Category Archives: collaborative action

Announcing the New Nevins Democracy Leaders Program

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We are excited to congratulate our friends at Penn State University’s McCourtney Institute for Democracy on the recent creation of the Nevins Democracy Leaders program – an innovative program that will expose more young people to “transpartisan” leadership and to the field of dialogue and deliberation. We couldn’t be more pleased to see this happening because the new program has NCDD written all over it.

Mccourtney Institute LogoThe McCourtney Institute is a key NCDD organizational member and partner – it was one of the generous All-Star Sponsors of this year’s National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, and it is headed by long-time NCDD member and D&D thought leader John Gastil, who has emceed not one, but two NCDD national conferences. In addition, the gift that made the Nevins Democracy Leaders program possible came from NCDD Sustaining Member David L. Nevins, who is the National Grassroots Coordinator of No Labels, one of the nation’s leading “transpartisan” organizations.

Most exciting for us is the fact that NCDD will be playing a role in the project’s pilot (and likely after that), to solicit applications from D&D organizations that are interested in being matched with top-notch interns from Penn State, and make recommendations to our colleagues at Penn State.

The new program is an exemplar of how our field’s leaders can collaborate to continue bringing “Democracy for the Next Generation” into reality. Take a look at how the program is described in a recent Penn State article:

The Nevins Democracy Leaders program, a signature initiative within The McCourtney Institute for Democracy, based in the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State. The Nevins Leaders program will provide education and ­training in transpartisan leadership skills by exposing participants to a variety of philosophies, viewpoints and strategies; teaching the tools of critical thinking, deliberation and dialogue; and placing students in unique internship opportunities in democratic and civic renewal.

…Penn State students who serve as Nevins Democracy Leaders will participate in collaborative dialogues, meet with guest lecturers, and complete coursework to learn the skills of civil political discourse and critical thinking necessary for a problem-solving approach to governance and citizenship. Additionally, every Leader will gain practical experience, working as an intern with organizations and individuals, inside and outside government, that share a commitment to improving American politics such as the Aspen Institute, No Labels, or the Jefferson Center for New Democratic Processes. Each year, Leaders who have returned from their internships will share their experiences with the new group of students joining the program.

Certainly the new program will take time to start up, but we encourage our members looking for innovative solutions to our nation’s “wicked problems” and partisan gridlock to keep it mind because creating partnerships with leaders tackling these issues in the coming years will be of particular interest for the Nevins program:

John Gastil, director of The McCourtney Institute for Democracy, said, ”…The program will connect Penn State with leaders across the country who want to tackle the most vexing problems we face in society by working across party lines and bringing together people of diverse backgrounds to work together to find common ground and realistic solutions.”

With a program headed by such wonderful D&D leaders advancing key concepts and ideas from our field, we can’t wait to see how the Nevins Democracy Leaders program develops.

We encourage you to learn more about the McCourtney Institute and the new Nevins Democracy Leaders program by reading the full Penn State article, which you can find at http://news.psu.edu/story/336362/2014/12/04/academics/gift-business-executive-creates-nevins-democracy-leaders-program.

Congratulations to John, David, and the McCourtney Institute for Democracy on this wonderful step forward for yourselves and our field! We at NCDD are excited to continue working with you and the new young leaders you will surely be cultivating.

IF Offers Discussion Guide on Climate Change

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The next round of UN climate talks began this week in Lima, Peru, and as global leaders debate how to avert the worst effects of climate change, our communities also need to be having conversations about this pressing topic. We learned from our members at the 2014 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation that D&D practitioners want more resources that will help them have real and productive conversations on this difficult topic.

Lucky for us, the Interactivity Foundation (or IF) – one of the wonderful sponsors of our conference – recently created a resource for exactly that. Based on three years of online discussions with international input on climate change and the lessons learned from their signature Project Discussions on the subject, IF produced a report on the discussions called “Human Impact on Climate Change: Opportunities & Challenges.” The report serves as a discussion guide designed to use non-ideological language that helps participants to separate potential policy directions from partisan agendas and arguments over science, and to explore possibilities for how they or their communities might respond.

The easy-to-use, 40-page guide frames the possibilities that discussion participants can consider in two categories. The first, “Setting the Stage”, focuses on immediately impact awareness and action, and the second, “Meeting the Continuing Climate Challenge”, is focused on the more complicated, long-term approaches needed to impact infrastructure and natural systems.

Here is how the report has framed six different possibilities for participants to discuss:

Possibilities for Setting the Stage

A. Promote Climate Awareness – Improve understanding of climate impact, climate science, and possible approaches.
B. Change Consumer Habits – Focus on human consumption as a source of carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.
C. Go for Results – Identify efficient and low-cost solutions that are available for short-term action.

Possibilities for Meeting the Continuing Climate Challenge

D. Heal the Planet – Plan and implement long-range recovery and rehabilitation of ecosystems.
E. Deal With a Different World – Adapt to changed conditions and plan for climate emergencies.
F. Focus on the Developing World – Assist developing nations in reducing climate impact activities and adopting clean technologies.

The guide expounds on all six of these frames as starting points for in-depth conversation and deliberation, and offers example policy suggestions grounded in all six frames for participants to explore. It also includes a great list of additional resources to help facilitate further conversations at the end.

With the wide range of perspectives and the depth of feelings that the general public has about the topic of climate change, this kind of resource can be an indispensable tool to help those of us seeking to have effective deliberations on the topic that can move our communities forward without descending into divisive and counterproductive arguments. We highly encourage you to take a look at IF’s “Human Impact on Climate Change: Opportunities & Challenges” discussion report and use it to you help you host these vital conversations.

To help these conversations be more inclusive and accesible, IF has made a PDF of the report available in both English and Spanish, and you can also view it online. You can go directly to the report summary page by clicking here, and there is even a Facebook discussion group based on the report. We hope that this great resource will help you start your communities, organizations, or institutions have better discussions about this challenging issue.

To learn more about the Interactivity Foundation and its innovative work, visit www.interactivityfoundation.org. Thanks so much to IF for creating this amazing resource!

Healing, Transformation, & Change from Ferguson

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As negativity continues to swirl around Ferguson, MO and the country at large in the aftermath of the non-indictment of Officer Darren Wilson last week, the time is ripe for real and challenging dialogue about how we can transform this energy into something positive. Everyday Democracy program officer Janee Woods wrote a powerful piece for Guernica Magazine in which she says that both punitive justice and restorative justice models are inadequate for healing the deep wounds that racism has caused our country, and advocates instead for rehabilitative justice, saying that “[w]e need to rehabilitate ourselves and our relationships with each other, across differences of perspectives and background, before we can successfully change the way inequitable systems and institutions work.”

We were particularly impressed and inspired by the list of suggestions that Janee offers for those of us grappling with how to move our work and conversations toward the rehabilitation of people and relationships that we need now. We’ve excerpted those suggestions below, but we encourage you to read her piece in its entirety by clicking here.

Janee Woods: A Different Kind of Justice

…We may feel powerless standing in the shadow of institutions, politics and the long history that got us here but that does not mean that we are, in fact, powerless. We know there is power in public protest that demands large scale change but not all of us are ready to engage with the system in that way. Try to develop your power by engaging truthfully with yourself and with neighbors in your community on a smaller scale. The inaugural step toward rehabilitating our humanity is honest communication with those who are near us. In many ways, this might be the hardest step because we must first create spaces where we can come together as individuals with disparate life experiences, diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, and varying levels of understanding about the legacy and impact of American racism. And once we come together, we must share a commitment to follow through in learning together and moving to action together. There are many ways you can create the space and structure that allow for this kind of communication and commitment.

Bring people together for conversations that transform conflict into meaningful relationships. Use conversations to Continue reading →

Help Everyday Democracy Learn, Win $30

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EvDem LogoOur partners with Everyday Democracy, one NCDD’s long-term organizational members, are offering a great opportunity – from now until December 19th, they are seeking input from the engagement community about what kinds of issues we care about and what resources we need. They have created a survey that they will use to help develop future tools and resources for dialogue on community issues – on top of the great resources they already offer – and if you take the survey, you will have a chance to win one of five $30 Amazon gift cards.

We know that many of our NCDD members use Everyday Democracy’s tools and resources, so we strongly encourage you to take their quick 10-minute survey by visiting www.surveymonkey.com/s/2NQTPXZ. You can also find it on Everyday Democracy’s website by clicking here.

The survey closes on December 19th, so we recommend you fill it out now before the holiday rush starts. Soon after the survey ends, EvDem will be sharing the high-level lessons and reflections they take from the survey back out into the community, which promises to be a helpful learning tool in itself, so keep an eye out for that down the line.

We hope you’ll fill out the survey soon! You’ll be helping your D&D community, and you could be getting a little extra money for holiday shopping, too!

Key Questions for Beginning Solid Collaborations

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Many of us know from experience that the way in which collaborations begin can mean the difference between success and failure. That is why we appreciated this piece from the New Directions Collaborative, an NCDD organizational member, that offers a few questions to guide our thinking on building worthwhile collaborations. We encourage you to read the piece below or find the original here.

Art of the Start: Strategic Questions to Build Focus and Engagement

As I write this, I am on my way to a gathering of practitioners who work on networks approaches for large-scale social change, sponsored by the Garfield Foundation. We’ll be discussing the “art of the start” – how to navigate the early stages of an initiative. This is timely, as lately I have seen some of the common challenges in this stage, for example:

  • In a conversation with the Executive Director of a small non-profit, she shared her exasperation that funders are “pushing collaboration for collaboration’s sake and it’s not helpful.”
  • Some organizational leaders get enthused about the concept of “collective impact” and/or the idea of being a backbone support organization for collaboration, without a sense of where to start or how to coalesce around an issue, need, and or place.
  • In coaching a network coordinator on how to launch a new national network, a frequent theme of our conversations is how to motivate and engage people to participate, when they have lots of existing day-to-day organizational activities and priorities.
  • In teaching about more energizing and powerful ways of convening meetings and conversations that matter, I emphasize that the aim is to create a container for a group to self-organize and find the best answers together, rather than pushing or advocating one approach or solution – even the imperative to collaborate.

As I weave together these threads, a key question is:

How can you enable a group to find a focus for collaboration that inspires people to participate and engages their time and talents effectively?

What we found works is to host a series of conversations, seeded with open strategic questions. Here are some of the key ones (welcome your comments on additional suggestions):

Encourage storytelling around what motivates people

Strengthening relationships and trust is the foundational practice of building collaboration. As Meg Wheatley says, “the shortest distance between two people is a story.” I recently facilitated a World Café where we had groups of four discuss:

  • Share a story of what sparked or motivated you to get engaged in your community or this cause/issue.
  • What common themes do you hear?

This kind of conversation can happen across the whole group and in networked approaches, within each work group – to help people recognize the spark of motivation within themselves and discover where there is shared motivation.

Ground the conversations in the specifics

Move fairly quickly into real conversations about the issue, system, local context, and needs/aspirations. Talking too generally about collaboration or building networks using those terms can start to lose people. They are the means, the work coalesces around the ends: the shared purpose and goals. Here are sample questions:

  • What would be the most important issue to work on together (e.g., that none of us can address alone)?
  • How do you see this issue playing out in your experience (for yourself, and/ or people around you)?
  • In the work you do, what do you see as the most pressing challenges related to [larger goal] (such as enabling all children in our community to reach their full potential)?
  • What is the most important conversation we are not having related to these challenges?
  • When you consider all the programs and organizations working in this space:
    • What is working that could be scaled?
    • What is missing or not having the desired impact?
  • What is a big goal we all share and are motivated to achieve?

Have people name what will make participation valuable

A question that comes up a lot from those who want to broaden collaboration, is “how do we get more people to the table?” This question often leads (unproductively in my opinion) to one group trying to guess at what will entice another group to participate. Also, this dynamic can happen when a funder or other convener tries to engineer or direct a collaborative initiative, e.g., requiring participation.

Rather than guessing, we found it works best to ask potential participants to articulate what will make participating valuable for them. Here are some sample questions:

  • Assume you have ample funding and that being involved with this group was not a request/requirement of the funder. What would make this so valuable that you would make time for it?
  • How might this collaboration enable you/your organization to [support students, e.g.] in ways that you can’t do alone? What’s the bigger aspiration that you want to work on that you can’t do now?
  • Share a story of a successful network/collaborative initiative you have experienced. What were the elements that made that work? What can be learned from collaborative initiatives that didn’t work?
  • What will motivate/support you to contribute and participate in working together for positive change over the long haul?

All of these questions lend themselves to participatory meeting formats such as World Café or others from Art of Hosting and/or Liberating Structures. The answers to these questions, when documented and synthesized, can provide design guidelines for a collaborative initiative/network that can be referred back to again and again.

You can find the original version of this piece on the NDC blog by visiting www.ndcollaborative.com/blog/item/art-of-start.

Public Agenda Partners with WNYC Public Radio

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PublicAgenda-logoWe are very excited to share that our friends at Public Agenda, an NCDD member organization, recently announced that they have formed a new partnership with WNYC, the premier public radio broadcaster in New York. The partnership is the inaugural project for PA´s new Deborah Wadsworth Fund, and will be aimed at really understanding what issues New Yorkers are thinking about:

Through focus groups and a major survey, Public Agenda and WNYC will illuminate the concerns, priorities and aspirations of local residents when it comes to the public policy issues our region faces. The research will place a special emphasis on those issues that residents most want to have a voice in and where they feel their personal input and involvement is most needed.

Findings from the research will be released in the second half of 2015 in a public report, and will inform programming on The Brian Lehrer Show and other WNYC programs. As such, we view the research not as a set of conclusions, but rather a means to spark conversations that can help the public work together with civic leaders and public officials on solutions to our most pressing challenges.

There has long been a powerful potential for collaborations between D&D organizations like PA and public media – especially public radio – and we are so pleased to see this partnership taking shape. The focus groups and survey research will only be the beginning:

The research will help Public Agenda and WNYC pull out the topics that matter most to residents, set a frame for discussion of those topics based on what residents have to say about them, and host public dialogue on them.

“This collaboration will elevate the priorities of the public in our area and promote dialogue about what they care about, rather than let partisan politics or interest groups set the agenda,” said [Public Agenda President Will] Friedman about the partnership… The results of the research will guide subsequent on-the-ground work in the New York region.

We congratulate Public Agenda and WNYC on starting this important work, and we are looking forward to hearing more about it as it moves forward and starts to produce results!

You can learn more from the original announcement about the project on Public Agenda´s blog by visiting www.publicagenda.org/blogs/new-wnyc-partnership-will-engage-new-yorkers-on-their-top-concerns.

Job Opening with DOJ’s Community Relations Service

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As we hope you’ve heard by now, NCDD was honored to host Grande Lum, director of the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service (CRS), as one of our featured speakers at the NCDD 2014 conference. During his address, Grande made the commitment to host meetings across the country between CRS staff and NCDD members to talk about how we might collaborate more closely. We encourage you to learn more about the meetings and give us your input on how we can make the best use of them by sharing your thoughts in the comments section at www.ncdd.org/16724.

As we continue to gear up for the meetings this winter, we are also pleased to announce that CRS has openings for a Conciliation Specialist in their Denver and Dallas regional offices. Grande Lum sent the job announcement to NCDD’s director, Sandy Heierbacher, because he sees NCDD as a great source for the kind of expertise they need in this position.

Be sure to check out the job announcements at www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/385601200 (Denver) or www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/383494100 (Dallas) if you think you’re a good fit for this position. The deadline to apply is December 1st, so don’t delay.

Online Discussion on Recent NCDD Hot Topics, Friday 11/14

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We want to invite NCDD members to join an online & phone conversation event this Friday that former NCDD Board member Lucas Cioffi has set up so we can explore some of the topics that have been making waves on our discussion listserv recently. You can read his invitation below. NCDD is driven by members, and we love to see them taking initiative, so thanks so much to Lucas for leading on this! 

Hello Everyone,

There have been some deep topics discussed on this discussion list over the past few weeks. I’d like to open up some space for people to continue the conversation by phone and/or video chat.

Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/online-conversation-cafe-tickets-14285429103
When: Friday, November 14, 2014 from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM (EST)
Cost: Free

For you, this is a networking opportunity, chance to meet with some other NCDD members interested in the same topics. For me, this is a chance to test out a system I’m building for online conferences.

The format is similar to Conversation Cafe where you’ll join several small group discussions (2-4 people per virtual table). Similar to Open Space, participants will choose the topics, ranging from current events to changing the world.

This is an informal and fun event. Expect to join other participants by phone and/or webcam (if you have it). Final details will be emailed to all who register.

Lucas Cioffi
Charlottesville, VA

6 Guiding Questions for Online Engagement from CM

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On one of their recent capacity building calls, our friends at CommunityMatters – a partnership in which NCDD is a member – had a great discussion about online engagement. They distilled a list of key questions to help people think about and plan for online engagement that are incredibly useful. We encourage you to read more about them below or find the original CM blog post by clicking here.

CM_logo-200pxDigital engagement is the latest buzz when it comes to public participation. We hear about the great work of Code for America. We read articles claiming digital engagement is the “new normal.” Our brains spin trying to keep up with new tools and terms—Gov 2.0, civic technology, hackathons, digital citizenship. The list goes on.

Pete Peterson, executive director, Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership and Alissa Black, investment partner, Omidyar Network work with local governments to improve public engagement efforts. They know that despite the buzz, many cities and towns are hesitant to try more than a website or social media.

Pete and Alissa joined CommunityMatters to share ideas on getting started and going deeper with online public engagement. If your town is thinking about diving into the digital realm, consider these six questions.

Why engage the public? Nail down your goals for public participation before selecting a tool. Want to inform the public about a recent policy decision? A well-designed website will do the trick. Looking to collect ideas for a community plan? Consider an idea aggregation tool like Mindmixer or Neighborland. Public Pathways: A Guide to Online Engagement Tools for Local Governments presents a framework for categorizing and selecting online tools based on four engagement goals: inform, consult, collaborate and empower.

What kind of traffic visits the government website? Your municipal website is the natural place to host an online conversation. But, how many people regularly visit the site? What audience does it attract? Santa Monica, California (pop. 91,812) wanted input on its budget and general plan and took a hard look at web traffic. But the municipal site wasn’t garnering much visitation. The city partnered to host online engagement platforms on the local newspaper’s website to maximize participation and reach new audiences.

What is the outreach plan? It’s a no-brainer that you need to spread the word about face-to-face meetings. Online public engagement is no different. The latest and greatest technology isn’t enough to attract users—you still need to actively recruit participants. Trying to connect with a particular audience? Reach out to hyperlocal blogs or ethnic newspapers. Looking for intergenerational conversations? Steven Clift of e-Democracy.org recommends a mix of email and web-based technology.

How are we engaging people offline? Online public engagement is about complementing—not replacing—offline engagement. With Engage Oakland in Oakland, California (pop. 400,740), organizers encouraged public meeting attendees to share feedback online. Creating space for parallel online and offline conversations reinforced the whole process—online discussions motivated people to attend face-to-face meetings and kept those already involved at the table. The online space also allowed residents to stay in the loop without attending a meeting.

Are these the conversations we’re looking for? Take a look at examples from other cities and towns (our call notes are a great place to start!). Research the types of questions asked and issues addressed. You’re off to a good start if examples reflect what your town is looking to accomplish.

Y’all ready for this? Dust off that Jock Jams cassette and gather your posse. Online engagement is far from a contact sport, but you still need a strong team. What does readiness look like when it comes to digital public engagement? Here are a few essentials: dedicated staff to ensure government is responsive to online conversations; a marketing and outreach strategy to attract participants;committed resources for the project (and ideally, for sustaining online engagement long-term). Most of all, a willingness to dive in and try something new!

Read through the call notes and listen to the recording for more stories and insight on digital engagement from Pete, Alissa and our call participants.

You can find the original version of this post by Caitlyn Horose on the CommunityMatters blog at www.communitymatters.org/blog/key-questions-ask-successful-online-public-engagement.

Charlie Wisoff reviews “Making Democracy Fun” by Josh Lerner

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We just love Making Democracy Fun – a great new book by Josh Lerner, an NCDD member and ED of the Participatory Budgeting Project. We love to work with Josh and his ideas – from hosting his great “gamification” talk during the final NCDD 2014 plenary to co-sponsoring PBP’s recent conference – and we hope you’ll read the review of his book written by Charlie Wisoff of the Kettering Foundation below.

In Making Democracy Fun, Josh Lerner addresses a key problem of democracy: “For most people, democratic participation is relatively unappealing. It is boring, painful, and pointless.” This is the case in traditional public hearings that end in bitter conflict and have little impact, but Lerner argues that even idealized forms of participation, such as deliberation, are not intrinsically fun.

To address this problem, Lerner draws on the growing field of game design. Games are defined as, “systems in which players engage in artificial conflict, defined by rules, that result in measurable outcomes.” Lerner has in mind a broad range of games including sports, board games, video games, or play-oriented games like tag. In contrast to the paltry numbers many public engagement processes get, 183 million people in the US report playing computer or video games regularly, 13 hours per week on average.

Lerner suggests utilizing a number of game design concepts and mechanics and applying them when designing democratic processes. He outlines 27 game mechanics organized under the categories of conflict and collaboration, rules, outcomes, and engagement. He also notes that the effectiveness of games does not depend on digital technology, that face-to-face interaction is essential for democracy, and that digital games should only be used to supplement rather than replace in-person engagement.

Throughout the book, Lerner draws on a number of case studies in Rosaria, Argentina and Toronto, Canada to illustrate his points about incorporating games into democratic processes. In a participatory planning process called Rosario Hábitat Lerner notes how a map puzzle game was used to prompt slum residents to make collective decisions about where they want their lots of land to be developed. A core game mechanic highlighted here is group vs. system conflict. This mode of conflict presents a group with a collective challenge, such as limited land, orienting participants towards collaboration rather than competition over scarce resources.

Another game mechanic Lerner highlights is the importance of having enjoyable core mechanics. Core mechanics are the basic activities of a game like bowling a bowling ball or rolling dice, which should be intrinsically enjoyable in a well-designed game. In Rosario, Lerner notes how theater-like games were used to get participants moving while at the same time allowing participants to act-out a new law in particular contexts. In Toronto, during Participatory Budgeting events, simple activities like putting color dots up to rate proposals made a voting process more enjoyable.

Lerner concludes by arguing that, while there “are no simple or universal recipes,” there are certain principles that should guide the application of game design mechanics to democratic processes: engage the senses, establish legitimate rules, generate collaborative competition, link participation to measurable outcomes, and participant-centered design.

For more info or to order Making Democracy Fun, visit www.mitpress.mit.edu/demofun.