Author Archives: Roshan Bliss

Registration Open for 4th Int’l PB Conference, May 20-22

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This year is going to be a great year for conferences! Of course we want our NCDD members to join us at our 2016 National Conference for Dialogue & Deliberation, but we also want to encourage our members to consider registering for the 4th International Conference on Participatory Budgeting in North America this May 20th-22nd in Boston, MA.

This year’s PB conference is especially exciting because it will coincide with the voting phase of the City of Boston’s award-winning youth participatory budgeting process, which adds an extra focus on young people’s participation in deliberative processes to the gathering. Regular registration is only $225 before the early-bird deadline on April 8th, but registration fees operate on a sliding scale that you can learn more about at www.pbconference.org.

Here is how PBP describes the conference:

The 4th International Conference on Participatory Budgeting in North America, organized by the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP), will take place in Boston, Massachusetts, USA during the voting phase of their award-winning, city-wide, youth PB process.

The conference is a space for participants and organizers of PB processes to share and reflect on their experiences so far, alongside interested activists, practitioners, scholars, elected officials, and civic designers.

The PB Conference will be organized around three themes this year:

  • Youth power through PB: PB in schools, youth-only processes, and nearly every other PB process in North America uniquely gives real power to young people – as young as 11! What can we do to encourage even more youth leadership with PB?
  • PB in practice: What is working well? What has been less successful? What improvements can be made in the way the process is implemented? How can we do better and be more effective with existing PB processes and how can we put more processes in place across North America and around the world.
  • Measuring impact: How do we define a good PB process? What are the best ways to define success in this context? What are innovative, effective tools and methods we can use to assess the impact of processes that are currently underway as well as to shape new PB processes.

Conference participants will also have the chance to take advantage of a full-day introductory or advanced training on participatory budgeting before the conference May 20th from 9:30am-4pm. The regular registration rate for the trainings is $250, which is separate from conference registration.

The PB Conference promises to be a great gathering to learn more about one of the fastest-growing methodologies in our field, and we hope to see some of our NCDD members there! You can learn more and register for the conference at www.pbconference.org.

Good Engagement Can Be “Preventative Civic Health Care”

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Long-time NCDD supporting member Larry Schooler penned a wonderful piece for the Challenges to Democracy blog run by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance & Innovation – an NCDD member organization – and it was too good not to share. In it, he points to the opportunity presented in the President’s recent call for more engagement and aptly compares our work to preventative health care for our democracy. We encourage you to read Larry’s piece below or find the original here.

Is The President’s Call For More Public Participation Within Reach?

Ash logoThis is America. We want to make it easier for people to participate.

Beyond the partisan divides around some of President Obama’s policy proposals lies a compelling thought: regardless of the policy outcome, give ordinary people safer access to the process. That is an achievable goal – as demonstrated by the many governments who have made it so.

For too long, government has made unrealistic demands of citizens when it comes to their participation. Initially, whole segments of the population could not vote or faced significant obstacles to registration – still an issue in some states. Meanwhile, the only choice many citizens had was to speak for no more than three minutes at a podium – often on live television, after hours of waiting, minutes before a vote.

At one city council meeting in Texas, a speaker at a public hearing asked (in a nearly empty chamber at 11 o’clock at night), “Will there be an opportunity to weigh in on this issue? “I believe you’re doing so now,” replied the mayor. “With any power?” she asked, to applause from fellow citizens and befuddlement from her elected officials.

At work, we don’t limit input to those who can make a speech right before we make a decision, and we shouldn’t impose that limit on the American people, either; that helps “the most extreme voices get all the attention,” as the President put it.

What do we expect when we ask citizens to sit as they would in church, court, or a college lecture, listening to elected officials opine from a dais on high? Only the bravest would openly and brazenly challenge a pastor, a judge, or a professor in those settings.

The changes in attitude the President describes may be hard for government to achieve, but that doesn’t prevent changes in process that would help produce rational, constructive debates, enabling us to listen to more than those who agree with us, and to give the average person more of a say. We should strive to ensure, after all, that those affected by a public policy decision can affect that decision. That’s not the case now in much of our country.

A multi-organizational coalition that included the American Bar Association, the National League of Cities, and the International City County Managers Association produced a set of tools to help make the President’s Dream a reality. Called Making Public Participation Legal, it sought to replace archaic regulations that drive governments to host public hearings rather than facilitate dialogue.

In cities across the country, governments have either replaced or complemented hearings with conversations.

Neutral facilitators help smaller groups of citizens with differing points of view talk to each other respectfully, with discussion guidelines that encourage people to respect points of view other than one’s own, focus on understanding rather than persuasion, and suspend judgment. Moderators even manage to get thousands of people into civil dialogue online through forums set up by local governments to discuss policy challenges.

Some communities even empower ordinary citizens to be the change they want to see in our process – by training them to host dialogue. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, citizen hosts from Portsmouth Listens held small conversations in people’s homes and resolved major political conflicts through constructive and structured dialogue.

Rather than expecting elected officials both to hold a point of view and to stay neutral among competing interests, many cities have empowered teams of citizen volunteers to facilitate policy discussions at cafes, schools, and houses of worship.

Perhaps most importantly, governments where these changes in public participation have taken hold have laid a solid foundation for change through guiding principles and, in many cases, dedicated personnel. Several organizations, including the International Association for Public Participation, have given governments templates for public participation principles, and more and more cities have community engagement coordinators, offices of neighborhood engagement, and the like.

Ultimately, this paradigm shift can yield more than just warmer feelings among Americans. Governments often spend millions dealing with the consequences of poor public participation – holding off-cycle recall elections, defending against lawsuits filed by aggrieved policy opponents, or even policing protestors.

In an age when we are trying to focus on preventive, ongoing health care rather than the much more expensive emergency room, shouldn’t we do the same for our politics?

Perhaps when Americans demand that their elected officials, from Congress to city council, give them chances to converse, rather than contend, we will achieve the President’s vision. Our civic health is ailing; most Americans don’t vote, let alone stay active in public life away from the ballot box, and many young adults are not leaving home with a firm understanding of civics or with the tools needed to engage in meaningful civic dialogue.

The cure will require all of us – and is well within our reach.

You can find the original version of this piece on the Challenges to Democracy blog at www.challengestodemocracy.us/home/is-the-presidents-call-for-more-public-participation-within-reach/#sthash.jWbgAiMZ.dpuf.

2016 Taylor Willingham Legacy Award Winner Announced

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NCDD would like to join our organizational member the National Issues Forums Institute and the rest of the field in congratulating the winner of the 2016 Taylor L. Willingham Legacy Award – Edward W. “Chipps” Taylor III.

Here’s a bit of what NIFI wrote about the granting of the award:

The National Issues Forums Institute has announced that Edward W. “Chipps” Tayor III is the 2016 recipient of the Taylor L. Willingham Legacy Fund Award. This fund was created to support NIF logoindividuals who are becoming involved in the deliberative democracy movement for the first time and who have the passion, vision and commitment to create opportunities for deliberative dialogue in their organizations and communities….

Elder Chipps Taylor has been “pursuing liberty in the face of injustice” for the NAACP for more than 28 years, and he is not tired yet. It all started in Arizona, in 1987, when all the states except Arizona were celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday. Governor Evan Mecham rescinded MLK Day as his first act in office, setting off boycotts of the state. That was when Elder Taylor got on the battlefield for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was also a member of the MLK Committee, which protested for 13 years until it became a state holiday…

You can read more about the Willingham Award and Edward Taylor’s accomplishments in NIFI’s blog post about the award by visiting www.nifi.org/en/groups/winner-2016-taylor-l-willingham-legacy-award-edward-w-chipps-taylor-iii.

Technology & Democracy Video Project Seeks Submissions

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Here’s a fun-but-relevant thing happening out there: the collaborative team at hitRECord is partnering with the ACLU to crowd source a series of short films on the theme of how technology has impacted democracy. They’re asking folks to submit videos of themselves speaking on the subject, and we know many of our NCDD members have great thoughts to share on the topic! Read more about the project below or find hitRECord’s original post along with their introductory video by clicking here.

Are you there, Democracy? It’s me, the Internet.

Today’s technology is changing pretty much every facet of our lives – even things as important as our Democracy. And especially with this being an election year here in the US, I think these changes are really worth having a conversation about, and making art about.

So, I wanna hear what you think. Record yourself (or interview someone else) on camera answering these three questions:

  1. Is today’s technology good or bad for Democracy?
  2. How might the technology of the future be BAD for Democracy?
  3. How might the technology of the future be GOOD for Democracy?

Once we have lots of footage of different people answering these questions, we’ll use that footage to produce a bunch of short films. We could make a stylized documentary, we could dramatize somebody’s personal point of view, we could do animation, a song, who knows.

And now, I’m very pleased to announce that for this project, hitRECord will be partnering with the ACLU. The ACLU is a 100-year-old, non-profit, legal organization who is right at the forefront of figuring out how today’s laws should or shouldn’t adapt to today’s technology.

And, although this project isn’t about the money, as with every hitRECord production, if one of your contributions is used in one of the final short films, you will get paid. I just finished shooting a movie where I play Edward Snowden, which really got me thinking about all of this. And so I’ve decided to donate my acting fee from that movie to facilitate this conversation about technology and democracy. Some of that money will go to this production, and the rest will go to the ACLU.

That’s about it. I really look forward to hearing how you answer the three questions and seeing what kinds of short films we can make out of it.

You can find the original version of this hitRECord post at www.hitrecord.org/projects/2650089.

New Initiative Seeks to Reconnect Higher Ed & Democracy

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Last year, the Kettering Foundation – one of our NCDD organizational members – convened several university presidents that inaugurated an important effort to help higher education reclaim its roots and role in supporting democracy throughout our society. The effort is being chronicled in a new KF blog series, and we wanted to share the first of the series here. We encourage you to read more about this great initiative below or find the original post here.

Template for Campus Conversations on Democracy

kfKettering has recently begun working with college presidents to move beyond their administrative and fundraising roles and provide new leadership for civic engagement. Beginning with a meeting with a small group of college presidents in July 2015, we found that these presidents were indeed eager to take leadership on themes of democracy and civic engagement on their campuses and with their stakeholders. This blog series, College Presidents on Higher Education and Its Civic Purposes, offers a space to gather and present their thoughts.

For inquiries related to Kettering’s research on college presidents and the civic purposes of higher education, please contact barker[at]kettering[dot]org.

Based on initial conversations at Kettering, Paul Pribbenow, president of Augsburg College, and Adam Weinberg, president of Denison University, working with public intellectual, political theorist, and civic organizer Harry Boyte, also of Augsburg College, have drafted a brief overview of how higher education leaders can initiate these conversations. Campus Compact, as part of its activities in recognition of its 30th anniversary, and Imagining America’s Presidents Council, have already expressed interest in sharing the document with leaders in their networks.

In this inaugural post, Pribbenow describes the purpose of the document and offers an initial draft for comments and feedback.

Letter from Paul Pribbenow

Dear Colleagues,

In July 2015, the Kettering Foundation convened a meeting of presidents on how we, as leaders of our institutions, can more intentionally become public philosophers of education and democracy, in a time of deep unrest in our society as well as on campuses.

The group commissioned Adam Weinberg, president of Denison University, and myself, working with Harry Boyte from Augsburg’s Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship, to develop a Leadership Template on the topic. The template offers a few suggested focus areas and resources for presidents and higher education leaders to initiate campus discussions about democracy and citizenship.

We are eager for you to offer your thoughts about the diverse ways in which this template can be used. We aim to help spark a broad discussion on campuses and beyond about how we can strengthen democracy as a “way of life,” with higher education playing vital roles. I don’t have to explain why we need such a discussion.

This effort is undertaken in cooperation with Campus Compact’s 30th anniversary and Imagining America’s Presidential Council, which also has been discussing the democratic purposes of higher education.

Yours in service of our democracy,
Paul Pribbenow, President, Augsburg College

Leading Democracy Colleges and Universities: The Public Roles of Presidents
Drafted by Paul Pribbenow and Adam Weinberg, with Harry Boyte, January 2016

“The first and most essential charge upon higher education is that… it shall be the carrier of democratic values, ideals and processes.”  – Truman Commission on Higher Education, 1947

“Our institutions need to be citizens of a place, not on the sidelines studying it.”  – Nancy Cantor, Chancellor of Rutgers-Newark, 2015

The Truman Commission drew from a large and inspiring view of “democracy as a way of life” widespread early in the 20th century. As John Dewey put it, “Whether this educative process is carried on in a predominantly democratic or non-democratic way becomes a question of transcendent importance not only for education itself but for the democratic way of life.”

This view once infused higher education – land grant and public universities, liberal arts colleges, historically black colleges and universities, normal schools, state universities, and community colleges. “Most of the American institutions of higher education are filled with the democratic spirit,” said Harvard president Charles Eliot, conveying a large conception of democracy.

Today, though many colleges and universities invoke “democracy” or “democratic engagement,” it is rare to have public discussions that reflect on the actual meaning of democracy, just as it is easy to miss the deep challenge to cultures of detachment in Nancy Cantor’s call for colleges and universities to be “citizens of a place, not on the sidelines studying it.” In a time of threats to democracy at home and abroad, the meaning of “democracy” has shrunk along with the purposes of higher education. Democracy often means simply free and fair elections, as the US Agency for International Development defines it (see page 37 of the USAID Strategy on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance). For many, colleges are a ticket to individual success.

Yet there are signs of renewed concern for the public purposes and work of colleges and universities, reviving higher education’s democratic roles. In this view, colleges and universities are centers of knowledge making and leadership formation, responsible not only for creating and dispensing information but also for addressing local issues and stimulating public exploration of great questions: What does it mean to have a “democratic way of life”? How can higher education, working with communities, help get us there?

This template on leading democracy colleges and universities responds to a request from a group of presidents brought together in July 2015 by the Kettering Foundation on “College Presidents and the Civic Purposes of Higher Education.” Like two efforts by National Issues Forums to organize deliberative dialogues on the purpose of higher education, Shaping Our Future and The Changing World of Work, and the Imagining America Democracy’s College discussion among a group of colleges and universities, it grows from the American Commonwealth Partnership invited by the White House to mark the anniversary of land grant colleges, a coalition to strengthen the public purposes and work of higher education. This effort also builds from efforts like the Carnegie Classification on Community Engagement and the President’s Honor Roll for Community Service that push back against narrow views of “excellence,” like the rankings of US News and World Report.

This statement aims to help spark a broad discussion, on campuses and beyond, about what it means for college and university presidents to lead a public conversation about democracy as a “way of life” with higher education playing vital roles. There is evidence that the nation may be ready for such a discussion. To launch this process, we suggest five focus areas for conversation and action:

Democracy Saga/Public Narrative: This focus area emphasizes an intentional campus and community-wide effort, working with students to recover, discuss, and engage the “saga” or “public narrative” of each unique educational community (for example, see Paul Pribbenow, “Lessons on Vocation and Location: The Saga of Augsburg College as Urban Settlement”).

Democratic Excellence through Diversity: This area of focus revitalizes the conviction, buttressed by research, that a mix of students with diverse backgrounds and talents, interacting in learning cultures of high expectation which develop their unique gifts, can achieve both individual and cooperative excellence, which no focus on winnowing out the stars can achieve (see “Lani Guinier Redefines Diversity, Re-evaluates Merit,” New York Times).

Preparation for Citizen Professional Leadership: This area of focus involves professional programs, disciplinary fields, and learning outside the classroom that recall the democratic values of scientific and other fields and instill democratic skills and habits of public work in students, as well as faculty and staff, to prepare students to be empowering civic leaders and change agents (see citizen professionals at Augsburg).

Free and Public Spaces: This area of focus develops intentional plans to create diverse free spaces and public spaces where students and others learn the skills of surfacing tensions and conflicts constructively, while working with others who are different (see Project for Public Spaces, “Campuses” and Adam Weinberg, “6 Tips for Getting the Most from a Liberal Arts College”). (See also the National Issues Forums issue guides and other resources for engaging campuses in deliberative dialogues on controversial issues.)

Citizens of Places: Colleges and universities as “stewards of place” and “anchor institutions” contributing to the civic and economic health of communities are spreading rapidly. These include a variety of practices, from college purchasing power used to support local businesses and partnerships in creating public spaces to collaboration on local school improvement and support for staff involvement in civic life (see the Anchor Institutions Task Force).

Presidents who act as “public philosophers of democracy and education” are key players in recovering a vision of democracy as a way of life. We encourage presidents to consider their roles in the context of the 2016 Campus Compact Civic Action planning process, which will commence in early 2016, in conjunction with the Compact’s 30th anniversary. Future meetings of college and university presidents, under the auspices of the Kettering Foundation, will offer opportunities to refine and grow this emerging understanding of the public roles of presidents in our democracy.

Other resources: “Democracy University” WNYC Radio show with Harry Boyte and Tim Eatman on the new book collection, Democracy’s Education: Public Work, Citizenship, and the Future of Colleges and Universities (Vanderbilt University Press, 2015). Research on concepts and practices of higher education civic engagement can also be found in several Kettering Foundation publications.

You can find the original version of this Kettering Foundation blog post at www.kettering.org/blogs/template-campus-conversations.

NCDD Members Get 30% Off New Transpartisan Book

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We are pleased to share the announcement below from the Bridge Alliance – one of our NCDD organizational members – about the release of its co-founder and NCDD member Mark Gerzon‘s new book, The Reunited States of America, on March 1st. Mark’s book is highly relevant for D&D practitioners, so he and Bridge Alliance are offering a 30% discount for NCDD members with the code “NCDD”. Read more about the book in the announcement below, or find Mark’s book here.

Reunited States of America

We have an exciting offer for you that you won’t want to miss!

Mark Gerzon is releasing his new book March 1st and we want you to be some of the first people with this timely and important tool in hand!  That is why we are offering.30% off of the book when you pre-order as a member of NCDD.

Here are 5 reasons why you want to take advantage of this offer and order your copy of The Reunited States of America TODAY:

  1. This book puts the spotlight on dozens of individuals and organizations that comprise a new narrative for Democracy 2.0. It is a manifesto for a movement that includes the NCDD field – and highlights the importance of what those of us in this field are all trying to do.
  2. It describes problem solving on some of the most difficult and divisive issues, such as: abortion, gun control, sex education, defense spending, criminal justice reform and more!
  3. Gerzon invites us into a movement to reunite our nation and put country before party! This book doesn’t ask party members to forfeit their values, but celebrates the beauty of all diverse voices that grow out of love for your country.
  4. The Reunited States of America explains what you can do starting now to strengthen our nation’s sense of unity while honoring the vital role of conflicting points of view.
  5. While we all know that not one book, one person nor one organization has the power to change the course of American politics. But this new narrative, with your help, can rise up above the barrage of attack ads and spread a message about dialogue, deliberation and real democracy!

Although we come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, we believe our country needs to come together. “The Reunited States of America” will help us do that. It reconnects us to our country’s motto – “out of many, one” –  and helps us meet the challenge of reuniting the country that we all love.

– Grover Norquist, president, Americans for Tax Reform & Joan Blades, co-founder MoveOn.org and LivingRoomConversations.org

For 30% off of your copy of this book click here and use the discount code: NCDD

You bought the book, now what? Here are some easy ways to get the word out and unite America starting today!

Davenport Launches Tool for Evaluating Gov’t Engagement

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We were excited to hear the news last week that the team at the Davenport Institute – one of our NCDD member organizations – is launching a powerful new platform for government agencies to evaluate their own public engagement efforts and compare them to other cities or agencies. We commend the Davenport team on creating this needed tool. You can learn more about the tool’s launch in the press release below that we found on Business Wire, or read the original here.

The Davenport Institute Launches New Public Engagement Evaluation Platform

DavenportInst-logoThe Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy is pleased to announce the launch of a new tool to help cities and other local public agencies evaluate their public engagement efforts, the “How are WE Doing? Public Engagement Evaluation Platform.”

In a 2012 survey of California public sector officials regarding their views of public engagement, 85 percent of respondents said their “views on public engagement have changed since their careers began,” and 77 percent were “interested in hearing more about public engagement practices that have worked in other places.”

For almost a decade, The Davenport Institute has been researching, training, and consulting with public officials to improve the ways in which governments involve their residents in making tough policy decisions. This work has taken Institute leadership throughout California and across the country, learning about and teaching the latest techniques in effective participatory governance.

With a growing awareness of what constitutes effective public engagement, we continue to hear from many public leaders seeking a way to take a “30,000 foot view” of their government’s practices in this area. The “How are WE Doing? Public Engagement Evaluation Platform” is the product of these conversations, and of the committed participation of an esteemed group of California leaders.

It is designed to offer governments a lens through which they can evaluate their agencies public processes, and to give them the opportunity to apply for recognition of successful engagement. Cities, counties, special districts, agencies, and departments can apply for recognition at one of three levels of engagement:

  • Silver Engagement – the government is making genuine efforts to improve its engagement with residents and successfully meets at least 12 of the 20 criteria listed.
  • Gold Engagement – the government has successfully institutionalized resident engagement as part of its operational culture, meeting at least 15 of the 20 criteria listed.
  • Platinum Engagement – the government is a leader in the engagement field, earning this designation by meeting at least 17 of the criteria listed.

“How are WE Doing?” also offers a way of gathering data on how governments across the state, and eventually around the country, are doing collectively in their attempts to involve residents, data the Institute will make available to all participants in the platform.

The Davenport Institute would like to thank the following Advisory Council members who devoted their time and expertise to developing this platform:

  • Artie Fields, City Manager, City of Inglewood
  • Rod Gould, City Manager, City of Santa Monica
  • Ken Hampian, City Manager, City of San Luis Obispo
  • Dennis Donohue, former Mayor, City of Salinas.

To learn more about “How are WE Doing? Public Engagement Evaluation Platform” visit the homepage here or view the platform here.

For more information about The Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership at Pepperdine University, visit http://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/davenport-institute.

You can see the original version of this announcement on Business Wire at www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160215005664/en/Davenport-Institute-Launches-Public-Engagement-Evaluation-Platform.

Register for “Trusting the Public” Talk featuring CIR, Feb. 25

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The New America Foundation is hosting a talk called “Rebuilding the Public’s Trust Starts with Trusting the Public,” this Thursday, February 25th from 10-11am Eastern, and we want to encourage our NCDD members to consider participating.

The event will focus on democratic innovations that changing the way citizens participate in government, featuring a presentation on the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) process from long-time NCDD member John Gastil who will be on a panel with Carolyn Lukensmeyer, another long-time NCDD member, and author Hollie Russon-Gilman.

Here’s how New America describes the event:

Rebuilding the Public’s Trust Begins with Trusting the Public

From the ascent of Trump to armed protest and the tragedy of Flint, we have reason to worry about the future of our democracy. On Thursday, February 25, from 10-11am New America will host a talk that brings more encouraging news about real democratic reforms happening in the United States.

Penn State political communication professor John Gastil will share his insights on a reform that helps voters make smarter decisions in initiative elections. This innovation, called the Citizens’ Initiative Review, began in Oregon in 2009 and is appearing this year in Massachusetts. New America fellow Hollie Russon-Gilman will also share reflections from her brand new book, Democracy Reinvented: Participatory Budgeting and Civic Innovation in America.

This talk will be taking place in downtown Washington, DC and we hope lots of our DC-based members can make it. For the rest of us, the talk will be streamed live via webcast. Either way, we encourage you to RSVP here today to make sure to save your spot!

You can learn more about this event and New America by visiting www.newamerica.org/political-reform/rebuilding-the-publics-trust-begins-with-trusting-the-public.

Pluribus Project Seeks Narrative Projects & Ideas to Fund

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We strongly encourage our NCDD members to take note that the Aspen Institute’s Pluribus Project is calling for projects and ideas aimed at changing the national narrative about citizen participation that it wants to fund with grants of up to $50,000, and we know many of our members could be eligible. All are encouraged to apply for this great opportunity, but the deadline is March 15th, so don’t delay! Read more in the Pluribus Project’s announcement below or find the original here.

Pluribus Project Narrative Collaboratory: Open Call For Fundable Projects

Our nation’s founders envisioned a republic in which the people would be the ultimate source of power. Today, however, a pervasive cultural narrative – across the right and the left – tells Americans it is pointless to participate in civic life because the game is rigged and their voices just don’t matter. At the Pluribus Project, we believe that it’s time to counter this dominant negative narrative and to displace it with a storyline of citizen empowerment so that Americans can begin to see that change is possible and how to become a part of it.

The reality is that many Americans in communities across the country are finding ways to come together and create real change. They may be a minority but they are not uncommon and they are still noticeably absent from the mainstream conversation. That’s why we created the Narrative Collaboratory, a platform for generating and propagating new narratives of citizen voice and efficacy, coupled with the tools of power and action that others can use. Think of it as a venture platform to seed experiments in media, storytelling, organizing, and experience design.

We are now announcing an Open Call for experiment and project ideas. We intend to select and support multiple proposals that creatively and effectively spread narratives of citizen power. Selected projects will be eligible for financial support, ranging from $5,000 to $50,000, from the Pluribus Project, and will be featured to additional donors and potential supporters through various media and events including the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Ultimately, we believe that with a sense of collective purpose, some trial and error, and the ingenuity of the many (that’s you), there is real opportunity right now to reinvent our civic reality, and to help create a more representative and responsive democracy.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Promise: All projects should show great promise to counter the pervasive, disheartening narrative that discourages citizens from engaging in their democracy. We are looking for platforms for experimentation that can generate or propagate new, durable, and contagious narratives of citizen power and efficacy.

A Diversified Portfolio: We are looking for projects that are diverse in type. Some may be media ventures, involving traditional journalism, digital media, or social media. Some might be organizing initiatives. Others might political ideation ventures. Some may even be hybrids. All projects must be non-partisan, and we prefer projects that are trans-partisan.

Scalable with a proof of concept: We are structure-agnostic – meaning that we will consider both for-profits and nonprofits. We generally prefer ventures with demonstrated proof of concept and a clear plan for reach and sustained impact. All funded ventures will be required to enter into a formal written agreement with the Pluribus Project, committing to use grant funds for specific purposes—including the charitable and educational ends—outlined in their proposal.

SELECTION PROCESS

Applications are due March 15, 2016. We will choose a set of projects to fund by April 15 and these projects will be implemented through the calendar year.

Applications will be reviewed and evaluated by a team of experts in civic engagement, innovation, and investment. The final portfolio will be financed at the discretion of the Pluribus Project Narrative Collaboratory team, who will receive advice and input of the experts engaged throughout the process.

TO APPLY

Please answer the following questions. Email your answers to narrative@pluribusproject.org. You may also include relevant attachments. The deadline for applications is March 15, 2016.

(1) Describe the narrative project or experiment. What exactly are you are doing, or do you plan to do, in order to generate or propagate new, durable, and contagious narratives of citizen power and efficacy? (500 words max.)

(2) How will you use the money and why will your project benefit from this investment? (250 words max.)

(3) What results have you achieved to date (if applicable), and what results do you anticipate for the next year? (250 words max.)

(4) Please provide brief bios for each core team member.

You can find the original version of this Pluribus Project announcement at www.pluribusproject.org/news/narrative-collaboratory-open-call.

Gloucester Shows How to Build a Culture of Dialogue

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Our friends at with Public Conversations Project recently posted the story of a wonderful community dialogue project from Gloucester, MA, and we wanted to repost it here. The piece by Kathy Eckles shares some great history and reflections about the founding members of Gloucester Conversations’ efforts to build a culture of dialogue in their town, and there’s lots to learn from it. We encourage you to read Kathy’s piece below or find the original version here.

We are Creating a Culture of Dialogue And So Can You

PCP new logoWhat does “all in the same boat” really mean? Focus. Balance. Lean in. Pull together. For a harbor city on the east coast the phrase seems appropriate. In fact, as Gloucester citizens we are trying to figure out how to keep our shared boat afloat. With our history, the sea, land, skies and all people on board, we must discover how to sail onwards together, and remain stable, listening, and helping one another. Are our relational skills up to the urgency of integrating the depth and breadth of our history, cultures, environment, economies, education, needs and interests? We’re working on it.

It’s no easy task to move from an establishment model of engagement to ‘we the people’, but that’s where we’re headed. The tensions of what we could lose – our rugged beauty, passionate individualism, hardworking harbor and our interdependence – hold all of us accountable to each other and our community when it may seem easier to simply sell, fight or fold.

In light of this need, Gloucester Conversations (GC) was formed. Through the generosity of our mentor organization, Public Conversations Project, Gloucester Conversations is helping our city develop a culture of dialogue. Thoughtful conversations are gradually replacing ‘my side/your side’ battles. A confluence of people are caring about ‘how’ we do ‘what’ we do. From city government and journalism, fishing and small businesses, arts and cultural groups to education, human and environmental services, we’re striving to use frameworks that make a place for people to be heard, respected and part of the decision-making.

How did Gloucester Conversations start? 

Inspired by the successes of other communities, Gloucester resident John Sarrouf of Public Conversations talked with locals and eventually gathered a group of five interested in Gloucester becoming a more collaborative community. We met for what seemed ad infinitum to explore our values, vision, skills and personal styles and to develop a strategy and related materials to help foster a culture of dialogue.

The first step was figuring out how other people and organizations had done this work, and done it well. We reached out to Everyday Democracy and invited in leaders from Hands Across North Quabbin, Portsmouth Listens and Lawrence Community Works to share with our whole community their dialogue, decision-making and community engagement processes. We launched two cornerstone initiatives. First were two types of dialogue circles. We hosted small group dialogues for people to tell their stories and express their hopes for the city. In addition to discussing specific issues, participants reflected on the process of dialogue itself, what worked, and how dialogue makes a place for everyone. The other type of dialogue circles were called Kitchen Table Conversations, a framework for anyone to gather neighbors and friends for a deeper kind of conversation in their home.

Our second initiative was training a cadre of facilitators who could lead small group conversations within larger community dialogues. We shared our vision with leaders in government, journalism, education, arts and culture, asking for their support and seeking to understand how we could help them. In addition to in-person dialogue planning and facilitation support, our website offers dialogue and facilitation resources for anyone interested in pursuing a new conversation in Gloucester or another community.

What’s working?

Behind-the-scenes dialogue design, group facilitation and support for specific city projects. Here are two examples:

When tensions escalated over the placement of a donated piece of public art, city leaders asked Gloucester Conversations to help guide the conversation around developing a public art policy. We designed and facilitated a dialogue session for arts and cultural leaders, and later, a successful open community meeting. GC also supported a dialogue to resolve tensions between representatives of a day-center for homeless individuals and its neighbors. Participants discovered significant common ground, opened the possibility of collaborative problem-solving, and developed a plan for ongoing communication.

What have we learned?

The quality of conversations we have publicly is key to developing communication skills for every aspect of our lives, and visa versa.

While we might not always agree, our commitment to remaining in conversation with one another creates fertile ground for community, collaboration, and leadership. It helps us build strong families, raise kind children, and be good neighbors – people who listen, understand and act upon shared values for our shared future.

Gloucester is an amazing community. In the midst of major changes we are strengthening our capacity to steadily focus, balance, lean in, and pull together. May we become people and a community our children are proud of, and may the legacy we leave them be one they enjoy and tend lovingly for their children, and their children, too.

You can find the original version of this Public Conversations Project blog piece by visiting www.publicconversations.org/blog/we-are-creating-culture-dialogue-and-so-can-you#sthash.IbXMcZe4.dpuf.