Category Archives: civic infrastructure

Betty Knighton Interview from Kettering

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Our friends at the Kettering Foundation, a long-time NCDD organizational member, recently shared a great interview on their blog with Betty Knighton (also a member) that we found to be quite insightful. Betty is an accomplished public engagement professional in W. Virginia whose experience we can all learn from, so we encourage you to read the interview below, or find the original post at www.kettering.org/kfnews/betty-knighton.

kf You can learn a lot about an organization by who they learn from. One of the folks Kettering has learned the most from is Betty Knighton of Charleston, West Virginia. Betty is a master of citizen engagement, someone who’s figured out how to work with communities around her state. But unlike many folks with a supersized talent, she also has the even rarer ability of being able to tell you how she does what she does. If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Betty, either at one of Kettering’s many learning exchanges or in West Virginia, here are some of Betty’s unique insights into community engagement – in her own words.

Since 1998, Betty has run the West Virginia Center for Civic Life. The center, which functions as an impartial organization supporting public engagement on tough issues in West Virginia, believes in the motto of National Issues Forums: “Understand. Decide. Act.” Three simple words, yet many lament we rarely see this attention to public issues any more. The poor state of public discourse in many communities around the country makes her work all the more admirable and worthy of discussion. And like many people Kettering works with, Betty doesn’t fit the stereotypical public engagement personality: she isn’t an elected official, she’s not trained professionally in public administration, nor does she have a degree in political science. Betty is a former high school English teacher who was working at the West Virginia Humanities Council on a literature discussion program for teachers when she became interested in National Issues Forums. Through the council, she began to form a statewide coalition of partnering organizations to help West Virginians talk and work together on issues facing the state. Eventually, their work grew into the creation of a nonprofit, freestanding organization, the West Virginia Center for Civic Life.

Jack Becker: Can you talk about a current issue you’re working on?

Betty Knighton: We’re currently working on a project about the economic future of West Virginia. Like so many states in rapid economic change these days, West Virginia is struggling to find ways to move forward on many fronts. There are conflicting ideas in some of these areas, especially in how the state should use its natural resources. For us to be useful to the state and to communities, we’re focusing on identifying conflicting perspectives and helping community’s frame those perspectives into constructive conversations.

When we work with West Virginians to frame issues, we’re really engaging in a conversation with people about how they see the problem. The framing of the issue has to represent different points of view in order to help communities have a comprehensive discussion that leads to productive decisions. The framing of these discussions is integral to the integrity of the entire process. If the issue framework sidelines an entire group of people, it won’t help the state move forward in the way it needs.

We’ve also seen how important it is that the organizers of community discussions come from different sectors – nonprofits, faith groups, government agencies, educational groups, the private sector. Not only does this kind of coalition underscore the openness of the process, but also it allows working relationships to develop that will have a major impact as communities move from dialogue to action.

A big part of what you’re doing, then, is identifying when and where people come together, and sometimes catalyzing opportunities for that to happen. A lot of people are thinking about this as “civic infrastructure.” What are your thoughts on that?

While most communities don’t use the term “civic infrastructure,” those that are most intentional in building opportunities for people to talk and work together are actually thinking a great deal about what civic infrastructure entails. Recently, we’ve been working with several communities as they are identifying the existing connections and relationships in their areas.

They are asking themselves: Where do conversations occur naturally in our community? Or, what kind of informal relationships do we have that help our community move forward? People often have to think hard and dig deep to uncover what is happening in their communities since so much of it is outside formal processes and spaces. Everybody, from the mayor to any citizen, knows something about the civic infrastructure in his or her community. At the same time, nobody knows everything. The work community members are doing to “map” what is happening around them is increasing opportunities for connected work and for stronger relationships to carry that work forward.

Some communities have developed ongoing spaces for community conversations. Huntington has a weekly process they call Chat ‘n Chew – open to everyone – as a time Huntington residents can come together, talk about local needs, and often, to work to address the needs they’ve identified. During Chat ‘n Chews, they are also enjoying a social time together and building a more connected community in the process.

Many communities in our state are doing this, often at cafés or restaurants, over breakfast, lunch or dinner. What’s special here is that many people are intentionally building habits of coming together and to talk about issues. While these initiatives are all locally organized, we try to learn about what’s happening so we can share their practices with other communities in West Virginia.

So I’m hearing that there’s a bit of a tension between rapid response dialogue and the more long-term work of building civic infrastructure. Is that right?

In many cases, we’re seeing that communities that have been the most intentional about building – or surfacing – connections are the ones that are most equipped to respond to public issues. It won’t necessarily be done quickly; most of these issues are complex and difficult. But communities that have an informal infrastructure to support public framing of issues and productive dialogues are starting several steps ahead.

When we work with communities, we try to help them build on the capacity they already have. Sometimes, people think they have to have a great deal of professional expertise and training before they can bring the community together for a conversation. While certain skills are very helpful for these community moderators and conveners, most often, it’s a matter of redirecting the skills they already have into a new, more public purpose.

The language I hear you speaking is that of assets. Similar to what John McKnight and the Asset-Based Community Development Institute has worked on for years, you’re saying that focusing on a community’s assets rather than deficits can facilitate better problem solving?

Communities do have infrastructures and capacities; they just don’t always recognize them. In our work with communities, and especially in our current work on the economic future of the state, we are working with communities to build on existing assets rather than to develop a list of deficits. It’s important for people to understand the severity of problems, though. For example, many West Virginians’ eyes were opened to the severity of the state’s prescription drug abuse problem in the 120 community dialogues that have been held around the state. Fortunately, they also learned about much good work that was underway, and they were able to build on that and set directions for new work to fill the many gaps.

How does the infrastructure that supports dialogue impact the move to action?

We’ve seen that the strong community connections that support deep and broad public dialogue are the key indicator of whether community actions will evolve. No matter how good the discussion is, community actions don’t just spontaneously erupt afterward. The connections and relationships that create the dialogues, coupled with the new relationships that develop during the dialogue, provide a solid infrastructure to support the hard work of planning and implementing community actions. It’s been exciting to see communities work so intentionally and with such deep insight into the importance of these connections. We’re trying our best to learn along with these communities and to share their work with others.

New Step for Harwood’s Public Innovators Initiative

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We are pleased to share the announcement below about an exciting and ambitious initiative being undertaken by Rich Harwood and the Harwood Institute, an NCDD organizational member. The Harwood Institute is setting bold goals for its Public Innovators program, which you can read about below or in the original post here.

We are also excited to share that NCDD is in talks with Harwood to develop a partnership between our two organizations and networks which we hope will further advance all of our work. Stay tuned for more details!

Our New Goal: 5,000 Trained Public Innovators Ready to Change the Country

HarwoodLogoI’m glad to announce today The Harwood Institute’s plan to train 5,000 new Public Innovators by 2016. Public innovators are individuals with the mindset and skills to catalyze and drive productive change in communities and change how communities work together. We’ll also grow our Public Innovators Corps to 100,000 members – individuals who actively support this new direction and use our approach to better their communities, organizations and lives.

We’ve put this stake in the ground to counter the growing toxic public discourse, division and mistrust in our society. There is an urgent need to make community a common enterprise. Even the best leaders, organizations, and citizens cannot make progress alone in the existing environment. We must pull together in a common direction.

This year I’ll also continue our new Reclaiming Main Street Campaign in which I’ll be touring the country to lay out what people and groups can do to make communities a common enterprise, and to invite individuals from all walks of life to join this cause. To be clear, this is not an initiative to garner support for the Institute, but rather for the Institute to support the progress I have heard so many Americans say they want to achieve in their communities.

Public innovators – a designation developed by the Institute – share three defining characteristics. First, they have deeply held ideals that serve as a compass for everything they do in their work and community. Second, they are deeply pragmatic; they know that ideals alone will not produce the change they seek. They want to know what works and they are insistent on re-calibrating their efforts as they learn. Third, they understand risk. They are willing to push hard for change and try out new ideas, while recognizing they must align their efforts to what people care about in their communities.

At the Institute, we don’t “create” public innovators. Instead, we help people tap into their own innate potential and capabilities to develop themselves into public innovators. We teach these individuals a practice that involves a mindset of making the community the reference point for everything they do (what we call being “turned outward”) and a set of core competencies that gives them the skills to bring people together to produce results on issues ranging from education and hunger to health care and financial literacy.

Admittedly, our 2016 goals are audacious. But we stand at a critical point in time. The Institute’s efforts – together with like-minded endeavors across the U.S. – can make a real difference in restoring our belief that we can get things done together. Through these efforts we aim to create:

  1. Proof points of change – generating both big and small wins that demonstrate that change is possible;
  2. New ways of working – showing that it is possible to fix our toxic public discourse, increase shared responsibility and make community a common enterprise. These are essential to answer people’s yearning for an alternate path to business as usual;
  3. An army of storytellers – mobilizing people and groups to amplify and spread stories of change. It is imperative to foster a new, can-do narrative that combats ingrained negative beliefs that progress is not possible;
  4. A path for people to act – providing individuals and groups clear ways to get started and take action in their communities and lives. People want to step forward, but they need to see how they can make a difference.

I said earlier that no one group or individual can do this work alone. I believe that. And so one of the ways in which the Institute is achieving these goals is through forging alliances with networked organizations such as United Way Worldwide, American Library Association, AARP and public broadcasting. Literally thousands of local affiliates and individuals in these networks are now using our practice across the U.S. and around the globe.

And we’re starting new alliances all the time. Just last week we launched a new statewide partnership with the Indiana Association of United Ways to develop public innovators throughout the 60-plus local United Ways in the state. We’ll be announcing additional alliances in the coming months. At this very moment, the Institute is building a critical mass of public innovators and organizations in individual communities such as Battle Creek, Michigan and Youngstown, Ohio to help shift the civic culture of those communities.

Throughout the country, public innovators are finding one another and working together. Our new strategy is to greatly expand these efforts in order to marshal the collective energy of individuals and groups to move the country in a new direction.
I hope you’ll join with me in this effort as we:

  • Bring Public Innovator Labs to more communities in the coming months. Join us for one of these Labs, or even bring a Lab to your community.
  • Develop and launch a new Public Innovator Certification program over the next 18 months. You’ll be able to go deeper in this approach and get certified.
  • Recruit 100,000 members of the Public Innovators Corps by 2016. We’ll provide them with ways to take effective action in their communities, organizations and lives. My hope is that you will encourage your friends and colleagues to join with us.
  • Expand the Reclaiming Main Street Campaign. We’d love to come to your community.

I invite you to write me directly at rharwood@theharwoodinstitute.org about how, together, we can make communities a common enterprise and put our nation on a more productive, hopeful path.

2014 Public Participation Interview: Lessons from Hollywood

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We recently started reading a terrific interview series from the talented team at Collaborative Services on public participation lessons they have learned in the last year, and we wanted to share their insights with the NCDD community. The second interview in the series features the reflections of Corri Planck of West Hollywood’s Social Services Division, who talks about the award-winning engagement project the Division ran in 2013. You can read the interview below, or find the original on Collaborative Services’ blog by clicking here.

Taking the Study to the People:
Successful Public Participation the “WeHo” Way

collaborative services logo There’s no place like home. This is true for the residents of the vibrant and eccentric city of West Hollywood, or “WeHo” as it’s lovingly known. When the City of West Hollywood’s Social Services Division conducted its 2013 Community Study it discovered that 90% of its residents responded that they have a good or excellent quality of life. Can you say the same about the place you live?

West Hollywood is home to the Sunset Strip, Santa Monica Boulevard, and the Avenues Design District. It has a land area of less than two miles. Here you can run errands and get to and from restaurants, bars, shopping and services all without a car. It is one of California’s most walkable cities according to Walkscore.

Its population of around 35,000 is as diverse as its land uses. Its residents are known for being socially minded. They are made up of various cultures, ages, religions and sexual orientations. It is also the second most concentrated Russian-speaking region in the United States.

With a city this compact and diverse, which services are most important? That was the question. The City’s Social Services Division set out to engage, listen to and learn from its residents during its 2013 Community Study to develop recommendations for the allocation of general funds and to update the city’s demographics. The Social Services Division used creative and flexible opportunities for public participation to bring the Study to the people. This type of engagement helped the City of West Hollywood to win one of the two 2013 International Association of Public Participation USA Core Values Awards for Project of the Year.

This week we hear from Corri Planck, the Program Administrator for the City of West Hollywood’s Social Services Division. She shares with us the unique and collaborative approach to public participation that was used with the 2013 Community Study. An approach to public participation that is sure to be part of the city’s legacy.

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What is the Social Services Division’s role at the City of West Hollywood?

The Social Services Division for the City of West Hollywood has a rich and deep history of ensuring service and support for our community members. Though a collaborative funding process, the Social Services Division monitors $4.2 million annually in social services contracts.

In addition, the Division manages a variety of transit programs; develops and coordinates social and educational programming for a diverse range of issues and populations; and responds directly to constituent needs.

What findings were you hoping or expecting to gather from this year’s Community Study?

The purpose of the study was three-fold. We wanted to update our City’s demographics; develop actionable recommendations for the $4.2 million of general fund dollars allocated for social services contracts; and make sure we could continue to best understand West Hollywood and its residents.

What was your outreach approach and how early did you begin generating interest in the Community Study?

This was an exceptionally ambitious project – in its scope, in its commitment to unprecedented community engagement and certainly in its timeline. We began in January, and held our last community event in March. A preliminary summary report was issued in April, with the full, final report published in early August.

Our planning for the Community Study included a thorough outreach and communications strategy that utilized a full range of the City’s resources to get the word out. Our commitment was to consistent, constant communication.

There were the standard flyers, postcards, and posters as well as banners in our two major City parks. We crafted nine news releases on various stages of the process, placed an article in the City newsletter, worked with our Public Information Office to script a special episode of #trending, a magazine style talk show, exclusively dedicated to the Study on WeHo TV. We created a social media presence, and all printed materials were available in English, Russian and Spanish (including the survey itself). We created a special webpage dedicated to the Study that was updated throughout the process, and benefited from the e-mail signatures with the Community Study logo and hyperlink that our City staff members added to their outgoing messages.

We also relied on old-fashioned, face-to-face communication. Our Social Service staff and the City’s Human Service Commissioners visited every City Advisory Board and Commission, some more than once, during this process to keep them informed. We were able to utilize the Neighborhood Watch e-mail lists to engage residents, and did direct outreach to the West Hollywood-serving social service agencies. In addition, staff members generated multiple e-mails and phone calls to invite community members to participate in a number of the opportunities, from focus groups to stakeholder interviews to attending community meetings.

This year’s Community Study attracted a record high number of responses. Is there a single tactic or public participation event that created more interest to have the influx of new survey participants?

Our commitment to consistent and constant communication aided us across the board in increasing the level of participation.

We added pop-up workshops to this year’s process, guided by the idea of taking the public meeting to the people. We “popped up” in multiple locations throughout the City on various days and times.

Participants were able to engage in multiple activities, all designed to solicit their priorities for social services – target populations, service areas and budget priorities. It allowed people to give us their time as they chose – one of the activities could take 10 seconds, and others could engage people for 15-20 minutes. It was a really great way for us to hear from people who might not ever attend a traditional community meeting.

A pop-up workshop booth at the City of West Hollywood City Hall lobby
(Credit: PMCWorld.com)

The last Community Study was conducted in 2006. What are the most notable differences in how the Community Study was carried out between now and then?

The major difference was the addition of the community engagement activities — pop-up workshops — which took the study to the people.

Were you surprised by any of the feedback you gathered?

More than surprising, there were moments in this process that were completely inspiring, and it was absolutely affirming of the City of West Hollywood’s core values.

We found that 88% of residents rated as excellent or good the job the City is doing to provide services, and 90% rated their quality of life as excellent or good.

Last year, nearly 10,000 of our community members utilized a social service – whether it was a home-delivered meal or an HIV test or a shelter at night or an after-school program or any number of other services we provide. That’s nearly one-third of our total population.

The City’s commitment to social services is clearly a source of pride for our community members as well. The provision of social services is part of the City’s legacy and our residents feel a sense of shared ownership in this core value, in this ideal.  An email signature used by City of West Hollywood staff.

How do you plan to share the Study’s findings with the West Hollywood community?

The findings of the Community Study were put to immediate use by the Human Services Commission, our City Council and prospective partner agencies as part of the funding process for our Social Services contracts. The needs that were articulated in the Community Study process were directly addressed in that funding process – resulting in new providers, increased access to mental health services, and additional options for substance abuse services and programs.

We continue to report back to various City advisory boards and commissions, to our City staff and the Study itself has been made available to the public since it was published.

Some of the findings were just so great that we felt we should find additional, creative ways to share the info. We created a series of graphics to utilize via social media and as e-mail signatures.

What changes will you make, if any, to your next outreach campaign?

Because the City has a history of conducting these Community Studies, there are elements that will remain the same over time, primarily to ensure the consistency and validity of the comparisons over time. That said, it’s probably too early to commit to potential changes in outreach, given the speed at which technology and communications is changing. Our primary commitment, however, will remain the same – to secure the highest levels of community engagement possible.

Credit: The City of West Hollywood

What do you think is the most important act a local government can do to foster constructive public dialogue?

To foster engagement on a regular basis — provide information, ask questions, and listen. To ensure that we truly engage with our community and that we strive to do so in real, meaningful and purposeful ways.

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Thank you Corri for sharing your insights with us. Taking the Study to the people is a great way to make it easier for them to get involved.

This interview is part of a blog series from Collaborative Services, Inc. - a public outreach firm in San Diego, California that brings people together from their individual spheres and disciplines to improve communities and help people adapt to an ever-changing world. The firm uses inter-disciplinary efforts to manage and provide services in stakeholder involvement, marketing and communications, and public affairs. The firm’s award-winning services have spanned the western region of the United States from Tacoma, Washington to the Mexico Port of Entry.

We thank Collaborative Services for allowing NCDD to learn along with them, and we encourage our members to visit their blog by clicking here. You can find the original version of the above article at www.collaborativeservicesinc.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/taking-the-study-to-the-people-successful-public-participation-the-weho-way.

Earning Trust in Public Institutions

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DavenportInst-logo

We recently read an interesting post on the inCommon blog run by our partners at the Davenport Institute – an NCDD organizational member – about trust’s relationship to engagement. You can read the post below or find the original here, and we also recommend you take a look at the study on trust the post refers to.

The Rand Europe Spotlight on 2013 is a bit broad, but the theme, “Building Trust in Policymaking,” is certainly relevant to civic engagement:

The relationship between citizens and public bodies relies on trust: we trust them to make good decisions on our behalf and implement them well. But public faith has been severely shaken in recent years. A global barometer of trust in institutions found that only 48 percent of people trust governments to do what is right, and that only 16 percent trust them a great deal…

The projects featured this year highlight three different ways in which policymakers can gain trust:

  • Working across boundaries to anticipate new strategic challenges.
  • Using robust methodologies to ensure that policy is grounded in sound evidence.
  • Providing effective, adaptive local delivery. (3)

Two sections are especially relevant to public servants in local government. One is “Grounding Policy in Evidence”:

Tight budgets, rising expectations and greater focus on accountability all add to the pressure on policymakers to show that their decisions are informed by sound evidence – whilst also addressing local needs, values and agendas.

But what constitutes evidence? While the tide of information increases daily, public [skepticism] of official figures is also high. Timeliness, relevance and data integrity are essential to build trust and refute the old charge of: ‘Lies, damned lies and statistics.’ (15)

The other is “Earning Trust at Delivery”:

At an individual or community level, all policy is personal. Whether policies are delivered directly by central government or local authorities, or through private or third-sector providers, good relationships are essential. Trust is created by getting the details right for successful local implementation. (23)

You can download the e-book at the Rand website here.

You can find the original version of this post at www.publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/davenport-institute/incommon/index.php/2014/02/europe-spotlight-trust.

A Look Inside an NDN Conversation

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Our friends at the Interactivity Foundation recently published reflections from Dennis Boyer on his experience convening a conversation on poverty as part of the National Dialogue Network - one of the winners of the 2012 NCDD Catalyst Awards. We thought it was a great look inside the NDN process and wanted to share it with you. You can read the full article below or find the original on the IF blog by clicking here.

NDN logo

The National Dialogue Network (NDN) spent over a year planning and organizing the initial phases of a national dialogue on a topic of public concern, relying on practitioners within the public participatory sphere to assist and comment. Cooperating practitioners assisted in selecting and framing the concern of the first NDN dialogue project: poverty.

I first heard of the effort at the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation(NCDD) conference in Seattle, Washington in the Fall of 2012. It was my intent from the outset to personally facilitate a small group discussion for the project. I had advocated for a national discussion of either climate impacts or the role of money in political campaigns, but was satisfied that the chosen concern of poverty would provide a useful experiential basis for national dialogue.

By late Summer of 2013 the NDN was actively soliciting practitioner participation in facilitating “Phase 3” of the project: local discussion of the materials developed on questions surrounding poverty and wealth. I facilitated one such discussion in Iowa County, Wisconsin, a rural area about an hour’s drive west of Madison. Three of my participants had prior experience in public discussions sponsored by the Interactivity Foundation (IF) and one of those had participated previously in public discussion of material produced by Kettering Foundation/National Issues Forum (KF/NIF).

The NDN discussion materials are very different than IF discussion reports or KF/NIF discussion guides. IF reports usually pose six to eight contrasting conceptual policy possibilities and KF/NIF guides usually focus on three somewhat more developed policy approaches that often reflect some alternatives and some middle ground. When asked how to outline how IF’s approach differs from KF/NIF, I usually explain IF’s possibilities as discussion starters close to the origin point of the deliberative continuum, with KF/NIF materials representing more concrete ideas somewhat further out that continuum. NDN materials, on the other hand, may represent a location even closer to the deliberative origin point, calling upon discussants to explore some very basic thinking that shapes public impressions of the topic of concern.

I retain a spirit of openness toward the usefulness of all three approaches in their respective roles and harbor a belief that robust democratic governance discussion might harness all three in turn—and follow with approaches further out the continuum.

NDN poverty materials encourage some very basic personal introspection and group interaction that more developed policy materials might not. It is often the case that public conversation neglects the feelings and values that go into our impressions of a policy concern. Many deliberative practitioners seek to restore civility to public conversation, but in doing so may make participants more circumspect. NDN materials represent a move away from detachment and passionless pondering.

In that sense they reminded me of IF President Dr. Jack Byrd’s developmental materials on “Fairness” and “Freedom and Responsibility”. My own facilitative experience with Dr. Byrd’s materials have allowed me to see how participant exploration of the personal and experiential side of basic ideas that underlie social and political relationships opens many participants up to deeper understanding of their own positions, the positions of others, and the opportunities for common ground. My NDN discussion experience also exhibited these positive benefits.

The Iowa County NDN discussion group was not very representative of national demographics. We were very white (with one American Indian participant), somewhat older, more likely to be married (all were), and somewhat more clustered in lower-middle income brackets. By the same token, there were some indicators of diversity: a good mix of partisans and independents, backgrounds in different faith communities and secular outlooks, and broad life experiences (foreign travel, volunteer service, etc). Half claimed to have experienced economic deprivation at some point in their lives. All had family members or friends who had resorted to food stamps or public assistance at some point.

NDN materials definitely helped these participants tap their empathetic reserves concerning poverty. In the course of the discussion there was increased recognition of how hard it is for those who have not experienced poverty to understand how debilitating it can be. At the same time they were also made more aware of just how different rural poverty is from urban poverty. Until fairly recently the civil society side of dealing with rural poverty had been relatively strong, with extended families, churches, and fraternal groups playing major roles. Many stories were told about personally benefitting from these informal, non-governmental networks. And there was much speculation about what had made rural poverty harsher over the years: industrialization of agriculture, decline of subsistence living skills, declining population and out-migration, and disappearance of manufacturing jobs in nearby urban areas.

One major discussion thread that occurred independent of the materials was the extent to which informal mechanisms to deal with poverty are still workable. Some thought that certain aspects of the subsistence economy could be revived in rural areas. Others thought the complexity and skill needs of an information economy made it very difficult for the rural poor to overcome their disadvantages.

The arguments over these cleavages were not, of course, resolved. But through the exploration of values, experiences, and goals there was a sense that we as a society could do a better job in dealing with poverty. Where I saw the common ground emerge was around the notion of “good outcomes” that most, if not all, participants could share. This seemed to represent a pulling back from political positions and a refocus on a widely held vision of “what could be.”

Liquid vs. Direct vs. Representative Democracy

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Demsoc-LogoWhen we say “democracy”, it can evoke many different meanings and ideas for the average person – even some that contradict each other.  But that is because there are many different ways to imagine and configure democratic infrastructures, all of which have their own pros and cons.

That is why we were intrigued by a short post we found from a great U.K.-based organization called Democracy Society that offered a delineation of three different kinds of democratic process – direct democracy, representative democracy, and “liquid democracy”:

Direct democracy is when every citizen can vote on each issue directly, this allows people an equal voice, independent of whom they are. Direct democracy has a number of drawbacks. Firstly many people don’t have the time or energy to continuously vote on single policy issues, also many people don’t feel informed enough to take the decisions, meaning they may not vote, this means that voting can become a privilege of those with free-time and confidence in their knowledge. The Second problem is that where direct democracy and popular assemblies, can work well in smaller and less complex communities, such as in ancient Athens, modern nation states are incredibly complex.

Representative Democracy has been the answer to the problems of direct democracy. People relinquish their vote to specific individuals through elections who represent them on the national stage. There are many problems with a representative democracy, as we can see here in the UK, those politicians who act as chosen representatives won’t necessarily vote with their constituents on specific [and even more general] issues, they certainly are unlikely to be able to vote with each individual constituent as large scale consensus is near enough impossible. What’s more, politicians can become bogged down in partisan politics, corrupted by power and divided and detached from the people they are representing. Additionally, this can lead to apathy on the part of the electorate.

Liquid Democracy is a combination of both.  In a liquid democracy people can vote on specific issues [direct democracy] as well as delegating their vote to an individual that represents them [representative democracy]. In a liquid democracy, politicians [optional] would also be able to delegate their vote to others, perhaps based on expertise levels. This is an issue by issue choice that individuals can make, so they do not need to vote directly on every issue simply because on one issue they felt they did not want to delegate their vote. Liquid democracy also involves a much richer system of communication and feedback between politicians and citizens, encouraging dialogue and trust. There are a number of possible issues with liquid democracy, a few; being the increased complexity of voting system that would need to be fairly technology reliant; limited engagement from the electorate on specific issues, which might limit any increase in real democracy; and also that it has never been tried on a large scale, so many issues remain unforeseen and unforeseeable.

The  liquid democracy concept, also known as delegative democracy, has been around for a while now in the discourse of democratic theory, but it is still quite a new idea to many citizens. We are all pretty familiar with representative democracy, and direct democracy is fairly straightforward to understand. But I remember that when I initially found the idea fascinating, but didn’t quite get how it worked.

So I thought I would tack on the video below by the talented Jakob Jochmann, which explains liquid democracy quite clearly. Fittingly enough, Jochmann originally made the video for a political science course in democratic theory.

If you have experience working in groups or organizations that use direct or liquid democracy, we would love to hear your about your experiences and reflections on how the processes compare to other kinds of democratic arrangements. We encourage you to share them in the comments section below, or submit your story for the NCDD blog using our Dialogue Storytelling Tool to share not only the story, but the lessons you learned with the whole community.

Find the original Democracy Society post here: www.demsoc.org/2013/12/12/what-is-liquid-democracy

The National Dialogue Network Begins Its Public Analysis Phase

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We are pleased to highlight the post below, which came from NCDD Sustaining Member and 2012 NCDD Catalyst Award winner John Spady of the National Dialogue Network. Do you have news you want to share with the NCDD network? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

Hello to all our NCDD friends,

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The National Dialogue Network (NDN) — recipient of the 2012 NCDD Catalyst Award in “Civic Infrastructure” — has entered “Cycle 4″ of its original 5-cycle process to design and demonstrate a system for coordinated and collaborative conversations on important national issues. The first issue selected for national conversations was Poverty & Wealth in America.

I am asking readers of this NCDD blog to make a small contribution of time during this brief public analysis phase. Click on both of the links below and just focus on what interests you. Try to understand “what the data is saying.” Then add a comment at the end of this post with any insights you are able to glean from the preliminary report or Excel file. In this current phase, the general public is urged to help interpret the preliminary results received and to submit insights for review and inclusion in the 2013 Summary Report. All assistance will be acknowledged.

If you want a special “cross tab” for analysis, or have any other questions, just let me know — leave a comment below or call our toll free message line: 800-369-2342

Thanks for your help… and now here are the links you’ll need:

Number of self-selected participants who answered the national Opinionnaire® Survey as of Nov. 23, 2013: 105

Preliminary graphic report: http://is.gd/2013NDNPrelimReport.

Excel data (XLS) download: http://is.gd/2013NDN105XLS.

Peter Levine on Making Public Participation Legal

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This post is shared from the blog of supporting NCDD member and professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs in Boston, Dr. Peter Levine. Peter shares a humorous take on the not-so-funny state of public meetings, and highlights the NCDD-supported Making Participation Legal report. For more info about this important intitiative and how it was created, check out our write up on its release.

Making Public Participation Legal

This is pretty much how “public participation” looks when it takes the form of a meeting with officials at the head of the table defending their policies, and their fellow citizens lining up to speak:

The “Parks and Recreaton” satire hits so close to home because public forums usually use awful formats and methods. As Matt Leighninger writes:

The vast majority of public meetings are run according to a formula that hasn’t changed in decades: officials and other experts present, and citizens are given three-minute increments to either ask questions or make comments. There is very little interaction or deliberation. Turnout at most public meetings is very low – local officials often refer to the handful of people who typically show up as the “usual suspects.” But if the community has been gripped by a controversy, turnout is often high, and the three-minute commentaries  can last long into the night. On most issues, the public is either angry or absent; either way, very little is accomplished (Making Public Participation Legal, p. 3).

One reason is the laws that allow or require public participation: they are poorly structured. The Working Group on Legal Frameworks for Public Participation has developed frameworks for better state and local laws. Their model legislation and other materials are presented in a new report, Making Public Participation Legal, available from the Deliberative Democracy Consortium (DDC).

You can find Peter’s original post here: http://peterlevine.ws/?p=12660.

Amanda Kathryn Roman’s Interview from NCDD Seattle

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At the 2012 NCDD national conference in Seattle, NCDD member and filmmaker Jeffrey Abelson sat down with over a dozen leaders in our community to ask them about their work and their hopes and concerns for our field and for democratic governance in our country.

Today we’re featuring an interview with Amanda Kathryn Roman, co-creator of Living Room Conversations.  Amanda embraced public engagement at the age of 12 when she began doing community organizing and has been involved in many forms of bridge-building or transpartisan work ever since.

Watch the blog over the next month or so for more videos from NCDD Seattle, which brought together 400 leaders and innovators in our field. You can also check out Jeffrey Abelson’s Song of a Citizen YouTube channel and in our NCDD 2012 Seattle playlist on YouTube.

Civic Health Clubs and… the Revolution?

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I am excited to share with you today an innovative project that I’ve been involved with in my community that is an interesting twist on connecting people through shared conversations.  The project is led by Evan Weissman, a local teacher, actor, and civic entrepreneur who has been working for over a year now to found a “civic health club” in Denver, Colorado called Warm Cookies of the Revolution – an effort that hopes to offer “an antidote to the loneliness that comes with Facebook and other online interactions” in today’s world.

I have been involved in various ways with Warm Cookies for a while now and have been able to talk with Weissman about the vision for his civic health club, so I’m happy to be able to share what I’ve learned with the NCDD community.

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What is a civic health club, you ask? Weissman answers, “Say you go to the gym for your physical health, and to a house of worship for your spiritual health, and maybe a therapist for mental health. Shouldn’t you have a place where you can go for civic health?”  So, as its website says, “Warm Cookies is where you go to exercise your civic health.”

As many of us know from our work, there are always people who want to connect with others who care about their communities, engage in conversations, find out about different points of view, or find organizations that need volunteers. But as we also know, it can often be hard to find a place to go to satisfy those wants and needs.  So as a civic health club, Warm Cookies of the Revolution seeks to be that place.

But what’s with the name? It’s a question Weissman gets often. For starters, every event that Warm Cookies of the Revolution hosts offers free cookies and milk to participants. But the name is part of a deeper philosophy that Weissman and Warm Cookies hold about the need for deep, far-reaching change in our democracy. Thinking about what change like that could look like can be daunting and even a bit scary, so that’s why the “warm cookies” are there — Weissman wants these conversations to be accessible and fun:

What are the warm cookies of the revolution? What is comforting, enjoyable, desirable about the revolution? What will make the revolution appeal to regular folks that are scared by that word? Is there room for humor in the revolution? What sustains us as we work toward the revolution?

…People either spend their time on things that are necessary, like work and chores, or things that are fun. And just because something is compelling doesn’t mean that people will pay for a babysitter and come to discuss a civic issue. But if it’s fun, they will come… Most people react with a giggle to the name, and that’s important. For people interested in the fun stuff we do, they know there’s a civic purpose as well. And for the people interested in civic change, it’s important for them to understand that fun definitely is part of it.

So in addition to providing cookies at every event, Warm Cookies events are intentionally made to be part serious civic conversation, part fun social gathering. For one of its first events, Warm Cookies put on an event called “Bring Your Government“, where three different speakers — a Colorado senator, a former candidate for Denver mayor, and a local comedian — shared their thoughts on what their ideal government would look like, and steps for how we might get there. At the same time, participants were invited to collaborate on building a Lego city.

That is the feel of many Warm Cookies events: real conversation, but mixed with something fun to occupy participants’ hands or bring them together around food or a shared activity. It is an attempt to embody the reality that if we are really going to have a dramatic shift in our democracy, we are going to need to know our neighbors.

In addition to the “Bring Your Government” format, Warm Cookies has developed a number of flagship types of events that it hosts on a recurring basis, including:

  • The Civic Stitch ‘N Bitch initiates conversations on civic subjects are encouraged while participants get together to knit, crochet, sew, or do another hand craft.
  • Pie, Pie, and Pie Charts in which participants enjoy pizza, pie, and discuss current economic issues.
  • Sunday School for Atheists is a time for discussing issues of values, morality, and their role in society outside of the normal religious context.
  • The Huddle encourages participants to take time outs while they watch the Thursday night football game to discuss the social issues that revolve around professional sports.
  • and the Intergenerational Mixtape Show & Tell, where participants of all ages bring objects and music representative of their generation to discuss what it means to them, as well as the roles of different generations play in our society. (I personally worked on creating the first event of this kind with Weissman and we’re looking forward to doing more soon!)

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The civic health club idea has been catching on and attendance at the events has been growing. Weissman and his partners with Warm Cookies of the Revolution are working to open up a brick and mortar location for the club within a year that will house more frequent civic gatherings and events and, of course, offer free warm cookies.

Opening the space is part of the larger vision to make civic health clubs, as an important infrastructure for growing our communities’ capacity to really practice democracy, a more regular part of our cities and towns. As Weissman says,

The truth is, there’s a sports bar on every corner, shopping malls in every town, theaters and comedy clubs. How about one place you know you can go for some fun and to learn how and why you can take part in civic life? Like my friend Stephen Handen says, ‘You don’t learn to swim by reading a book.’ We have to exercise our civic health. There has to be an action component.

I am excited to see Warm Cookies growing in my community, and we at NCDD are quite impressed with the creativity and innovativeness of this new way of getting our communities talking.  We will be following the way that Warm Cookies of the Revolution shapes up with great interest, and we encourage you to do the same!

You can find out more about the new Denver civic health club at their website, www.WarmCookiesOfTheRevolution.org. You can contact Weissman and his team at info@warmcookiesoftherevolution.org.  You can also learn more by checking out the Colorado publications that have written about Warm Cookies and Evan’s thoughts here, here, and here.

Long live the civic health revolution!