Lessons on Turning Deliberation into Action from Alabama

Posted on February 14, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

The David Mathews Center – an NCDD member org – recently completed a great deliberative process focused on helping Alabama communities take action together to improve their town, and we think many in our network could learn a thing or two from it, so we’re sharing about it here. The DMC team wrote an insightful piece on their three-stage process of moving the town of Cullman from talk to collaborative action, and we encourage you to read it below or find the original version on their blog here.

What’s Next, Cullman? Pilot Program Wraps Up

The DMC recently wrapped up its pilot forum series for What’s Next, Alabama? in the city of Cullman, with promising results.

What’s Next, Alabama? (WNAL) is shaping up to be the Mathew Center’s largest programmatic undertaking to date. WNAL is a part of the DMC’s flagship program, Alabama Issues Forums (AIF), and will feature three deliberative forums in each community, focused broadly on issues of community, economic, and workforce development.

The first forum will ask, “Where are we now?” How did your community get to where it is today? What has been working well, and what hasn’t? What are the assets already have at your disposal? The second forum will ask, “Where do we want to go?” What would you like to change about your community? What would you live to preserve? What issue(s) would you like to tackle? What are your priorities? The third forum will ask, “How do we get there?” Using the resources you have, what is most doable? What are the next steps? How can you move from talk to action? Partnering with local conveners including the LINK of Cullman County and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, we were able to launch What’s Next, Cullman? as a pilot program and our first WNAL community.

The first forum gave the community an opportunity for deep reflection on the changes Cullman has seen through the years. Attendees crafted an exhaustive list of what they loved about their community and what assets they could leverage, before moving on to discuss the challenges that face their community. The second forum allowed the community to take the challenges identified, and craft them into opportunities for action. Of all the issued discussed, two rose to the surface, and were identified as priorities for the community: developing “soft skills” in the community’s young people, and expanding options for public transportation.

In the final forum, attendees really prioritized the lack of public transportation options, and began to make a plan to move toward action. After much deliberation, the community came to an ingenious, asset-based plan for creating more options for transportation: tapping into the vast network of churches in the community, they could create an inter-congregational ride share program. With each church operating on a neighborhood-wide level, and with the cooperation of the many other churches in the city, even the tiniest effort by an individual church could have a huge impact, when combined with the efforts of other churches.

This is a prime example of how ordinary citizens, in no official “position of power” are able to leverage their inherent power and expertise as members of a community in order to take a fresh look at the assets of their community, and build a local solution to address a local challenge. This is the kind of locally-grown civic action that the DMC hopes to cultivate with the WNAL forum series.

As we have worked towards launching this forum series, we are invariably heartened by the care and dedication exhibited by Alabamians for the place they live. We are incredibly grateful for our conveners in Cullman, and the community at large, for embracing us and giving us the opportunity to work with them. We are confident that as WNAL evolves, and more resources become available, the potential for Alabamians to build civic infrastructure in their own communities will increase exponentially.

You can find the original version of this David Mathews Center blog post at www.mathewscenter.org/wnal-cullman-pilot.

What You Missed on the Confab Call with Not In Our Town

Posted on February 10, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

NCDD was happy to host a very special Confab Call earlier this week featuring NCDD member organization Not In Our Town (NIOT). Over 50 people from our network joined us for a conversation with Patrice O’Neill, NIOT’s executive director, about how the history of NIOT’s history, its work, and how the dialogue events that NIOT hosts have helped catalyze broad civic engagement and stop the spread of hate in communities across the country.

We recorded the Confab as always, so if you missed it, we highly encourage you to list to the recording of the webinar by clicking here. You can also click here to read the transcript of the chat from the webinar where we shared a number of resources, links, and answers to questions posed during the call.

One of the most exciting possibilities that came out of the call was the clear opportunity for dialogue practitioners from NCDD’s network to support the towns and communities that NIOT works with in their dialogue events on hate and bullying. NIOT and NCDD are discussing ways to bring dialogue partners and a framework to local NIOT groups working long term to prevent hate and foster inclusion, but we want you to be part of the discussion too!

We’ve created a quick 5-question survey that we are asking our network to fill out so that we can find out who is interested in continuing conversations about NCDD-NIOT collaborations and collect your ideas about what that could look like. Please take just a couple minutes to complete the brief survey at www.surveymonkey.com/r/KRVC252 if you’re interested. We will have more on these collaboration opportunities soon.

In the meantime, if you want to connect with Not In Our Town’s work, here’s are some suggestions from Patrice for ways you can get involved:

Host a NIOT screening in your community. Choose a NIOT film, convene key leaders and community members to view the film and hold a dialogue about who is vulnerable to hate in your community and how people can work together to respond. The screening can lead to a more formal way to engage with NIOT. If your community has capacity, Patrice O’Neill or another NIOT representative can come to your town to present the film, ideas and help convene a NIOT group.
Engage with NIOT on social media. You can share stories and films of communities responding to hate with via NIOT’s on Facebook and Twitter.
Sign up for the NIOT e-newsletter. You can stay in the NIOT network loop and sign up for the occasional newsletter by clicking here.
Start a NIOT group in your community. If you have had incidents of hate or bullying in your town and you’re moved to take action, you can also work on helping start a NIOT group yourself. Learn more about how it works and what it takes by clicking here.

Thanks again to Patrice and all of those who participated for a great Confab Call. We look forward to exploring the potentials for partnership and will keep you all updated on how it goes.

To learn more about NCDD’s Confab Calls and hear recordings of others, visit www.ncdd.org/events/confabs.

Don’t Miss the Confab Call on Responses to Hate, Feb. 8

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

In case you missed our announcement last month, we want to remind the NCDD network to register today for our next Confab Call, this Wednesday, February 8th from 1-2pm Eastern/10-11am Pacific with Not In Our Town (NIOT).

Not In Our Town is an NCDD member organization that uses film and community-wide dialogue to support towns and schools around the country in formulating a response to hate crimes, bullying, and hate groups. The Confab will feature a presentation from NIOT’s CEO and Excutive Producer Patrice O’Neill on the work they do, how it has changed since the spike in hate crimes since the election, and how the D&D field can support the growing need for conversation on addressing hate and violence in our communities.

You won’t want to miss this opportunity to connect to important work of using dialogue to address. We highly encourage you to register today for this great call!

This call is part of NCDD’s ongoing #BridgingOurDivides campaign that seeks to highlight key resources and methodologies our field can use to address divides that the 2016 election created and exacerbated. The call will be a perfect opportunity to learn about how you can access and use the over 100 of films and discussion guides that NIOT has created to support dialogue and action around dozens of kinds of bullying and hate, all of which can be critical tools for the D&D community to tap into.

We are excited about the possibilities this Confab presents for seeding collaborations. Be sure register today for this great call!

Bridging Our Divides with NCL’s All-America Conversations

Posted on February 3, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

NCDD members might want to check out the All-America Conversations initiative being hosted by the National Civic League, an NCDD member organization. NCL is encouraging communities across the country to host short, public conversations focused on questions of how we can begin #BridgingOurDivides, showing that our country can still work together. They are providing a toolkit and webinar training series to help conversation hosts plan and convene these events, and we encourage practitioners in our network to consider hosting one yourself. You can learn more in the NCL announcement below or by learning more here.

All-American Conversations: Bridging Divides. Building Community.

National Civic League is launching All-America Conversations to demonstrate that locally, we are still able to work together across dividing lines to create stronger, more equitable communities.

Communities that host All-America Conversations will:

Better understand residents’ aspirations for the community
Learn how residents talk about and see community challenges and divisions
Gain clear insight into what small actions would give people confidence that we can work together across dividing lines
Help residents engage with one another in a productive conversation
Demonstrate a commitment to inclusive engagement

All-America Conversations are designed to help cities and other groups understand residents’ aspirations for the community, the divisions facing the community and, most importantly, the small, specific actions that give people a sense of confidence that we can work across dividing lines.

The format/template for All-America Conversations is flexible and scalable. Some communities will decide to focus on engaging underrepresented residents about their specific concerns and perspectives. Others will hold conversations designed to bring together people on different sides a specific divide to talk with one another and explore shared values. Some communities will use these questions and conversations as part of a large public meeting with breakout conversations.

Conversation Resources and Support

All-America Conversation Toolkit

Everything necessary to hold a productive and meaningful conversation – just add residents.

The toolkit walks you through:

How to identify whom you want to engage and how to recruit participants
Where to hold the conversations
How to set up the room
Selecting and preparing facilitators and note takers
What questions to ask
How to adapt the conversation guide to different types of meetings

The kit also includes a tips for facilitators and note takers, a note taking tool, ground rules, a sign-in sheet, sample recruitment letter, sample email to engage the media around these conversations.

Download the Toolkit and other resources

Support and Coaching Calls

NCL is hosting a series of 1-hour conference calls to provide support for communities or organizations hosting All-America Conversations. Calls will include a brief overview of the purpose and potential of these conversations and available resources. The main focus is providing local communities with the support, coaching and guidance necessary to make the conversations work for them. So, each call will include dedicated time for support and coaching from NCL experts to help you adjust the conversations to fit with existing efforts, your local context, staff resources and community needs.

You can watch the Jan. 31st, 2017 toolkit webinar here:

You can find the original version of this National Civic League announcement at www.nationalcivicleague.org/all-america-conversations

Committing to Building Our Nation’s Capacity for Democracy

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

Today is Inauguration Day, and the scene in the nation’s capitol is one of stark differences. The country’s new administration is officially taking power amid both large protests and large celebrations, and the picture clearly reflects to us that, over the next four years, we in the field of dialogue and deliberation have our work cut out for us. A functioning democracy depends on people who disagree, often deeply, still having the capacity to listen and talk to one another and make decisions together. And today in DC, the need – and the opportunity – for the D&D field to work on building that capacity is on full display.

To help us reflect on the work ahead we wanted to share a piece penned by NCDD member Kyle Bozentko of the Jefferson Center that, though it was written shortly after the election, still holds much truth for today as well. We encourage you to read the piece below or find the original here.

The Future of Our Democracy

Regardless of your feelings about its outcome, this election has brought the divides in our country into sharp relief – divisions that threaten the health and vibrancy of our shared democracy.

Together, our country faces serious challenges. These challenges take different forms in different communities. We know, though, that communities have the capacity to address these issues and advocate for themselves.

That’s why our work envisions a different kind of democracy. A democracy where civic participation extends beyond the ballot box. A democracy that empowers citizens to solve problems, develop policy, meaningfully influence decision making, and inspire action. A democracy where all citizens, regardless of their differences, join together to create stronger communities and a thriving nation.

Today, we reaffirm our commitment to an inclusive democracy. We will continue to strive for accountability in our democratic institutions, for action and policy that responds to the ambitions of all Americans, for a unified expression of our power as citizens to shape the course of our lives…

Whether you’re feeling excited about the possibilities for change in America, or anger and despair at the uncertainty of our shared future, or both, there’s work to do today. Let’s get to it.

You can find the original version of this Jefferson Center blog piece at www.jefferson-center.org/the-future-of-our-democracy.

Join Confab Call with Not In Our Town on Responses to Hate

Posted on January 18, 2017 by Courtney Breese

We are pleased to announce that NCDD is hosting our next Confab Call with Not In Our Town, an NCDD member organization that uses film and dialogue to help regular people respond to hate in their communities. This hour-long webinar will take place Wednesday, February 8th, 2017 from 1-2pm Eastern/10-11am Pacific, and we encourage everyone to register today for a inspiring call!

Not In Our Town is both an organization and a movement dedicated to stopping hate, addressing bullying, and building safe, inclusive communities for all. Not In Our Town (NIOT) was launched as an organization in 1995 with a landmark PBS film that documented the efforts of everyday people in Billings, Montana who stood up together after a series of hate crimes targeting their Native American, Black, and Jewish neighbors.

The story and the film went on to inspire many other communities in the US and around the world to form their own responses to hate crimes and hate groups cropping up in their locales, and the NIOT team continued to make inspirational short films documenting their stories as they unfolded. NIOT has since made over 100 of these films and created discussion guides that accompany them. The films and discussion guides cover dozens of subject areas and topics, and they are compiled into an online hub that is designed to support towns, schools, campuses, faith communities, or any other kind of group in launching dialogues on how they can address issues of hate and bullying that are impacting them.

This call is part of NCDD’s ongoing #BridgingOurDivides campaign that seeks to heal the damage done in the divisive 2016 election while also addressing the longer-standing divisions in our country. As many communities where NCDD members live and work in struggle with how to deal with the rise in hate crimes and assaults that we’ve seen since the election, and as we prepare for the possibility that this trend might not go away, NIOT’s dialogue resources and model for supporting action can be critical tools for the D&D community to tap into. Be sure to join us on this Confab to find out how!

This Confab Call will feature a discussion with NCDD supporting member Patrice O’Neill, who serves as the CEO and Executive Producer of Not In Our Town. Patrice will share an overview of NIOT’s work and the approach that they use their films to launch community-wide dialogues and guide people from discussion into taking action against hate.

The call will also be an exclusive opportunity to discuss how the D&D field can support the growing need for conversation on addressing hate and violence in our communities. NIOT has seen a surge in requests for its services since November, which presents a unique opportunity for D&D practitioners to connect with and support NIOT’s work while also possibly cross-pollinating our methods and models, and call participants will have the chance to think together with Patrice about what that could look like.

You won’t want to miss this exciting conversation on NIOT’s model and resources and how the NCDD network can better interface with the NIOT network. We highly encourage everyone to register today for this great call!

About NCDD’s Confab Calls…

NCDD’s Confab Calls are opportunities for members (and potential members) of NCDD to talk with and hear from innovators in our field about the work they’re doing and to connect with fellow members around shared interests. Membership in NCDD is encouraged but not required for participation. Confabs are free and open to all. Register today if you’d like to join us!

Budgeting for Equity: How Can Participatory Budgeting Advance Equity in the United States?

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

The 18-page article, Budgeting for Equity: How Can Participatory Budgeting Advance Equity in the United States? , was written by Madeleine Pape and Josh Lerner and published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 12: Iss. 2. The article talks about the history of participatory budgeting, starting in Porto Alegre and how it has growth in the US. Two major claims of PB is that is it an opportunity to “revitalize democracy and advance equity”. Pape and Lerner share some of the challenges and strategies to equity within PB.

Read an excerpt of the article below and find the PDF available for download on the Journal of Public Deliberation site here.

From the article…

In 1989, the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre undertook a radical experiment to alter the chemistry of democracy. After decades of dictatorship and thin representative democracy had cemented Brazil’s economy as one of the most unequal in the world, the newly elected Workers Party government attempted a new variant of democracy, one that mixed participation and equity. Its experiment in “participatory budgeting” aimed to redirect resources to those with the greatest needs – and it succeeded.

Over 3,000 cities have since tried to replicate Porto Alegre’s success by empowering residents to directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. Many processes have inspired high participation, but struggled to engage or redistribute resources to marginalized communities. Participatory budgeting (PB) has recently grown dramatically in the United States, from a pilot process in Chicago’s 49th ward in 2009 to over 50 processes in a dozen cities in 2015. The once obscure concept has been heralded by the White House as a best practice of civic engagement and by scholars as the lynchpin of a “new wave of democratic innovation” (Stoker et al., 2011, p. 38; White House, 2013).

As PB has expanded in the US, scholars, practitioners, and participants have made two main claims about its impact: that it can revitalize democracy and advance equity. First, proponents argue that PB builds the trust, accountability, and effective decision-making necessary for democratic governance (Lerner 2014). Second, they suggest that PB makes participation and funding more equitable, by bringing marginalized groups to the table and allocating more money to their needs (see Baiocchi, 2001; Fung & Wright, 2003; Nylen, 2002). In the US, PB processes have experienced relative success in including the voices of less politically empowered residents, but there is less data on how PB is making funding more equitable (Kasdan et al., 2015; Great Cities Institute, 2015).

Our organization, the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP), has served as lead technical assistance partner for most US PB processes, helping over seventy cities, districts, and institutions develop PB processes that advance local priorities and goals. Although equity has often been a local goal, it has proven difficult to define, measure, and prioritize. In this article, we present the findings from a study of equity in PB that we conducted in 2015. Through semi-structured interviews with 17 PB facilitators and administrators, we explored two main questions: First, what common challenges to equity do practitioners face? Second, given these challenges, what can be done to make PB and its impacts more equitable?

We identified three key equity challenges and strategies to address these challenges. First, unclear goals shift focus away from equity, a challenge that can be addressed through stronger political leadership. Second, participants’ self interest often goes against equity goals, but this can be at least partly addressed by altering the process for idea collection and facilitating interaction between participants and other residents. Third, the limiting structures of budgetary and administrative rules constrain the potential of PB to address broader equity concerns, but expanding the scope and linkages of PB can help to overcome some of these constraints. By unpacking these challenges and interventions we hope not only to deepen the equity impacts of PB, but also to uncover new ways that participatory democracy can empower and support communities with the greatest needs.

Download the full article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

About the Journal of Public Deliberation
Spearheaded by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in collaboration with the International Association of Public Participation, the principal objective of Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD) is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some “deliberative democracy.” By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen friendly form.

Follow the Deliberative Democracy Consortium on Twitter: @delibdem

Follow the International Association of Public Participation [US] on Twitter: @IAP2USA

Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol12/iss2/art9/

Help NCDD Rise to the D&D Challenges of 2017

Posted on December 22, 2016 by Courtney Breese

As 2016 comes to a close, our NCDD team has been looking back proudly at what we’ve accomplished this year, but also reflecting soberly on the challenges that 2017 will bring for the nation and the dialogue & deliberation field. And as we reflect on our next year, we know one thing is for sure: we will need your help.

NCDD is here to support our members and the broader network of people and organizations working to help people come together across divides and make better decisions for our communities. All of the work we do is for the benefit of the field – connecting members to one another at our gatherings, introducing new technology and spotlighting key projects, engaging in conversations about the challenges we face and exploring new opportunities, collaborating with members on resources and research, sharing the latest news on our blog, and curating tools and resources in the Resource Center.

But many people aren’t aware that NCDD is an organization of just 5 core staff, and that though we work passionately to support the vital work of the D&D field, our financial situation dictates that all of us only work part time. Many people also don’t realize that a major source of NCDD’s funding comes in the form of the dues paid by our incredible members. We’ve been able to secure some grant money in the past, but part of next year’s challenge is that some of the grants we’ve relied on will run out. At the same time, the work of our field will be more important than ever in 2017.

That’s why we are inviting our network to renew your commitment to strengthening the field in the coming year by renewing or upgrading your membership, joining NCDD as a member, or making a donation today! NCDD is only as strong as our members’ and our community’s support, and in these lean times for small non-profits like us, your contributions are what will keep our critical work afloat. Member dues and donations go directly to supporting NCDD’s programming and staff, and we invite you to make us part of your end-of-the-year giving today!

But more than just keeping our work afloat, NCDD will be taking on several new initiatives in 2017 to further support the network and advance the field:

We will be continuing to steward the Conversation Café process and support its network of practitioners
We will be scaling up our Emerging Leaders Initiative to cultivate and grow the capacity of our field’s next generation of leadership
We will be partnering with libraries all over the country to strengthen their ability to be spaces for convening dialogue and deliberation that serves their communities
We will continue to lift up resources and initiatives that are helping the country in Bridging Our Divides and finding ways to move forward together

Adding these exciting initiatives to NCDD’s regular work in the new year will be a challenge for our team, but we are committed to rising to those challenges, and we know we can do it if our members are behind us. So as 2016 winds down, please commit to supporting us as we support you and the important work that our field is doing by becoming a member, renewing/upgrading your membership, or making a donation today!

staff We know that 2017 will be a year where dialogue & deliberation are more essential than ever and that it can make a key difference in the direction of our communities and our country. We are so honored and grateful to serve such an amazing network, and NCDD is determined to expand the reach and impact of our individual and collective work in 2017. We ask that you support us in our continued efforts to do so.

Looking ahead with hope,

The NCDD Team

Top Resources for Post-Election Dialogue Across Divides

Posted on December 1, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

Earlier this week, NCDD hosted a special post-election Confab Call during which over fifty of our members and affiliates had a rich, inspiring, and for some, therapeutic conversation about what kind of work people in the dialogue and deliberation field are doing to address this post-election moment.

The call was part of our ongoing #BridgingOurDivides campaign, during which we’ve been encouraging our members to share about the work happening in our field that’s aimed at fostering bridge building, and to share resources that can build capacity to move forward together despite differences. The Confab Call was its own kind of resource, and if you missed the call, you can hear about all the great projects, insights, and resources that were discussed during it by listening to the recording here or reading over the discussion and links from the call’s chat transcription here. But there are many more resources we want to share with you all today.

As we’ve mentioned before, there are important needs being felt in the wake of the election year’s end that dialogue and deliberation can address: D&D can help us process our feelings and what’s next, it can help promote and maintain civility, it can assist in bridging long-standing divides, and it can facilitate interactions that humanize people or groups who’ve been made into caricatured “others” and out groups. NCDD wanted to know how our field is responding to these needs, so we recently asked our D&D community to share their resources, tools, and projects that could help address post-election issues with us.

We received a wide variety of wonderful resources in response to that call, and in our continued efforts to help the field rise to the needs and opportunities presented in this challenging moment for our country, we’ve created a list of some of the best resources the NCDDers shared. We’ve linked to over two dozen resources below that we hope D&D practitioners will find useful as you engage with your communities over the coming weeks and months.

Please continue to add to this list in the comments section, as we’ll be continuing to archive the best of these and other tools in our Resource Center for future use. For now, take a look through the list below of valuable D&D resources.

Processing Emotions and What Happens Next

Much of what is needed across the country after the election is simply spaces and methods to process our thoughts and feelings about the election season, the outcome, and what they want to see happen next – together. There are tons of great resources in our field for doing that, and here are some of the good ones:

The Conversation Café process (CC) provides a simple structure for people looking to have thoughtful dialogue to reflect on the election as well as what they’d like to see happen now. We recommend the Quick How-To Guide, or you can delve into more comprehensive list of CC resources. You can also read a great overview and history of the CC method here
We also recommended the “What’s Next After the Election?” conversation guide from NCDD member organization Living Room Conversations to help you have conversations with people who think differently from you
Another NCDD member org, Essential Partners, is running a social media campaign that invites commentary – especially video and audio responses – about what people want to see happen after the election, and you’re invited to join the conversation using the #AfterNov8 hashtag
The National Association of Community & Restorative Justice has released a talking circle guide for teachers trying to help younger students process their thoughts and feelings about the election
The racial healing-focused organization Coming to the Table has a circle guide focused on race dialogues if you’re hosting conversations around race

Promoting and Maintaining Civility

With the divisiveness and rancor of the election season’s rhetoric on all sides, a huge part of the need D&D can fill right now is to help build the capacity for civil conversations when we’re disagreeing – whether within families, in the media, or in the legislature. Below are some of the best resources for supporting civility after the election:

The National Institute for Civil Discourse is leading the charge to promoting civility through their Revive Civility campaign. As other sources of inspiration, we also recommend the guide to surviving Thanksgiving (or any holiday) dinner penned by NCDD member and head of NICD Carolyn Lukensmeyer and the joint statement that more than 20 prominent politicians signed calling for civility and respect in politics
The Tufts University Institute for Democracy & Higher Education created this facilitator training guide specifically for those wanting to facilitate civil discussions about politically charged conversations on campuses
The national organization Facing History and Ourselves also recently released a guide for civil conversations in classrooms geared toward teachers
The conversation guide that was created by the makers of Hi From the Other Side is simple but powerful for helping folks connect on a more personal level before wading into the election
The Frenemies Project at Virginia Tech is exploring whether facilitated dialogue can promote understanding and empathy between individuals who have vastly different perspectives. More information on their initiative, Frenemies Day, can be found here
The Inquiry Institute put together a free e-book, Thoughtful Citizenship, which includes a variety of essays that share guidance on how to listen and dialogue with people of differing views

Bridging Our Divides

The election both opened new divides and deepened old ones in our society, and helping individuals and communities bridge those divides need to be a special focus of D&D work today. We encourage you to learn more about how you can facilitate that bridging using the resources below:

As a follow-up to our recent national conference on this topic, NCDD is still running our #BridgingOurDivides campaign to talk about how the D&D community is working to help our country close its most persistent and painful gaps. We encourage you to check out the conversation via the #BridgingOurDivides hashtag on social media
Essential Partners offers a great Guide for Reaching Across the Red-Blue Divides for people looking to engage with those whose political perspectives differ from theirs, as well as a list of wise questions to start such conversations off.
For public officials and community leaders, there are some good ideas in the Key Considerations for Community Leaders Facing Civil Unrest toolkit as well as the Planning in Advance of Civil Unrest toolkit, both of which are from NCDD member Grande Lum of the Divided Communities Project
The NCDD affiliated Days of Dialogue initiative in LA offers a dialogue guide and facilitators’ handbook for hosting conversations on addressing the strained community-police divide
The Bring it to the Table project from NCDD member Talking Eyes Media has a great set of short videos that can help start balanced conversations between people who disagree on issues like economy, welfare , abortion, immigration,health care, and gay marriage
Years ago when Essential Partners was still the Public Conversations Project, they released their 188-page Guide to Fostering Dialogue Across Differences, and it’s still as relevant as ever

Humanizing Groups Seen as “the Other”

One of the most troubling needs after the election, especially in light of the spike in hate crimes over the last month, is the need to develop and implement D&D methods that can help people see the humanity in those who they’ve written off as “other” or “less than” themselves. This need is one that our field urgently needs to develop more robust resources for addressing, but there are some good ones out there, which we’ve listed below:

NCDD member organization Not In Our Town has a treasure trove of resources for hosting conversations and taking action to oppose bullying and hate groups. Check out their huge catalogue of videos (most of which come with discussion guides) you can use to start conversations about addressing intolerance. You can also check out their guide on bringing stakeholders together, their Not In Our Schools guides for educators, and their quick start guide
NCDD recently launched our new Race, Police, & Reconciliation listserv to support collaboration and exchange among those working in racial dialogue, community-police relations, and truth-telling & reconciliation work – all of which help break down barriers between “us” and “them.” We encourage all involved in such work to join
We recommend reading and sharing about AllSides.com, a project that helps reduce the disconnection from other perspectives that the echo-chamber effect of social media fosters by providing comparisons of the same news stories from left-leaning, right-leaning, and center-based sources
If you want to get sense of how thick your “bubble” is or help your friends think about theirs, check out this quiz that purports to give a rating of how insulated you are or are not from the experiences of working class people
On the creative side, the US Department of Arts & Culture is inviting communities to participate in their annual People’s State of the Union between Jan. 27 – Feb. 5 by hosting story circles that encourage telling real stories of connection, disconnection, and breaking through barriers. Check out the downloadable toolkit for hosts
This illustrated video of a webinar on the power of storytelling to humanize “others” has important lessons on listening to people we’ve been taught to hate
For some reflection on how we make those we don’t know into “the other,” check out the classic TED talk from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about “the danger of a single story”

What Other Resources Are Out There?

This list features some incredible resources, but we know it’s just a taste of what’s out there in our field, so we encourage everyone to continue sharing your resources for addressing post-election needs in the comments section below! For now, we encourage you all to keep thinking about how our field can make its broadest impact possible in moving our communities and our nation beyond its deep divides and toward a positive future.

If you want to find even more amazing D&D tools, be sure to visit NCDD’s Resource Center.

Support NCDD Today for #GivingTuesday!

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Courtney Breese

With the madness of the holiday shopping season now in full swing, it’s often easy to forget that this time of year is supposed to be about giving – sharing of what we have and supporting our communities. But today is “Giving Tuesday,” a day created to celebrate and support giving and philanthropy as a counterbalance to the “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday,” and NCDD wants to invite you to join in commemorating it with us.

This #GivingTuesday, we are encouraging all who are able to give in support of NCDD’s important work. After a tremendously polarizing election and increasing concerns over our ability to bridge our divides, the need is greater than ever to support the community of people dedicated to helping our nation listen to each other, learn from those we disagree with, and find common ground for action. NCDD does just that kind of crucial work, and we are inviting you to help us keep doing it by making a tax-deductible donation on this #GivingTuesday.

Many people recognize NCDD as a facilitative leader for this vital community of practice and the”go-to” organization for improving dialogue and deliberative capacity. But what many don’t realize is that NCDD is a small non-profit that depends on memberships and donations to remain a healthy organization. We run mostly on the our members’ yearly dues payments, donations, and a few small grants – that’s it.

With that meager funding, we are still able to bring the field together during our biennial conferences, maintain one of the largest online collections of D&D tools in our Resource Center, tackle challenges and explore innovations in the field through our Confab Calls and Tech Tuesday events, catalyze efforts like the #BridgingOurDivides campaign, and begin to support and connect rising young leaders in our field with our new youth program.

Just imagine what NCDD and the field could do if we had more.

We’re joining #GivingTuesday in the hopes of not only spreading awareness about the important work we do at NCDD, but encouraging you to actively support NCDD by joining as a member, renewing your dues, or making a donation.

Your involvement in and support of NCDD is critical to our organization and our field. Thanks for all you do in your own work and in your support of our network. We look forward to continuing to work with you and our vibrant community in the year ahead!

Civic Studies

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

Category Archives: collaborative action