Fusion Partnerships Wins Social Activist Award

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

We hope you’ll join us in congratulating NCDD supporting/founding member Polly Riddims and the wonderful team at Fusion Partnerships on recently being awarded the Social Activist Award from the Justice Studies Association. We are proud to count Polly and her team as part of our NCDD community, and we hope you’ll take a moment to read the Fusion team’s statement on their award below.

On Friday, May 30, 2014, Fusion Partnerships, Inc. received the Social Activist Award from the Justice Studies Association in recognition for their continuing work for justice and well-being in Baltimore. The award was presented during their 16th Annual Conference “Revisiting to Revisioning: Restorative Justice to Transformative Justice” at Towson University, May 29-31, 2014. Polly Riddims, Managing Partner and Jim Kucher, Board Chair were there to accept the award.

Through collaborative action, including fiscal sponsorship, Fusion Partnerships works to be a catalyst for social justice and peace. Fusion currently provides fiscal sponsorship and incubation support for over 65 community based program in the Baltimore region working for social change. These projects are making a difference in areas of youth development, health and nutrition, gender and LGBT issues, criminal justice reform, racial justice, and the arts.

Fusion was established in 1998 to educate and facilitate community building and collaborative efforts toward social change. Through work in the community, Fusion found many underserved grassroots community leaders with great new ideas, entrepreneurial projects and innovative strategies, struggling to do their best with little financial support and without access to the nonprofit resources. Fiscal sponsorship provides an opportunity for individuals or groups tocarry out their ideas, where they can succeed and grow, and create a space for collaborative work and sharing of resources.

Justice Studies Association (JSA) is an international not-for-profit membership association established in 1998 to:

Foster writing and research about, the practice of, and activism for, justice without violence;
Provide venues in the form of an annual conference and a journal of progressive thought to tackle pressing issues of criminal, social, restorative, and economic justice;
Foster a sense of community among scholars, activists and practioners of justice interested in creating a global community in which the needs of all are met; and
Welcome scholars from all disciplines to think and write about issues of justice from an interdisciplinary and global perspective.

New Reports on Civic Dialogue & Business Leaders

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

Our friends at the Network for Business Sustainability recently released two reports that we think NCDD members should note. The reports focus on the potential for business leaders to be more involved in civic dialogues, and we encourage you to read more about them in the NBS statement below.

Businesses have traditionally played little role in civic dialogue, but their involvement can help advance issues. The Network for Business Sustainability (NBS) has recently published two reports, written by Dr. Thomas Webler, that identify the potential for business involvement in civic dialogue.

The reports are aimed at a business audience, and can serve to introduce businesses to civic dialogue concepts. We hope that they will also be useful for anyone seeking to understand business perspectives or the value of engaging businesses in dialogues.

The reports are:

Civic Dialogues on Sustainability: A Business Briefing (17 pages)
How to Engage in Civic Dialogue: A Best Practices Guide for Business (45 pages)

Both are freely available. We very much appreciate thoughts and feedback, and will evolve the reports accordingly. Comment on the report webpage or by sending a note to Maya Fischhoff at mfischhoff@nbs.net.

About the reports and NBS

NBS is a non-profit based at Western University (Canada) which connects research and practice around sustainable business. Each year, NBS’s Leadership Council of leading Canadian businesses identifies priority issues. For 2013, they asked: How can businesses help citizens become informed, inspired and engaged in a national dialogue about sustainability?

This project represents an innovative collaboration between research and practice. Researcher Dr. Thomas Webler summarized the best academic and practical research available on civic engagement. A working session of leaders from the business, non-profit and academic communities provided extensive feedback, which Dr. Webler incorporated into the final documents.

Harwood on US Soccer’s Civic Lessons

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that the USA’s national soccer team has been advancing steadily in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Rich Harwood, director of NCDD organizational member The Harwood Institute, penned an article reflective piece this week (before the US played Germany yesterday) on the civic lessons we can take from the US team’s resolve early on in the Cup. You can read Rich’s article below or find the original here.

As a huge soccer fan, I was ecstatic about the U.S. National Team’s 2-1 victory over Ghana Monday. As an American, I was struck even more by the words used by the players, commentators and others to describe the win: grittiness, grinding it out, gutsy, and resolve. Such words not only reflect the U.S. team’s play, but our national character. It is this very character that we must now tap into in order to make progress on our challenges at home.

The national team’s win is a perfect civic parable for our country at this time. Ghana beat the U.S. in the last two World Cups. In 2010, it was a heart-breaking overtime loss. This time, the U.S. came into the game as the clear underdog. But the team did not cower in the face of Ghana, nor did it sit back; it struck. A mere 34 seconds into the first half, forward Clint Dempsey scored to put the U.S. ahead.

Another 89+ minutes remained. And adversity came quickly to the U.S. team. Jose Altidore, the vaunted U.S. striker, went down with a strained hamstring. A young substitute named Aron Johannsson, with little experience at this level, took his place. At halftime, Matt Besler, a key defenseman, was pulled from the game with an injury. Again another young substitute, Anthony Brooks, came on to play. When members of the team fell down, other players stepped forward.

Even as the national team got back on its feet, the Ghanians turned up the heat. Their relentless attacks put the U.S. team back on their heels for much of the second half. But the U.S. team was undeterred and resilient, withstanding the onslaught even as they were outplayed.

But their luck finally broke. With just eight minutes remaining, the Ghanians scored to tie the game and firmly grabbed the momentum. It was as if throughout the U.S. one could hear a collective gulp: here comes a repeat of 2010.

Amid the heightened pressure, the U.S. team kept plugging away. They would bend but not break. With just minutes left, Graham Zusi, yet another substitute, took a corner kick and the 21-year-old Brooks headed the ball into the back of the net. A gutsy, stubborn and sometimes not-so-pretty team performance landed a U.S. victory.

Today, many Americans say the country is on the wrong path. They want to know how we can move forward together. The story of the U.S. team Monday night reminds us just what it takes to get on the right path: people coming together with a sense of common purpose and setting a common goal. When they fall down, they dust themselves off and find a way to keep moving forward. Then, when things go wrong, they recalibrate. And when certain individuals must step away, they pass the baton to others who are willing to step forward.

Throughout all this, people persevere. They realize they must be resilient – willing and able to bend, but not break. And when they achieve their near-term goal, other longer-term goals push them to keep moving ahead, together.

As Americans, we are builders. It’s part of our DNA, central to our character. The U.S. national team demonstrated the meaning of this last night. And it reflects back to us something we already know but sometimes forget or push aside: we must tap our collective character to move this nation forward. What I know from my long experience working in communities across the country is this: Americans want to be builders again.

You can find the original version of this piece at www.theharwoodinstitute.org/2014/06/u-s-world-cup-win-a-civic-parable-for-our-time.

The Village Square’s Creative Civic Conversations

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

We recently read a great piece in the Christian Science Monitor that featured one of NCDD’s organizational members, The Village Square, and we hope you’ll take a few moments to read it. Much like the Albany Roundtable that we just recently featured on the blog, The Village Square is creating a civic infrastructure that brings people together for regular conversations on local politics.

The CSM article, titled “Civil Discourse That Doesn’t Taste Like Broccoli”, was penned by NCDD member Liz Joyner, who works for Village Square, and details the history and approach of this innovative organization. In it, Liz details how The Village Square has taken its inspiration from our nation’s early days of politics:

In the early 1800s, things weren’t looking particularly good for the American experiment in self-governance. Coming to Washington with differences of opinion natural to a vast new land, early legislators lived and ate in boarding houses that became entrenched voting blocs. Thomas Jefferson wrote that these men came to work “in a spirit of avowed misunderstanding, without the smallest wish to agree.”

Apparently neither human nature nor legislatures have changed much since.

Jefferson’s solution was to bring lawmakers to the White House in diverse groups for good dinner and conversation. Two hundred years later, The Village Square takes a page from his book when we invite politically diverse citizens to break bread at our “Dinner at the Square” series or “Take-out Tuesday” town meetings.

As Liz notes, the concept of a coming together in a village square is not in any way a new idea. Yet in a time when we have grown disconnected from our communities and polarized into echo chambers of like-minded people, creating a common space to come together with those we disagree with is increasingly a radical idea.

The Village Square project exists to help create and hold that space:

…The Village Square engages people socially around civic issues – bringing neighbors back in relationship with each other across ideological difference. People aren’t built to reexamine the basics of their positions unless they feel some sense of friendship and common purpose with those suggesting they do so.

But as Liz notes, getting folks from our polarized, siloed communities to sit down and talk is some times like pulling teeth. That is why Village Square takes a fun and playful approach to its serious civic work.

To address this challenge, our irreverently named programs are part civic forum, part entertainment. Each event is casual (the stage is set up to feel like the facilitator’s living room) and involves sharing food. As we begin, we give out two “civility bells,” ask that the audience avoid tribal “team clapping,” and share a quote to inspire our better angels. We welcome fluid audience participation and always try to laugh.

From here our formats vary widely – ranging from huge community dinners with a panel and social time, to 20 elected officials moving from table to table in “Speed Date your Local Leader,” to a barbecue competition between a Republican and Democratic commissioner.

It’s creative ideas for bringing people together that The Village Square is bringing to cities in Florida, California, and Missouri – and hopefully more. We encourage you to read Liz’s full article in the Christian Science Monitor, which you can find at www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Common-Ground/2014/0611/Civil-discourse-that-doesn-t-taste-like-broccoli, and learn more about The Village Square at http://tothevillagesquare.org.

Learning from the Albany Roundtable

Posted on June 25, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

We read a fascinating article that NCDD member John Backman wrote for our partners at CommunityMatters that we think you should read. John writes about an innovative civic experiment that has become an institution called the Albany Roundtable, and we hope you’ll read more about it below or find the original piece here.

Appropriately, the idea for a bastion of civic infrastructure in Albany, New York—a luncheon series—arose from a luncheon organization.

“I had been attending Kiwanis luncheons downtown since high school,” said Paul Bray. “At one point in 1979, I got to thinking that an open-to-all civic lunch forum might be helpful in Albany. It was my idea that it be monthly, open to the public by reservation, and have a civic or business leader speak at the luncheons.”

Thirty-five years later, the Albany Roundtable has become an institution in New York’s Capital Region. Speakers at the monthly luncheons, which typically draw 100 participants, include local leaders from healthcare, higher education, the arts, business, and other elements of the community. Just as essential, the Roundtable serves as a gathering place for civic leaders and other citizens to build their networks across sectors and industries and beyond. It helped create the basis for establishing the Albany Heritage Area which is now one of 20 state designated heritage areas. Heritage areas is a new concept of park that utilizes whole cities and/or regions as a park. Lowell, Massachusetts is the first national city as a park and there are now 49 national heritage areas including 4 in New York State that are all regions.

The Albany Roundtable’s network infrastructure barely existed when Bray first conceived the Roundtable idea. The mayor of Albany, Erastus Corning 2d, had completed 37 years in office and headed a machine with complete control over all things political. And many people believed at the time that all things were political in Albany.

“Local officials were generally deferred to on most matters,” Bray recalled. “Albany had a fair number of neighborhood associations, a historic preservation organization, numerous social service organizations, etc., etc., but they didn’t get involved in governance. There was little sense of the community at large.”

The initial meetings reflected that assessment. Speakers drew crowds largely from their own industry or venture, and attendance hovered around 35. At one point, Bray mentioned the Roundtable to Corning, a conversation that eventually led to the Roundtable’s hosting the mayor’s annual State of the City message. “Only when the mayor spoke was there a greater diversity of attendees, and attendance went up,” Bray said.

Today attendees comprise a broad cross-section of Albany, and the monthly speakers reflect that diversity. The chancellor of the State University of New York has addressed the Roundtable; so have the CEO of the largest local healthcare system, a business leader in the region’s burgeoning nanotechnology sector, directors of the best-known museums, the head of the local transit authority, and many others.

In recent years, the Roundtable has spread its activities beyond the lunch hour. Each year, it invites a visiting speaker to an evening gathering, and the roster of past speakers looks like a who’s who of livable cities. Last year’s gathering featured Jeff Speck, the author of Walkable City and an international advocate for smart growth and sustainable design; this year the speaker is Kaid Benfield, a senior leader at the National Resources Defense Council and one of the world’s “top urban thinkers” according to the city planning website Planetizen.

The Roundtable also gives out awards. The Good Patroon Award goes annually to a person or organization that makes the community a better place to live. (Bray himself won in 2004 for his work with the Roundtable.) Just last year, the organization founded the Albany Roundtable Scholarship, a $1,000 award given to a high school senior recommended by a Roundtable member.

Over the years, the Roundtable has catalyzed a number of civic projects. For example, one Roundtable attendee urged Bray to invite Fred Salvucci, the former Transportation Commissioner in Massachusetts who led the $15 billion “Big Dig” project bury a highway in downtown Boston. When he came to Albany, Salvucci met the Mayors of Albany and Schenectady, met with transportation planners about a transit connection that became the existing Bus Rapid Transit between downtown Schenectady and Albany and he saw a lot of potential for expanding Albany’s downtown and accomplishing other infrastructure projects. Salvucci organized a proposal for a diversity of projects in the Capital Region that was entitled Revest. Although many of the projects were not realized initially, it sparked the awareness the collaborative efforts are possible.

Though Bray no longer serves as Roundtable president (“It took me over 30 years to find someone who would take over”), he remains active as a board member and founder.

And he has the satisfaction of knowing that his brainchild has made a difference. “For me,” Bray noted, “the Roundtable experience has confirmed an important truth: that there is great value in community-wide opportunities for citizens to gather, break bread, and hear from the civic leaders whose decisions affect their lives.”

You can find the original version of this article at www.communitymatters.org/blog/building-civic-infrastructure-your-lunch-hour.

Engaging Students & Youth in the NCDD 2014 Conference

Posted on June 24, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

As you may have read by now, the theme for the NCDD 2014 Conference is Democracy for the Next Generation. We chose this theme for many reasons. We wanted to bring more attention to the exciting and innovative ways that next generation technology is changing our field, to think about new ways to embed our work into old processes of governance, and to invite people to join us in envisioning what it would look like for dialogue, deliberation, and public engagement to take an evolutionary leap forward as a field of practice.

But another important reason that we chose Democracy for the Next Generation as the conference theme was because it invites us to think literally about the “next” generation(s) of people who we want not only to be effective participants in democracy, but who we also want to see join our field as practitioners. We wanted the theme to encourage us to think about how we can involve more young people in the future of our work and the future of democracy – both 10 years from now and 100 years into the future. That is why we are making a special effort to invite students and young people from our communities of practice to attend NCDD 2014.

The “Why”

Involving young people in bigger ways addresses a number of the goals for our conference: expanding the scope of our work, connecting newer practitioners with seasoned veterans, and creating new partnerships, just to name a few. We think that having this kind of focus is particularly important for our field because in many ways, the current cohort of young adults – the Millennial generation – embodies the next generation of democracy as well as the challenges and opportunities for our field’s evolution.

AustinPic2-350 Millennials are the most diverse generation of Americans ever as well as the most tech savvy, so thinking about their inclusion means opening up discussion both around technology’s role in our work as well as the challenge of making sure we are ready to engage with diversity and go beyond “the usual suspects” in terms of participants in our work. And since most Millennials are currently in or just a few years past being in college, engaging them in our work also means engaging institutions of higher education in promoting democratic practices and processes, as well as doing more of our own teaching – and learning – about our work with a new wave of potential recruits and participants.

Additionally, let’s face it – the leaders in our field are not getting any younger. As we see some of the pillars and pioneers of our work getting closer to retirement age, it is vital to have an eye on the development and inclusion of the younger folks in our network who will be the ones to pick up the slack when our contemporary leaders leave the work. If we are thinking about our work on a generational scale, we want to be making conscious decisions around mentoring tomorrow’s leading engagement practitioners and scholars today.

The benefits for youth & students

With all of that said, we at NCDD are putting our money where our mouth is with incentives for students and young people to attend NCDD 2014. We are offering a reduced student registration rate for the conference of just $250 (early bird registration is $375), and we are offering even lower group rates for teachers and other practitioners who are bringing groups of students from their youth-oriented programs. The group rate will be worked out on a case-by-case basis, but one group that came with 8 students to NCDD 2012 worked with us to receive two free student spots in addition to the already-discounted rate. The more students you bring, the bigger the discount!

Student attendee at NCDD Austin workshop in 2010 Plus, we are excited to announce that we are looking to identify a cadre of mentors that will support and guide the students and youth who attend this year’s NCDD conference in how to best make use of the conference and get involved in the field. The mentors who are selected will be seasoned D&D/engagement practitioners who are willing to spend some time with the students and youth who attend to mentor them during the conference. We hope that some of the mentors will continue in that role after the conference, to help pave the way for the next generation of practitioners and leaders in our field. It’s a very exciting opportunity for anyone looking for a way into the field!

Testimonials

We know that attending NCDD conferences is a great opportunity for students and young people. But you don’t have to take our word for it – you can hear about it yourself from student attendees and their teachers who have shared their feedback about the NCDD 2012 conference with us.

Kacey Bull, a Colorado State University undergraduate, had this to say about her experience in Seattle:

Attending NCDD was an incredible opportunity for me. It opened my eyes to a world that I didn’t know existed. I had been involved in the Center for Public Deliberation for about a year before I attended the conference and I had no idea how vast the world of Dialogue and Deliberation was.

I learned so many different models and activities, I was encouraged by all the people doing great work, and ultimately it led me one step closer to dedicating my academic efforts and career pursuits to the world of Deliberation. I wish every college student could be inspired by such an event.

And Dr. Martín Carcasson, who helped 8 of his students attend NCDD Seattle in 2012, shared with us his reflections on why bringing students to NCDD 2014 is a great opportunity:

Clearly NCDD is the ideal conference for college and university students interested in dialogue and deliberation. It provides students with an excellent overview of the overall field, and a chance to meet and work with many of the national leaders. Over a few short days, they will get exposure to multiple methods and strategies for supporting dialogue and deliberation back on their campuses and community. NCDD’s lively, interactive sessions will put the students in the middle of the work, working side by side with academics and practitioners.

Those experiences will not only be valuable to the students, but the students also provide a great service to the deliberation community by providing new voices and fresh perspectives to the conference events. I had several students attend the conference in Seattle, and those students came back incredibly invigorated, passionate about deliberation, and newly equipped with great ideas and fresh skills.

Several of those students have decided to stay at CSU for grad school, mostly in order to continue their journey with deliberation. Their wonderful NCDD experience certainly played an important role in their growing interest and commitment to the field. As the D&D movement continues to expand, attracting bright new voices will be critical, and bringing your best and brightest students to the NCDD conference is a great step in that direction.

Martín and his students also helped us make a great video, produced by our friends at Song of A Citizen, about their experience at NCDD 2012.

How you can get support this effort

Bring a group of young people or students to the conference this October (connect with NCDD’s director, Sandy Heierbacher, at sandy@ncdd.org or our conference manager, Courtney Breese, at courtney@ncdd.org for info about discounts and more)
Serve as a mentor at the conference or suggest people who work with students/youth we should reach out to (contact student/youth outreach coordinator Roshan at roshan@ncdd.org or Sandy)
Make a donation to NCDD at www.ncdd.org/donate earmarked for sponsorships for students and youth
Encourage ALL the students you know to take advantage of NCDD’s Student Membership rate, which is only $25/year for full access to all membership benefits
At the conference, do all you can to help the young people who attend NCDD 2014 to feel welcomed and valued
Help us spread the word to students at your schools, youth who are part of your work, and other young people who might be interested in attending — we’d love to have them! Direct people HERE to this post for details.

Table-group-600px-outlined

Three Principles for Innovation in Governance

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

Our partners at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation recently published a great piece on their Challenges to Democracy blog by Hollie Russon Gilman that we are re-posting here. Gilman’s insightful article about innovation in governance is the third in a series (first and second), and we hope you will read it below or find the post from the Ash Center here.

It isn’t easy to innovate in governance. Bureaucracy can be hidebound. The private sector’s lean startup model, with its “fail forward” ethos, is antithetical to government as we know it. Electorates are not tolerant of failure, and voter confidence in government is at an all time low. In a 2013, more people listed government dysfunction as the problem they believe is the country’s most serious challenge. Given these headwinds, it’s not surprising that many officials resist the experimentation and risk necessary to innovate.

However, partly in response to this same citizen disaffection, a new wave of participatory policy reforms is springing up across the United States. This includes New Urban Mechanics in Boston and Philadelphia piloting experiments to engage citizens with City Hall to Participatory Budgeting, a process to enlist citizens as decision makers on public budgets. While the civic experiments differ in form, they reflect common principles in action that offer lessons for policy makers considering their own civic innovations.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel. Instead of thinking about new laws, create innovation within existing institutional structures. For example, the U.S. already has a regulations comment and notice period. Instead of creating a new apparatus for citizen engagement, improve on existing structures such as Regulations.gov. This requires an investigatory, opportunistic approach to finding areas ripe for improvement and putting new tools to use.

When people apply the lens of innovation to existing structures, even small improvements can lead to more significant shifts by informing a new playbook that officials can replicate and scale.

Take a Hybrid Approach. Government cannot do it alone. Instead, find opportunities for non-government actors to contribute to governance. This can include public-private partnerships or leveraging the talent of universities. Citizens themselves are also a great, and often underutilized, repository of talent and local knowledge.

For example, Adopt a Hydrant is a Code for America project that enables citizens to take responsibility for shoveling out fire hydrants after heavy snowfall.

Collaboration Instead of Competition. The first mover advantage that is so critical in the private sector does not apply to the public sector. Innovation is most likely to spread when governments across localities work together to share lessons learned and best practices.

For example, Chicago is building an open source predictive analytics tool that other governments can use to translate open data to improve service delivery. This approach empowers citizens across geographic boundaries.

Government will never function like a Silicon Valley startup. But each of these observations – building on existing structures, enlisting the private sector, and sharing lessons—helps lower barriers.

What do these principles look like in practice?

Technology has transformed how the two major political parties compete for votes, from how campaigns receive donations to how they target voters. Yet we have not seen a commensurate civic-minded effort aimed at transforming voting processes and elections to empower citizens. Although voters often now tap a screen instead of punching a ballot, the act of voting otherwise remains relatively unchanged over the past several decades—even as technology remakes political campaigns.

As suggested above, governance innovations will be most successful when working within existing institutional structures. Elections, the wellspring of leaders’ and institutions’ democratic legitimacy, could also benefit from tapping into the energy and potential of technology and innovation.

One critical measure of successful elections is whether citizens feel equipped with information. This includes everything from where elected officials stand on key policy arenas to who is running and where to vote. Unfortunately, this information is scattered across many sources. A range of innovations, from open data API’s to new mobile apps are working to more effectively increase access to information.

One example is TurboVote. After signing up, a user will receive customized information on relevant voting rules, deadlines, and forms. All the voter has to do is drop them in the mail. This model suggests that providing easy access to information can reduce barriers to voting.

Even when citizens are empowered with information about elections, there is the further challenge of getting people to the polls. Nations handle this differently. Australia has compulsory voting. Some countries make Election Day a public holiday. Many countries host elections on Saturdays or Sundays. Thirty U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia, now have the option for a mail in ballot.

Political scientists Donald Green and Alan Gerber have conducted experiments demonstrating that personalized messages are most effective in voter mobilization. Google launched a pledge website for India’s elections. Here people can take a personal pledge to vote and learn about their candidates. These examples suggest that creative and customized approaches can encourage people to get out to the polls.

Finally, the very process of voting can be filled with frustration. Long waiting times, obscure locations, and in some places, questions about the fidelity of vote counting processes can leave people disillusioned about the act of voting. Crowd sourcing mechanisms could empower citizens both during and after voting.

Political scientist Archon Fung launched MyFairElections a crowd sourced platform, based on the success of Ushahidi’s election monitoring, where people can “rate” their voting location. Voters can submit reviews of their polling place. This can capture everything from long voting lines to the number of voters turned away from the polls. The information is then publicly displayed and can create a transparency and accountability feedback mechanism. Further opportunities for feedback could lead to improvements in election processes. This could also enable voters to feel more agency in the basic procedures that determine their governance.

Technology is creating new expectations for how citizens engage with their world. Governments must adapt to keep pace or risk the dissatisfaction of those they represent. The problems are large and complex. Meanwhile, democracy requires free and fair elections to exist. Elections are its sacred rites. There is good reason to be cautious about changing them. Yet there is also a democratic imperative for elections to seize 21st century innovation opportunities.

Civic innovation—done right—can serve as an important part of the solution.

This story is copied from the Challenges to Democracy blog and can be found at www.challengestodemocracy.us/home/public-sector-principles-for-encouraging-and-supporting-innovation-in-democratic-participation/#sthash.6zyxhPYw.LlUFGWWa.dpuf.

New EvDem Documentary on Youth Mental Health Dialogue

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

We hope you will take a moment to read about a great project that our organizational partners at Everyday Democracy are working on with a New Mexico youth organization called Generation Justice. Their new documentary is helping young people have the difficult but needed conversations about mental health in connection with the NCDD-supported Creating Community Solutions initiative. We hope you’ll take a moment to read about their work or find the original post from EvDem here.

When the Mask Comes Off, produced by the youth media organization Generation Justice, is a video documentary featuring young people from New Mexico discussing their experiences of living with mental illness. We hear stories of struggle on their journey from misperception and alienation toward self-acceptance and healing. The documentary comes with adaptable discussion guides for use in communities and schools.

Generation Justice Executive Director Roberta Rael said, “We want to make sure that young people have a voice in the discussions about mental health and that young people contribute to the change that is needed.” View the video trailer here:

When the Mask Comes Off is a partnership between Generation Justice and Everyday Democracy, a national organization working with communities to create positive change by providing tools, advice and strategies that help make democracy real for everyone.

Everyday Democracy answered the call of President Barack Obama for a National Dialogue on Mental Health and helped establish Creating Community Solutions to help local communities enter the national conversation. In July 2013, Albuquerque became one of the first cities to launch a multi-year initiative to bring people into dialogue as part of the National Dialogue on Mental Health.

At the launch event on July 20, hundreds of residents across the community participated in dialogue and identified a priority to expand mental health resources for young people and to create opportunities for youth to talk about mental health. Subsequent neighborhood dialogues throughout the region have also identified that priority. The release of When the Mask Comes Off is a step in fulfilling that need.

Martha McCoy, executive director of Everyday Democracy, said, “Bringing young people’s voices into this critical conversation has surfaced as a priority in community dialogues across the United States. When the Mask Comes Off will open the door for that difficult conversation.”

See the full version of the film.

View and download the discussion guide for schools.

View and download the discussion guide for communities.

The original version of this post from Everyday Democracy can be found at http://everyday-democracy.org/news/young-people-talk-about-living-mental-illness-new-documentary-when-mask-comes#.U6HZaPldUlp.

New EvDem Documentary on Youth Mental Health Dialogue

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

See the full version of the film.

View and download the discussion guide for schools.

View and download the discussion guide for communities.

Featured D&D Story: Class Discussion on Gun Violence

Posted on June 18, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

Today we’d like to feature a great example of dialogue and deliberation in action, a class discussion on gun violence from University of Missouri. This mini case study was submitted by NCDD supporting member Sarah Read of the Communications Center, Inc. via NCDD’s new Dialogue Storytelling Tool. Do you have a dialogue story that our network could learn from? Add YOUR dialogue story today!

Title of Project: Class Discussions on Gun Violence

Description

Last summer I was asked to redesign and teach the Public Policy Dispute Resolution class at the University of Missouri School of Law which I then taught in the fall semester. At the outset of the semester, the students were asked to write an essay about why they had enrolled and what they hoped to learn.

The majority of those essays reflected the students’ deep concerns, as citizens, with the partisan nature of our political discourse and their frustration at how quickly discussions on difficult issues, even with friends and family, turned into name-calling and debate. The students expressed a desire to better understand and address such things as “media-fueled divisiveness”, lack of “nuance in everyday politics”, and “polarization”. They also asked to learn about how points of view form, how policies are made, how to help opposing groups communicate, and how to “explore the area between two extreme views.”

These questions were discussed in the first part of the semester when we focused on skills such as conflict mapping, question framing, and use of non-adversarial dialogue patterns, and the use of different processes to navigate conflict. The last third of the semester focused on actually applying this learning to a difficult dialogue, and the topic chosen by the class was issues relating to gun control or violence.

The classes that followed were designed to allow the students to directly experience how the choice and sequencing of dialogue structures (here informal dialogue, through a World Cafe type forum, to a more deliberative issue forum), paired with dialogue-based phrasing, can change the usual scripts used in discussion of a politicized, highly charged issue like gun violence.

To focus the discussion students were given a real-world hypothetical of adopting a policy on who could carry guns in public schools. This hypothetical used the demographics of an identified nearby school district and a law that had been recently adopted in Kansas. Class members came into the discussions with a wide range of viewpoints (which had been reflected in their prior essays) and were loosely assigned roles as community members.

The two students who agreed to serve as (i) a school board member highly supportive of both the law and of allowing more guns in the schools, and (ii) the superintendent responsible for managing budgets, safety, personnel, and overall administration, received more detailed supporting information for their roles. They were instructed to raise or share thoughts and information as seemed natural or appropriate in the discussions.

Although starting from very different places, the students were (to their surprise), over three sessions, able to reach unanimous agreement on an interim policy that could be placed into effect immediately. Much of this progress had to do with how the dialogues were sequenced.

Which dialogue and deliberation approaches did you use or borrow heavily from?

National Issues Forums
World Cafe
Conversation Cafe

What was your role in the project?

Professor / Convener

What issues did the project primarily address?

Crime and safety
Education
Partisan divide

Lessons Learned

The sequencing of different dialogue processes, with time off between sessions, when done thoughtfully, can substantially lessen the overall in-person time needed for groups to come to agreement. Sequencing also allows for better option development, and promotes more productive deliberations at the time deliberative thinking is required. This is because successful resolution of complex issues requires integrative thinking about several different factors – information, interests, values, and rules or standards.

Integrative thinking takes time. Sequencing discussions can provide the necessary time for new ideas and options to emerge. Effective integrative thinking within a group also takes trust in the others that you are making decisions with. Without trust, information is discounted and risk to one’s personal interests is likely to take precedence over the effects on others in the community.

Simply put, building trust requires an effort to build relationships. Building relationships also takes time, and multiple contacts. By sequencing conversations so that deliberation does not occur too soon allows for better relationship development.

Where to learn more about the project:

Read full series of posts here: http://buildingdialogue.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/teaching-the-navigation-of-difficult-dialogues-intro.

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