National Civic Review 2020 Spring Edition is Now Available!

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Keiva Hummel

NCDD member org, The National Civic League, announced the release of the 2020 Spring Edition of the National Civic Review. This esteemed quarterly journal offers insights and examples of civic engagement and deliberative governance from around the country. Friendly reminder that NCDD members receive the digital copy of the National Civic Review for free! (Find the access code below.) We strongly encourage our members to check out this great resource and there is an open invite for NCDD members to contribute to the NCR. You can read about NCR in the post below and find it on NCL’s site here.

National Civic Review: Spring 2020 – Code: NCDD20

This issue of the National Civic Review goes out as our nation is dealing with the biggest pandemic in over 100 years, and we are in awe at the creativity and will power of America’s communities in addressing this challenge. While this edition does not address the epidemic directly, we offer ideas about the need for public engagement and civic innovation in addressing community challenges. The issue was published in collaboration with the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Two articles were contributed by participants in the Richard S. Childs Fellowship, a program that assisted local government managers in reflecting on their experiences with community problem-solving and public deliberation.

To access this edition, go to the table of contents where you will be prompted to enter your unique access code: NCDD20.

One of the Nation’s Oldest and Most Respected Journals of Civic Affairs
Its cases studies, reports, interviews and essays help communities learn about the latest developments in collaborative problem-solving, civic engagement, local government innovation and democratic governance. Some of the country’s leading doers and thinkers have contributed articles to this invaluable resource for elected officials, public managers, nonprofit leaders, grassroots activists, and public administration scholars seeking to make America’s communities more inclusive, participatory, innovative and successful.

Convergence Names David Eisner New President & CEO

Posted on April 15, 2020 by NCDD Community

Our friends at the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution recently announced the appointment of their new President & CEO. Please join us in congratulating Convergence and David Eisner on the new position! The full announcement is below and also accessible at this link.

Convergence Center for Policy Resolution is excited to share that we have a new President & CEO, David Eisner! Convergence is a 501c3 nonprofit organization with a mission to convene people and groups with divergent views to build trust, identify solutions, and form alliances for action on critical issues. David is a national leader in public, private, and nonprofit sectors and will team with Convergence Founder Rob Fersh to expand Convergence’s scale and impact.

“Bridging divides of ideology, identity and partisanship to address America’s core challenges has never been more urgent,” says Eisner.

The following statement was released by Jean Molino, Chair of the Board, Convergence Center for Policy Resolution:

First, let me express to all in the Convergence community our heartfelt hopes that you are well and taking good care in this challenging time. We are eager to stay in touch with you and want to hear from you as we continue to do our work, now more important than ever, to create community and collaboration to deal effectively with issues of great concern to us all.

To further that end, Convergence Center for Policy Resolution’s Board of Directors is delighted to announce that David Eisner will become Convergence’s new President and CEO, effective April 1, 2020. David is a national leader who brings broad experience as a senior executive across the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. His demonstrated excellence at scaling organizational impact and results through effective programming, partnership, fundraising, and staff development, combined with his longstanding passion for coalition-building and cross-partisan problem-solving make David the right leader for Convergence at the right time.

Highlights of David’s career include his appointment by President George W. Bush and confirmation by the U.S. Senate to serve as the CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, where he grew AmeriCorps from 50,000 to 75,000 members, built bi-partisan support and oversaw the iconic AmeriCorps response to Hurricane Katrina. Additionally, David served as CEO of the National Constitution Center, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, where he facilitated leading scholars and influentials in dialogue across deep differences over pressing Constitutional issues. David chaired the nonprofit All for Good, which built the system supporting President Obama’s signature service initiative, Serve.gov, and most recently served for six years as CEO of Repair the World, the nonprofit Jewish service organization. David has also held senior leadership roles at America Online (& AOL Time Warner) and Fleishman-Hillard, and has served on many national nonprofit boards, including Independent Sector, Public Allies, National 4-H Council, Network for Good and Points of Light.

We are also especially pleased that David and Rob Fersh, Convergence’s founder and current CEO, have agreed to build an active partnership as Rob segues to the role of Founder/Senior Advisor, maintaining deep involvement in Convergence’s planning, programming and fundraising. Convergence just celebrated its first decade, during which Rob developed Convergence’s unique methodology – our “secret sauce” –which has proven remarkably effective at bringing people together across differences to address some of society’s most intractable problems. We look forward to David building on that solid legacy, bringing innovation, scale and expanded impact to Convergence’s work in its second decade.

As Chair of Convergence’s CEO Search Committee, I can share that identifying the person to lead Convergence in the large footprints of our exceptional founder was both challenging and invigorating. We were delighted to engage with a great many exceptional and influential leaders of nonprofits and policy, which underscored the strong reputation of Convergence as well as the importance of the work.

Rob noted: “I am truly delighted to welcome David as the new CEO of Convergence. He brings a wealth of talent and experience along with great passion for our mission. I look forward to working closely with him to further the success of his leadership and Convergence. I am grateful to our terrific Board of Directors for concluding this search with such a great result.”

David shared his excitement about taking on this new challenge: “I am thrilled to be joining the Convergence team at a time when bridging divides of ideology, identity and partisanship to address America’s core challenges has never been more urgent. Convergence meets this need in a way that is uniquely powerful. I am particularly delighted that Rob will continue to bring his leadership and experience so that the uniqueness and power of our work remains true even as we scale our reach and impact.”

David looks forward to connecting with the Convergence network, and we will create opportunities in the coming months for our colleagues to get to know him. While we are currently living and working in highly unusual circumstances, these will not prevent David from coming fully and wholly on board. We look forward to his leadership for many years to come.

Jean Molino, Chair
Convergence Board of Directors

Watch the NCDD Network Call on COVID-19

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Courtney Breese

Last week, NCDD hosted a call for our network to discuss how we are adjusting our plans and work in light of COVID-19. We had 70 people join us for this call, and we touched upon numerous topics! Thank you to everyone who made the time to join us and share your questions, ideas, and resources.

The call was recorded and can be accessed here. The chat, which contains a bunch of helpful links, can be found here. We started a Google doc with helpful resources and tools for navigating conversation and connection during this COVID-19 pandemic – find it here. Feel welcome to add to the doc, any resources/tools you think would be helpful.

We’re thrilled to share the below recording by Lydia Hooper, which captures the topics discussed and ideas shared:

What was abundantly clear from the call is there is a great desire to continue these conversations we started. NCDD is working on setting up additional calls for the network, to allow us to dig deeper into some of these topics. We need your feedback – please fill out this brief form to share with us what you would most like to discuss! We will announce a series of calls in the coming days, to allow more opportunities for us to share and work together.

In addition to these calls, we also want to invite you to help others by sharing your knowledge, skills, and talents with the broader community. No doubt there is a hunger for connection right now while we remain physically apart, and the members of this community are well equipped to help those who are new to dialogue and deliberation get started.

So, what could you do?

Submit a post for the NCDD Blog – on anything you are thinking about or working on, really. But posts that help people think about ways they can engage right now will be particularly helpful.
Share your resources – submit them to the NCDD Resource Center, or help gather resources with others. NCDD started a resource for this network here, which you are welcome to add to.
Do you have a quick video that could be helpful for faculty teaching about D&D? Share it! NCDD will happily post on our Youtube Channel – just send me a message with the original link (courtney@ncdd.org).
Have students looking for projects? Looking for something to keep you busy right now? NCDD can always use help! We are always looking for help with posting on the NCDD Blog (original content and content shared from the network), creating new resources/updating old resources in the RC, facilitating network calls, and more. If you have an interest in the above or want to explore what’s possible, let me know!
Make a donation to NCDD or join/renew your membership. Your support as always goes directly to supporting staff in doing the work we’ve outlined above as well as our regular programming.

Thank you for your participation and willingness to serve your communities in these challenging times. We will continue to be here for you all as we get through this thing together.

Announcing a Virtual Conversation Cafe about COVID-19

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Courtney Breese

Friends, the desire for connection and thinking together is overwhelming in this time of physical distancing. NCDD, along with our member and dear friend Susan Partnow, have decided to offer another opportunity for our network to come together in dialogue to support us all during this time. Next Wednesday, March 25th from 1:00-3:00 PM Eastern/10:00 AM-Noon Pacific, we will hold a virtual Conversation Cafe – all are welcome! Register here to join us.

This Cafe is intended as an opportunity for us to connect around how we are feeling and what we are thinking at this time, as well as exploring what we do next. We hope this will help build community among us in this difficult time, as well as help generate ideas for what we might do individually and collectively.

It will also be an opportunity for you to experience Conversation Cafe in an online format. This model is an elegantly simple process for bringing people together in small group conversations to share, listen to one another, and deepen their understanding of one another and a topic. It was built for face-to-face conversations, but Susan and I have been experimenting with it online and are finding that it may be a great model to help people connect virtually during a time of distancing physically. We plan to share some materials for moving this to an online format in advance of the call!

If you want to participate, please register today!

Weds Webinar Roundup Feat NCL Today and Confab Tomo!

Posted on February 19, 2020 by Keiva Hummel

Make sure you register to join NCDD partner org National Civic League‘s webinar on Taking Climate Actions at the Local Level (at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern) and National Issues Forums Institute‘s webinar on Deliberative Conversation: Division in Our Country (at 5 pm Pacific, 8 pm Eastern). Tomorrow is our next NCDD Confab at 2pm Eastern on the Hidden Common Ground Initiative – register now!

Here are the upcoming D&D online events happening over the next few weeks, including NCDD sponsor org The Courageous Leadership Project, NCDD member orgs Living Room Conversations, as well as, from the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) and the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice.

NCDD’s online D&D event roundup is a weekly compilation of the upcoming events happening in the digital world related to dialogue, deliberation, civic tech, engagement work, and more! Do you have a webinar or other digital event coming up that you’d like to share with the NCDD network? Please let us know in the comments section below or by emailing me at keiva[at]ncdd[dot]org, because we’d love to add it to the list!

Upcoming Online D&D Events – From NCDD

February Confab featuring the Hidden Common Ground Initiative

Confab bubble image

Thursday, February 20th
11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern

TOMORROW is the February Confab Call featuring the Hidden Common Ground Initiative, a joint project of USA TODAY, Public Agenda, the Kettering Foundation, and National Issues Forums.

Are there aspects of public issues where Americans can agree and work together to solve problems? Let’s tackle this question in Hidden Common Ground, the national election year public deliberation initiative. At the heart of the initiative are National Issues Forums in communities and online across the country about compelling public issues: health care, immigration, the economy, and divisiveness. USA TODAY will provide press coverage and commentary, Public Agenda will publish issue-based research, and Kettering Foundation will develop nonpartisan discussion guides. Since there are too few opportunities for Americans to discover their “hidden common ground,” participating in the year-long initiative is vitally important.

Please join us to learn more, to explore local partnerships and media connections, and to access free materials to use in your communities.

REGISTER: http://ncdd.org/community/confabreg-feb2020

From Our Sponsors & Partners

National Civic League AAC Promising Practices Webinar – Taking Climate Actions at the Local Level

Wednesday, February 19th
1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern

TODAY! – Participants will hear from two cities that are taking on the issue of sustainability with resident-driven initiatives. The Office of Sustainability in Chula Vista, CA will discuss its Climate Action Challenge; the Sustainability Division in Lakewood, CO will discuss its sustainability plan, as well as the Sustainable Neighborhoods Program.

REGISTER: www.nationalcivicleague.org/resource-center/promising-practices/

The Courageous Leadership Project webinar – Why are these people yelling at me? Understanding outrage and opposition in the public arena

Wednesday, March 4th
9 am Pacific, 12 pm Eastern

Brave, honest conversations are how we solve the problems in our lives, organizations and communities. When we have brave, honest conversations we create connection, build trust and strengthen relationships – and when that happens, anything is possible. This webinar series covers a different topic each month – all tied to building skills, knowledge and leadership for brave, honest conversations. Some webinars are free, some have a small charge.

REGISTER: www.bravelylead.com/shop/freewebinarbhc

From Our Members

Living Room Conversations online – click here

Race and Ethnicity: A Special Three-Part Series – (1st one has passed) Fridays, Feb 21 & Feb 28th
Fake News – Thurs, Feb 27th
Mental Health – Sun, March 1st
Lunch Hour: Technology and Relationships – Tues, March 3rd
Weave the Social Fabric – Weds, March 4th
The America We Want to Be – Weds, March 4th
Parenting: Protecting and Empowering Children – Weds, March 11th

National Issues Forums Institute webinars – click here

Deliberative Conversation: Division in Our Country
- Weds, Feb 19th
- Tues, Feb 25th
Hidden Common Ground Initiative: Health Care: How Can We Bring Costs Down While Getting the Care We Need? – Fri, March 13th

From the Network

International Association for Facilitators – click here

Becoming a CPF with the IAF – Fri, Feb 21st
IAF Methods Library Webinar – Fri, Feb 28th

Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice – click here

Building Mutual Understanding Between Community and Police – Weds, Feb 19th

This Thursday: NCDD Confab on Hidden Common Ground!

Posted on February 18, 2020 by Courtney Breese

Don’t miss this Thursday’s NCDD Confab Call, which features the Hidden Common Ground initiative. This free call takes place Thursday, February 20th from 2-3 pm Eastern/11 am-12 pm Pacific. Register today to secure your spot.

Hidden Common Ground is a joint project of USA TODAY, Public Agenda, the Kettering Foundation, and National Issues Forums. At the heart of the initiative are National Issues Forums in communities and online across the country about compelling public issues: health care, immigration, the economy, and divisiveness. USA TODAY will provide press coverage and commentary, Public Agenda will publish issue-based research, and Kettering Foundation will develop nonpartisan discussion guides. Since there are too few opportunities for Americans to discover their “hidden common ground,” participating in the year-long initiative is vitally important.

Please join us to learn more, to explore local partnerships and media connections, and to access free materials to use in your communities.

This free call will take place on Thursday, February 20th from 2-3 pm Eastern, 11 am-12 pm Pacific. Register today so you don’t miss out on this event!

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!

National Civic Review 2020 Winter Edition is Now Available!

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Keiva Hummel

Hot off the digital press! NCDD member org, The National Civic League, just announced the release of the 2020 Winter Edition of the National Civic Review. This esteemed quarterly journal offers insights and examples on civic engagement and deliberative governance from around the country. Friendly reminder that NCDD members receive the digital copy of the National Civic Review for free! (Find the access code below.) We strongly encourage our members to check out this great resource and there is an open invite for NCDD members to contribute to the NCR. You can read about NCR in the post below and find it on NCL’s site here.

National Civic Review: Winter 2020 – Code: NCDD19

The Winter 2020 issue of the National Civic Review is dedicated to journalist and author Neal R. Peirce, an indefatigable advocate for democratic governance, regionalism, civic engagement, and positive community change. A frequent contributor to this journal during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Neal served on the Board of Directors of the National Civic League from 1986 to 1995. He passed away on December 27, 2019.

To access this edition, go to the table of contents where you will be prompted to enter your unique access code: NCDD19

Dynamic Line-Up of D&D Webinars – Happening TODAY!

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Keiva Hummel

Today has an exciting line-up of D&D webinars that we strongly encourage folks to sign up for ASAP! FOUR great webinars starting with NCDD sponsor org The Courageous Leadership Project and their “Brave, Honest Conversations” webinar at 9 am Pacific, 12 pm Eastern. There are two webinars after that at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, one from NCDD member org National Civic League webinar on “Collaborations to Address Mental Health” and the other from NCDD member org MetroQuest, “How SCDOT Engaged 13,000+ Residents on a Tiny Budget”. Last though certainly not least, Zehr Institute‘s “Beyond Circles and Conferences: Everyday Restorative Justice Practices in PK-12” at 1:30 pm Pacific, 4:30 pm Eastern.

Additional upcoming D&D online events from NCDD member orgs National Issues Forums Institute and Living Room Conversations, as well as, from the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), and Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict.