Category Archives: civic infrastructure

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.

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.

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.

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.

Seeking Nominations for Inaugural Civilution Awards by 2/14

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We want to encourage NCDD members to consider submitting nominations for the inaugural Civilution Awards, hosted by the Bridge Alliance – an NCDD member organization. NCDD was one of the founding members of the Alliance because we respect their efforts to foster ” transpartisan” politics in the US, and the Civilution Awards are a way to recognize those leading the way. We’d love to see an NCDDer win this year, so be sure to submit your nominations before the deadline on Feb. 14th! Learn more about the Civilution Awards in the Bridge Alliance announcement below, or find the original here.

Civilution Awards

Get out your tux. Your designer gown. Start preparing your acceptance speech.

We’ll see you on the Red, White, and Blue carpet!

The inaugural Bridge Alliance Civilution Awards, presented by the “Academy of Civility and Bridge-Building Arts & Sciences,” will honor one individual and one organization for truly embodying the Civilution Declaration and exemplifying best bridge-building practices.

Civilution Declaration

  • Engage in respectful dialogue with others, even if we disagree.
  • Seek creative problem solving with others.
  • Support elected officials and leaders who work together to address and solve our nation’s challenges.

All nominees – both individuals and organizations – will be considered based on the following core principles and criteria:

  • Collaborative partnership: Excellence in collaboration with other individuals or organizations, finding creative ways to work together.
  • Innovative solutions putting country before party: Creatively addressing even the most challenging of problems across political divides or special interests.
  • Display of curiosity and inquisitiveness in political conversations: Demonstration of openness and curiosity, display of respect and civility.

Nominations for this prestigious award will be accepted February 1st  through February 14th with a culminating virtual awards ceremony to recognize excellence in our field on February 28, 2016.

Judges will review submission, media stories, blogs and websites.  Judges are volunteers and staff of the Bridge Alliance.

Please include contact information for your nominee. If you would like to make more than one nomination, email info@bridgealliance.us.

Join Us at Citizen University’s 2016 Conference, Mar. 18-19

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We want to encourage NCDD members to consider registering Citizen University’s annual conference this March 18th – 19th in Seattle, Washington. Citizen University was founded by former NCDD keynote speaker Eric Liu to build a stronger culture of citizenship, and their annual confernece is an incredibly unique civic gathering.

This year’s conference theme is “Who Is Us? Race, Citizenship, and America Now.” As many of us in the D&D field continue to ask ourselves about how to engage more diverse populations beyond the “usual suspects”, this conference on the intersection of race and citizenship – keynoted by one of the founders of the national Black Lives Matter network – couldn’t be more timely.

Here’s how Citizen University describes the gathering:

A new America is being born. All across the country, citizens are forcing institutions to move on racial justice and social inclusion. Now more than ever, it’s time to ask: Who is Us? Who gets to define the emerging America?

This is the focus of our annual national conference, a civic gathering unlike any other in America. Join hundreds of change-makers, activists, and catalysts tolearn about power, deepen your networks, and recharge your sense of purpose.

With luminary speakers, master teachers, and rapid-fire lessons on civic power, the conversation will be rich and provocative. This is a time when citizens are solving problems in new ways, bypassing broken institutions, stale ideologies, and polarized politics. We are part of a movement to rekindle citizenship and remake the narrative of America. Join us.

The conference is going to have a great line up of speakers and engaging sessions, which you can learn more about on the conference website at www.citizenuniversity.us/programs/conference. Plus, our own NCDD Director Sandy Heierbacher will be in attendance, so we hope lots of NCDD members will be there to connect with her!

Conference registration is only $200 right now, but the early bird registration ends March 1st, so don’t wait too long! Learn more and register for the conference by clicking here, and we hope to see some of you in Seattle!

NCDD’s 2015 Year in Review

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When a new year begins, we naturally tend to reflect back on the previous year. As we look back on 2015, it’s clear that it was quite a year for NCDD, and it’s inspiring to look back and see all that’s happened.

Keiva-profile-borderThe year of 2015 was one of many transitions. NCDD had some personnel changes as we said a fond farewell to our former Creative Director Andy Fluke and gave a warm welcome to our new Resource Curator and Social Media Coordinator Keiva Hummel (pictured at left). We also brought Ellie Boynton on board to help maintain NCDD’s website.

In the midst of these transitions, I also made a personal transition with a move from rural Pennsylvania to Boston, moving NCDD headquarters (my home office!) closer to hundreds of our members in the process.

GrandeLum-NextStepBubble-borderNCDD also had a very dynamic year in 2015 in terms of programs and projects. 2015 saw the launch of our informal partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service, which came out of CRS Director Grande Lum’s involvement in our 2014 national conference. Meetings were held between Community Relations Service leaders and NCDD members in Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, New York, Dallas, and Seattle, and a few more are still in the works. The meetings were designed to be informal networking and information-exchange events, and next steps have emerged organically from the events such as a great new collaboration in Chicago, with more on the way.

RoshanPic2014At this time last year, we began a scoping project in which we had Roshan Bliss, NCDD’s Student & Youth Outreach Coordinator for the 2014 conference (and our fearless Blog Curator!; pictured at left), conduct an online youth survey, seek feedback from our network about the role of young people in the D&D field, and host a few “focus group” calls with younger NCDDers in an effort to frame a possible NCDD youth initiative. The results gave us some good insights into how NCDD can support young people and folks who are new to the field, and will form the basis of what a Youth Program we’ll be launching this year.

Our regular Tech Tuesday and Confab Calls continued to thrive in 2015 under the coordination of our wonderful Program Director Courtney Breese. As always, you can check out the archives of the confabs at www.ncdd.org/confabs and watch the Tech Tuesday videos at www.ncdd.org/tech-tuesdays.

Confab bubble imageOur Confab Calls covered such topics as how brain science supports constructive dialogue and deliberation, ethics for facilitators, and strategies for handling latecomers in public engagement programs and disruptors at public engagement events. We talked with NCDD members Pete Peterson (about his experience running for CA Secretary of State on a “civic engagement” platform), Matt Leighninger and Tina Nabatchi (about their great new book Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy), and John Gastil (about the opportunity for organizations to host a fellow as part of the new Nevins Democracy Leaders Program).

Tech_Tuesday_BadgeAnd our Tech Tuesday events, which are designed to help practitioners stay on top of new opportunities and developments in the online engagement realm, featured innovative tools like Consider.it, Bang the Table, QiqoChat, and Common Ground for Action. In all, we served 450 people through our online events in 2015.

2015 also saw the launch of a new partnership between NCDD and the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State to create infrastructure that will bring more young people into the D&D field. The Nevins Democracy Leaders program piloted its first two fellowship Mccourtney Institute Logoplacements in 2015 with Everyday Democracy and No Labels, and we are thrilled that 2016 will see nearly two dozen bright D&D-trained students placed with leading organizations in our field in fully funded fellowship positions.

In 2015, I continued to work very closely with the Kettering Foundation, in my role as Research Deputy and otherwise. KF’s president David Mathews took the time to write a special message to the NCDD community about the Kettering-sign-outlinedhistoric opportunity we have right now to “find the public voice that’s missing.” I worked particularly closely on Kettering’s annual A Public Voice event at the National Press Club. Also be on the lookout for a fascinating report on the strategies that public engagement practitioners use to develop productive relationships with public officials over time — a collaboration between NCDD, Kettering, and the Jefferson Center.

As we look forward to the coming year, we hope for more and more opportunities like our partnerships with the Kettering Foundation, the McCourtney Institute at Penn State, and the US DOJ Community Relations Service — opportunities that allow us to utilize the infrastructure we’ve built up to serve the broader field. We look forward to launching our youth program, distributing new materials, continuing to provide quality online programming for our community, and of course, hosting the 2016 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation this October in Boston, MA!!!

NCDD’s work is funded mostly by members’ dues and small donations. If you want to support all of the great work we do, please consider making a tax-deductible donation by visiting www.ncdd.org/donate or renewing or upgrading your membership at www.ncdd.org/renew.

We look forward to enjoying the coming year with all of you, no doubt feeling constantly inspired by the important, innovative work you all are doing.

Join OpenGov & CivicTech Online Unconference, Jan. 28th

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We encourage NCDD members to consider attending the 2016 OpenGov & CivicTech Online Unconference this Thursday, January 28th from 11am-2pm Eastern. The event is hosted by former NCDD Board member Lucas Cioffi, and NCDD members get a 30% discount on registration, so make sure to sign up today! Read more below or find the full invitation by clicking here.

2016 OpenGov & CivicTech Online Unconference

What is the purpose? Why should I attend?

  1. Spread the word about your civic tech project.
  2. Network with other innovators.
  3. Bring the toughest questions and challenges you’re facing and gain insights from other participants.

Use promo code “ncdd” when you register here to bring the cost down to just $10.

Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/2016-opengov-civictech-online-unconference-tickets-20428926469

What is an “unconference”?

Unlike standard conferences sessions where people give presentations, unconference sessions are far more conversational.  Professionals will discuss and work through the challenges at the cutting edge of the opengov & civic tech fields.

What is the agenda?

Participants (including you!) create the agenda during the opening session.  This ensures that everyone finds a session that interests them and sets a collaborative tone for the event right from the start. Add your session to the agenda after you register.

Who will be there?

Designers, developers, activists, practitioners, and entrepreneurs working at the intersection of civic engagement and technology.  The power of this event is that it will bring together people with different skills.

You can find more information on the OpenGov & CivicTech Online Unconference by visiting www.eventbrite.com/e/2016-opengov-civictech-online-unconference-tickets-20428926469?.

Can Democracy Reduce Inequality? – A Research Agenda

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We encourage our members to give some thought to the piece below written by NCDD Supporting Member Matt Leighninger for Public Agenda. In it, Matt reflects on evidence that is beginning to show that democratic innovation can actually decrease social inequality and have many other positive effects, and he proposes a series of critical questions for future research into how we can amplify those benefits. Read Matt’s piece below or find the original here.

To reduce economic inequality, do we need better democracy?

PublicAgenda-logoWhen people have a say in the decisions that affect their lives, they will be better off economically as well as politically.

This idea has intrigued community development experts, foundation executives, public officials and academic researchers for many years. It has also animated some of the work people and governments are undertaking to address inequality, both in the United States and (especially) in the Global South.

But can a participatory democracy lead to greater economic opportunity? We are just beginning to amass evidence that this idea is true, understand how and why it works, and figure out how to make it happen better and faster.

Over the last two decades we have witnessed a quiet revolution in how governments and other institutions engage the public. Public officials, technologists, engagement practitioners, community organizers and other leaders have developed hundreds of projects, processes, tools and apps that boost engagement.

While they differ in many ways, these strategies and resources have one common thread: they treat citizens like adults rather than the clients (or children) of the state. They give people chances to connect, learn, deliberate, make recommendations, vote on budget or policy decisions, take action to solve public problems or all of the above. The principles behind these practices embody and enable greater political equality.

This wave of experimentation has produced inspiring outcomes in cities all over the world, but it has been particularly productive in Brazil and other parts of the Global South, where engagement has been built into the way that many cities operate. In these places, it is increasingly clear that when people have a legitimate voice in the institutions that govern their communities, and when they have support through various kinds of social and political networks, their economic fortunes improve.

The best-documented cases come from cities in Brazil, where Participatory Budgeting and other forms of engagement have been built into a much more robust “civic infrastructure” than we have in most American cities. In other words, people in these places have a wider variety of ways to participate on a broader range of issues and decisions. Their chances for engagement include online opportunities as well as face-to-face meetings. Many are social events as much as political ones: people participate because they get to see their neighbors and feel like they are part of a community, in addition to being able to weigh in on a public decision.

In these cities, the gap between rich and poor has narrowed, much more so than in similar cities without vibrant local democracies. In addition, governments are more likely to complete planned projects; public finances are better managed and less prone to corruption; people exhibit increased trust in public institutions and are more likely to pay their taxes; public expenditures are more likely to benefit low-income people; public health outcomes, such as the rate of infant mortality, have improved; and poverty has been reduced.

The connection between democratic innovation and greater economic equity raises many questions ripe for research:

Does short-term engagement yield long-term impacts?

Most of the engagement work in the United States and other countries of the Global North have come in the form of temporary efforts to address a public issue or policy decision. They have produced outcomes of their own, but due to their short-term nature, they seem unlikely to have shifted long-term challenges like inequality. But this is a hypothesis rather than a well-supported conclusion. We might shed light on this question by assessing the long-term impacts of such processes – for example, projects like Horizons, in which thousands of people in hundreds of small towns in the Pacific Northwest worked together to address rural poverty.

Do stronger networks from sustained engagement boost economic opportunity?

Sustained engagement seems to strengthen community networks, so that people may be more likely to find jobs or find supports that help them work, such as child care or transportation. How much does this “social capital” effect explain the effects of participation on inequality?

What is the role of data and transparency in reducing inequality?

Tiago Peixoto of the World Bank argues that annual participatory budgeting processes make a greater impact on inequality when the data on local inequality are made public, and when local officials and participatory budgeting organizers emphasize those numbers as a key goal of the process. In other words, when people focus regularly on equality data, they are better able to ensure that the process reduces inequality. While participatory budgeting has been proliferating across the United States, the role of inequality data is not as strong in the American processes.

Does engagement in the private sector boost local economies or public-sector engagement?

Workplaces have also used engagement tools and processes to help people learn, connect with colleagues, make decisions and improve how they work. In fact, it may be true that in some cases, private institutions are more responsive and participatory than public ones. In some cases, high levels of engagement in the workplace seem to have spilled over into the community, creating “more robust forms of community engagement.” Some business leaders clearly feel that workplace engagement enhances the productivity of their firms – does it also enhance the state of the local economy? Should we be considering engagement in the private sector as we explore ways to advance it in the public sector?

Is it important to explicitly acknowledge racial and cultural differences in engagement efforts?

Many engagement processes, especially in the United States, have focused on the role of race in public life, especially in areas like policing and immigration. The knowledge gained through engaging citizens around issues of cultural difference helped inform how practitioners organize engagement on other issues. To what extent have engagement efforts in other countries addressed race, and how important is it to explicitly address cultural difference in any attempt to promote participation and reduce inequality?

What can public institutions do to integrate engagement internally and support sustained engagement externally?

How can public institutions, including local governments and K-12 school systems and state and federal institutions such as Congress, incorporate more productive engagement practices and principles in the way they operate? How can these entities work with foundations, universities, businesses, nonprofit organizations and other groups to support more sustained, efficient and powerful opportunities of public participation?

These are ambitious questions. But if we are serious about reducing inequality, at home and abroad, practitioners and researchers should be taking a broader view of what we are learning about democracy and what we might do to improve it.

You can find the original version of this Public Agenda blog post at www.publicagenda.org/blogs/to-reduce-economic-inequality-do-we-need-better-democracy#sthash.RPWmYRS7.dpuf.