together modify? Can you find a time to talk that is private and free from distraction?

If you decide to go forward, take it one step at a time.

To continue reading the guide, download it below or read it on Public Conversation Project’s site here.

About Public Conversations Project
PCP fosters constructive conversation where there is conflict driven by differences in identity, beliefs, and values. We work locally, nationally, and globally to provide dialogue facilitation, training, consultation, and coaching. We help groups reduce stereotyping and polarization while deepening trust and collaboration and strengthening communities. At the core of many of today’s most complex social problems is a breakdown in relationships that leads to mistrust, gridlock, and fractured communities. Public Conversations’ method addresses the heart of this breakdown: we work to shift relationships, building the communication skills and trust needed to make action possible and collaboration sustainable. Since our founding in 1989, Public Conversations’ practitioners have worked on a broad range of issues, including same-sex marriage, immigration, abortion, diversity, guns, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We have also contributed to peace-building efforts in several conflict-torn regions overseas. In situations where a breakdown in trust, relationships, and constructive communication is part of the problem, PCP offers a solution.

Follow on Twitter: @pconversations

Resource Link: Reaching Out Across the Red-Blue Divide, One Person at a Time

Effective Public Engagement through Strategic Communication (ILG)

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Keiva Hummel

The five-page tip sheet from Institute of Local Government, Effective Public Engagement through Strategic Communication (2015), is a tool to provide guidelines for effectively engaging the public. View the guide below and download the PDF here.

From ILG…

Strategic communication is an essential tool for effective public engagement. This tip sheet offers advice on communication strategies before, during and after the agency’s public engagement effort.

I. Before the Agency Begins a Public Engagement Effort:
Understand the Audiences

In order to effectively communicate about a public process or program, the starting point is to understand who the agency seeks to engage.

Identify key audiences and stakeholders. What are their interests? How do they connect to the project or policy?
Identify the community values, commonly held principles or valued qualities, such as personal safety, freedom or fairness. Understanding this can help you craft your message.
Ask stakeholders about their preferences regarding communication. What communications channels work best for them? Getting this perspective during planning both enhances understanding of these key audiences and creates a valuable communication channel for further engagement.
Understand connections and relationships among audiences and individuals. Who are their trusted advisors? How willing are these influencers to act? Understanding these dynamics can help the agency broaden the impact of its engagement effort.

With the above information in mind, the agency can identify and prioritize communication channels that align with the needs, opportunities and resources of both the project or policy and the audiences that the agency seeks to engage.

Consider Both the Message and the Messenger

In developing a message for a policy or project, succinctly and clearly articulate the message.

What is at stake for the community.
Why the audience should care. Explain how the decision could affect what different people value.
The action the agency wants the agency the audience to take. For example, is the goal to help inform people, help them analyze and weigh in on different solutions to a problem, or take a specific step
What will happen if audience members do take action. Consider the choice of messenger and how it will affect the way in which people will receive the agency’s message.
Identify and support community champions who can speak with authenticity and power to the issue or need being addressed.
Consider developing an outreach working group to help extend the agency’s ability to reach into different audiences in the community.
Empower community members as storytellers. Personal perspective on a proposed policy or project can be compelling to broader audiences and the media. Tie the agency’s communication plan to the policy or project consideration process.
What are the policy or project decision-making milestones?
How will the agency communicate progress towards key decision-making milestones?
How will the agency communicate how public input influenced the final outcomes of the decision making process? Tie the agency’s communication plan to the policy or project consideration process?
What are the policy or project decision-making milestones?
How will the agency communicate progress towards key decision-making milestones?
How will the agency communicate how public input influenced the final outcomes of the decision making process?

Create a Media Plan that Integrates Both Traditional (Print, Radio and Television) and Online Outlets

Develop key story themes and messengers.
- Find the right community partners and champions to help spread the agency’s information and messages. – Develop a sequence of messages that tie to key milestones in the policy or project.
- Scale the level of media activity to fit the time frames and capacities of the media outlets and contacts in the area.
Create a list of media, reporters, key bloggers and online journalists who reach priority audiences.
- Identify both larger and smaller community-based publications and outlets, including radio. Be sure to include the newsletters, blogs and events of key community partners.
- Consider the different types of reporters and outlets who might cover various angles of the story (health, real estate, living, local agency beat, ethnic media, etc.).
Create a planning calendar for the decision-making process on the policy or project.
- Include key milestones, events, news happenings and announcements that can engage the public.
- Plug into other activities related to the policy or project topic locally, nationally and even internationally.
- Brainstorm different ways to slice the story to ensure ongoing coverage.
- List the different news opportunities (for example, at launch, when funding is secured, when a proposal is made, when success is achieved). Find the other relevant angles (for example, health, sustainability, education). Identify submission opportunities for opinion pieces and who are the right spokespeople and storytellers.
Monitor the media for opportunities to respond to other related stories with information about your policy or project.

II. During the Public Engagement Process:
Create opportunities for Sustaining Communication

Public engagement efforts are most successful when spokespeople consider context, content and commitment in relation to the audiences they seek to reach.

Create opportunities for engagement through channels and events both within and outside of the public agency.
Offer multiple opportunities for the public to communicate back to the agency (surveys, online forums and meetings) to reflect that different groups will have different preferences in terms of communications channels.
Show progress, new information or actions as proactively and quickly as possible.
Follow up on commitments made (for example, to get answers to questions) and (when possible) immediately ask for feedback about the agency’s communications and engagement efforts.
Recognize and thank partners and collaborating stakeholders for their efforts during the engagement process.

Expand Opportunities for Sustained Interaction with the Media to Maximize Strategic Communication and Public Engagement

Train spokespeople on the needs and tendencies of media representatives.
Develop relationships with key reporters and outlets:
- Be respectful of deadlines
- Provide them with only story ideas their audiences will care about.
- Understand which outlets do and do not have reporters who routinely cover your topic, and adjust the background material you provide accordingly.
- Don’t ask to review a quote or the story
- Ask for corrections only if there are grave factual errors
- Give them information they ask for even if it is not relevant to the policy or project.
Pitch news stories and submit opinion pieces consistent with the agency’s planning calendar. Consider an editorial board meeting with the local daily newspaper at the beginning of the effort. Another possibility is an “educational” news briefing with background information for outlets that do not have a reporter on that beat (such as ethnic media, recently downsized local papers, radio, etc.)
Communicate progress points and/or key lessons along the way to support champions and demonstrate that the community conversation is influencing the decision-making process.
Invite media to all community meetings and make spokespeople available for interviews.
Be prepared to take advantage of opportunities to react to news events. Have drafts of op-eds and letters to the editor that the right community member or other stakeholder can review, sign and submit quickly.
Share media coverage with priority audiences (for example, provide printouts at community meetings, post on the agency’s website and share through other online tools).

III. After the Public Engagement Process:
Measure and Evaluate the Engagement

At the conclusion of an engagement process, use quantitative and qualitative metrics to evaluate, adjust and improve your strategy. Lessons learned from both successful and unsuccessful strategies can help to refine the agency’s understanding of the values, interests and concerns of audiences and stakeholders. This will benefit future engagement efforts.

Gather qualitative data through surveys, interviews, focus groups or informal channels.
Use process measures to assess what you did including:
- Materials distributed,
- Outreach conducted,
- Media engaged, and
- Staff, friends, partners and others reached
Use outcome measures to assess what happened:
- Did you achieve the goals?
- How many new people did you reach?
- Did you receive positive media coverage?
- Who used the key messages?
- Did you earn endorsements?
- ho got involved and what did they do?
Ask for feedback and advice from stakeholders.

Create Opportunities for Ongoing Communication and Concentrate on Maintaining the Relationships with Stakeholders

As with any relationship, maintaining communication after an engagement effort has been completed will ensure that audiences and stakeholders stay informed-making them more likely to participate in future efforts.

Share findings and lessons learned from debriefing and performance assessments.
Circle back to stakeholders with information that shows how their efforts made a difference. Thank them for their involvement.
Use existing venues (governing body meetings, public events) and resources (website, e-mail newsletters) to celebrate new approaches, new relationships or specific successful outcomes that highlight partners or collaborating stakeholders.
Create an ongoing network for information sharing with stakeholders and community groups.
Look for ways to support or connect with stakeholders during the periods between major engagement efforts.

To learn more about measuring public engagement success, visit the Institute for Local Government’s public engagement resources at (www.cailg.org/public-engagement).

About the Institute for Local Government
The Institute for Local Government is the nonprofit research education affiliate of the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties. Its mission is to promote good government at the local level with practical, impartial and easy-to-use resources for California communities. The Institute’s goal is to be the leading provider of information that enables local officials and their communities to make good decisions. Founded in 1955, the Institute has been serving local officials’ information needs for 55-plus years. Some of the highlights of that history are detailed in the story below. While respecting and honoring its past, the Institute is also intently focused on the present and future. In these difficult economic times, the need for the Institute’s materials for local officials is even greater. Follow on Twitter: @InstLocGov.

Resource Link: www.ca-ilg.org/EffectivePE-Strategic-Communication

7 Tips For Facilitating Discussions On Community-Police Relations

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Keiva Hummel

The article from Everyday Democracy, 7 Tips For Facilitating Discussions On Community-Police Relations, offers seven guidelines for creating a more comfortable space when facilitating dialogue between the community and police. Below are the seven tips and on Everyday Democracy’s site, you can find the full tip guidelines with examples. Check out it on their site here.

From Everyday Democracy…

Having conversations about community-police relations can sometimes be uncomfortable. To help dialogue participants feel at ease, facilitators should come prepared to explain certain points at the beginning of the discussion and examine their own biases as well.

Here are seven tips to help facilitators of conversations about community-police relations to help you have a successful, trust-building dialogue:

Address the issue of race/racism at the beginning
Explain racial overtones in the discussion guide
Acknowledge the differences in authority/generation gap among dialogue participants
Provide an informational sheet for dialogue participants
Explain why officer are in uniform- or allow officers themselves to explain
Stress confidentiality
Be aware of bias

These are just the basic guidelines, the more robust version can be found on Everyday Democracy’s site. Highly recommended to check it out here.

Follow on Twitter: @EvDem

Resource Link: http://everyday-democracy.org/tips/7-tips-facilitating-discussions-community-police-relations?

Civic Studies

An intellectual community of researchers and practitioners dedicated to building the emerging field of civic studies

Author Archives: Keiva Hummel

Leadership Compass Activity

How Kettering Discovered Democracy (Connections 2015)

Deliberation in the Classroom

Deliberation: A SUNY Broome & Windsor Middle School Collaboration

Reaching Out Across the Red-Blue Divide, One Person at a Time

Effective Public Engagement through Strategic Communication (ILG)