Category Archives: From the Community

Upcoming Training on Hosting World Cafe: The Fundamentals

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We are happy to share the announcement below from NCDD supporting member Amy Lenzo of weDialogue. Amy’s announcement came via our great Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have news you want to share with the NCDD network? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

We’re offering the World Cafe Signature Learning Program again for those who would like to deepen their understanding and practice of the deceptively simple World Cafe method.

The course, offered online through Fielding Graduate University, takes advantage of their academic and professional accreditation and your tuition includes e-format copies of key reading like the World Cafe book “Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter”, Juanita Brown’s Dissertation on the World Cafe, and the Art of Powerful Questions.

This 8-week program starts with a “live” real-time orientation on September 28th. It’s held in a state-of-the-art online learning environment and features an exceptional level of engagement with a diverse international set of highly motivated participants.

You’ll come out of it with a solid grounding in the World Cafe design principles and what makes World Cafe “work” (and not work), and be part of an international community of support.

For more information or to register, please see our website: www.theworldcafe.com/learning-fundamentals.html

The Early Bird registration discount ends September 8th (next Monday), so register now for the best price. Registration closes September 22nd.

Questions for Thinking Through Collective Impact Strategy

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We know many in the NCDD community are interested in collective impact strategies, so we wanted to share a helpful piece on the subject from the blog of one of our newest NCDD members, Beth Tener of the New Directions Collaborative. We encourage you to her thoughts below or find the original here.

Several clients recently have asked us to help with strategic planning. The more I have worked with networks and cross-sector initiatives, I have seen the limits of the traditional way of thinking about strategy. Typically, a strategy will be for one organization to look out at the world, assess “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats” and devise an action plan for how they will influence change in the world.

When thinking about strategy for a network and/or multi-organization collaborative initiative, it calls for a different set of questions (as this section of our web site explores.) One key difference is to shift from a specific goal of one organization to focus on creating conditions for various players who work in the field to work more effectively by aligning their work around a shared goal and and finding ways to collaborate.

Here are examples of questions to craft a network-oriented strategy, from our work with non-profits and others working on social change goals such as growing a local food economy or improving educational outcomes for students in a community:

  • Where are most effective places to intervene in the system to achieve our shared goal?
  • What is needed to inspire, enable, and support people at these key parts of the system to self-organize and pursue this goal, e.g., transition their choices to more local foods?
  • Who is doing what? (This is where a network mapping and social network analysis can be quite valuable.)
  • Where are there gaps/overlaps?
  • What needs to happen collectively that individual people or organizations can’t make happen? (Or, said another way: What are projects or activities that are needed to reach the goal that no one organization can pull off alone?)
  • What needs to happen to change the system that’s not happening?
  • Seeing this, where does it make sense for the network to focus as to not overlap with these organizations?

(In most areas of social change, there is a crowded field of players that keeps changing. For the network to stay relevant it needs to assess regularly where it is adding value to keep strategic focus.)

  • What are criteria for actions/projects/investments for the network or collaborative initiative? For example:
    • Provide connection/learning across multiple organizations/sectors; amplify learning by aggregating knowledge of the field
    • Advance progress on barriers common across organizations, e.g., host a joint forum/summit about an area of barrier/opportunity
    • Align and coordinate work on key leverage points, e.g., facilitate work groups or task forces, invest and share research
    • Provide centralized support functions that the whole field can use/contribute to (e.g., metrics, message Q&A boards or list serv)
    • Incubate ideas and/or invest in a space, where there is a need that is not being addressed
    • Capitalize on connections – enable members to gain greater access through mutual connections, e.g., policy advocacy, connections to decision-makers, research

“Hard Conversations” Conference Call on Ferguson, Sept. 3

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We want to share an invitation from NCDD Sustaining Member Rebecca Colwell of Ten Directions for the NCDD community to join a conference call tomorrow focused on supporting those having the difficult conversations around the events in Ferguson, MO. The call is described in Rebecca’s announcement below, and we encourage you to register here.

I’m writing to share a timely invitation with the NCDD community exploring the topic of diversity, inequality and the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri.

This Wednesday, September 3rd from 12-1pm EST, I’d like to invite you to join a public call with Diane Hamilton – renowned mediator, facilitator and author of Everything is Workable: A Zen Approach to Conflict Resolution.

Entitled, “Having a Hard Conversation”, this call will explore multiple perspectives on the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri. This open call aims to support those who are working with divisive issues and entrenched conflicts, who are seeking ways to create more generative dialogues in the midst of crisis. (You may read Diane’s recent blog post on Ferguson here.)

Diane’s unique expertise includes decades of experience in the Utah state judicial system, and an extensive background mediating and facilitating challenging conflicts rooted in cultural and diversity dynamics. As an ordained Zen priest, Diane brings an uncommon wisdom, a deep capacity for insight and compassion, and a masterful ability to facilitate greater authenticity and understanding in the groups she works with.

This call is a valuable and timely opportunity to learn from Diane in support of your work facilitating meaningful participatory conversations and processes with others.

This call will also give you a chance to learn more about how you can participate in live trainings with Diane through her work as the co-founder and lead teacher of Integral Facilitator® programs.

This call is Free. To register for your personal PIN number, please follow this link:
http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/LTOHZPAKSSZU1DR4

Note: Those who register for the call will also receive a recording of the call after it has concluded, so I encourage you to register even if you will not be able to participate live.

Thank you and hope to have you with us on Wednesday,

Rebecca Colwell
Co-founder & Program Director, Integral Facilitator®

Looking for a roommate for NCDD 2014?

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For those of you coming to the 2014 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation who want to cut down on your lodging costs, we encourage you to use the comments field on this blog post to find people interested in sharing a room at the conference hotel.

HyattRegencyRestonShotThe conference is taking place in Reston, VA (in the DC metro area) at the Hyatt Regency Reston. It’s a a cozy 4-Diamond hotel in the heart of Reston Town Center, and we encourage everyone coming in from out of town to stay at the Hyatt for your own comfort and convenience! We’ve negotiated a fantastic rate of $124/night (plus tax) for our conference attendees.

If you need to cut lodging costs while still staying at the hotel, use the comment field to post that you’re interested in finding a roommate.  I think you’ll be very glad you’re staying at the conference hotel. Staying at the Hyatt means you can take a break or nap whenever you need one, spend more time downstairs networking, and even room with someone who may become a lifelong colleague and friend. Plus you can partake in all the other hotel amenities like free wireless for guests, the huge fitness center, the pool, and the shops and restaurants right outside the hotel.

We recommend people arrive on Thursday, October 16th, since we start Friday morning and you’ll want to take advantage of some of the cool pre-conference activities your colleagues will be organizing! You should plan to depart on Monday, October 20th (or later in the day on Sunday, October 19th, since we end at 3:30pm. (See the conference schedule here.)

To get the NCDD room rate, make sure you use this link when you reserve your room:

https://aws.passkey.com/event/10874814/owner/19717/home

Our cut-off date for the reduced room rate is September 30th, so be sure to reserve your room before then!  I recommend not waiting until then, though, because our room block is filling up very quickly this year.

Here are some things you may want to include in your comment:

  1. Your name, gender, and any special requirements or considerations your potential roommate should know about you (i.e. you’re a smoker or night owl).
  2. When you’re arriving and departing (in other words, which nights you want to share a room).
  3. Email or phone (in case people would like to connect with you directly).

If you have any questions that are not addressed here, check out our logistics/travel page here, and feel free to send me an email at sandy@ncdd.org if you still have questions.

Melbourne “People’s Panel” Connects Citizens to Public Decisions

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We wanted to make sure the NCDD community saw an article from The Age about an intriguing new development in Melbourne, Australia where the city council is working with the good people at The newDemocracy Foundation - an NCDD organizational member – to create a “People’s Panel”. We encourage you to read more about it below or to find the original here.

newDemocracy logoYou might describe it as Melbourne City Council’s version of jury duty, except it is far easier to get out of.

A panel of 43 “everyday” Melburnians will advise council on how it should spend its money for the next 10 years, when the randomly selected group is given unprecedented access to the municipality’s financial books and experts.

In a Victorian first, 7500 letters have been sent out to randomly selected business owners, residents and students asking them to be part of a “People’s Panel”. The names of those who want to participate will be put into a ballot to decide the final team.

The $150,000 project is being run by independent research group the newDemocracy Foundation, which has run smaller projects around the country including in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney.

The group’s executive director, Iain Walker, said when armed with all the information, juries of citizens had come to very “sensible” decisions.

“We had citizens come back in Canada Bay and say ‘mow the parks less often’,” Mr Walker said.

He said when given the information the residents realised, although they loved the parks, they could save money by mowing them less often and use the extra cash on something else.

Darebin Council, in Melbourne’s inner north, is also in the process of allowing a citizen’s jury to decide how to spend $2 million worth of capital works. But the Melbourne panel will advise councillors on a far bigger spend – a whopping $4 billion over 10 years.

Cr Stephen Mayne said the project would mean that the “silent majority” would have a much bigger say on future spending, as opposed to the usual suspects of individuals and lobby groups who often strive to defend the status quo.

“This casts aside all the squeaky wheels,” he said. “It doesn’t allow people to use a megaphone to dominate conversations.
“It’s genuinely sweeping that all aside and really well informing a group in the community and letting them come back with a fresh set of eyes.”

Victorian Local Governance Association chief executive Andrew Hollows said advertising a budget through the normal channels might allow councils to meet their compliance obligations. But he believes councils need to have a “deeper” conversation with their residents.

Dr Hollows said there was a growing appetite for innovative community consultation as councils faced tough financial choices in the future.

Melbourne policymakers are facing particularly hard decisions as the city stares down a booming population and changing climate, says council chief executive Kathy Alexander.

“There’s no city in the world where it is business as usual anymore,” she said.

Those in Melbourne’s first “People’s Panel” will be paid $500 each for what is expected to be about 50 to 100 hours work. The makeup of the panel will be finalised in about a month, with the jury handing down their recommendations to councillors in November.

Everyone else can have their say through an online financial tool, which allows people to make their own 10-year budget.
Visit www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/participate for more information.

The original version of this article from The Age can be found at www.theage.com.au/victoria/citizens-jury-of-melburnians-will-guide-6-billion-spend-20140707-zsz7i.html.

CM Call on Digital Public Participation, Sept. 5

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CM_logo-200pxWe are pleased to invite NCDD members to join our partners at CommunityMatters for the next of their monthly capacity-building calls series. This month’s call is titled “Deepening Public Participation - Digitally”, and it will be taking place next Friday, September 5th from 2-3pm Eastern Time. 

We are excited to note that this month’s call features insights from Pete Peterson of the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership - NCDD organization member – as well as Alissa Black of the Omidyar Network. The folks at CM describe the upcoming call this way:

Your town is finally in the digital age with a website, online calendar, and Facebook page.  Now you can sit back and relax, right? Not exactly.

An array of online tools is available that can take your digital presence to the next level, promoting collaboration between government and citizens, engaging new audiences, and effectively complementing “analog” face-to-face engagement. It’s time for your town to get online and see what’s out there!

Join the next CommunityMatters® conference call and dig deeper into digital engagement with experts Alissa Black and Pete Peterson. You’ll learn about online public engagement and which digital tools are right for your town.

Make sure to register for the call today!

As always, we encourage you to check out the CommunityMatters blog to read Caitlyn Horose’s reflections on digital public participation as a way to prime your mental pump before the call. You can read the blog post below or find the original by clicking here.

Deepening Public Participation – Digitally

Commutes are too long. Schedules are too packed. Work is too demanding. With today’s busy schedules attending public meetings just isn’t a priority for many people. So how can local government get residents involved in tackling community problems?

The internet is one place that governments are turning for solutions. Digital tools for public engagement can effectively complement in-person meetings, and convenience is only one reason to invest in online participation. Here are several helpful resources to assist in ramping up engagement digitally.

Broadening Public Participation Using Online Engagement Tools outlines five benefits of online engagement: reaching more diverse residents, generating more informed participation, producing concrete data for reporting, and evaluation and setting the stage for sustained participation.

Despite the many benefits of online engagement, there are challenges. Using Online Tools to Engage the Public discusses the challenge of attracting participants and the need for targeted recruitment strategies. Also addressed is the uncertain legal landscape for digital engagement, as some public participation ordinances and policies predate current technology. The PlaceSpeak blog outlines additional issues in digital engagement—technical issues, “lurkers” and the lack of physical cues—with recommended strategies for overcoming them.

Knowing how to select appropriate online engagement tools is an added challenge. There are many considerations—project budget, desired outcomes and a community’s willingness to engage online.

Alissa Black presents a framework for categorizing and selecting digital engagement platforms in Public Pathways: A Guide to Online Engagement Tools for Local Governments. Modifying the IAP2 engagement spectrum, the guide divides the objectives of engagement into four categories: inform, consult, cooperate, empower. The progression of these categories represents a deepening in the level of public participation.

Golden Governance: Building Effective Public Engagement in California advocates for government to deepen engagement. With “deep participation,” citizens are empowered to work with government to make decisions and solve problems. While citizen empowerment shouldn’t be the goal of every public process, it needs to be a tool at the ready. When community members work together on solutions to local problems, there is greater buy-in, more can be done with less, and project stewardship is more likely.

Join Alissa Black and Pete Peterson on our next CommunityMatters conference call Friday, September 5 from 2-3 p.m. Eastern. Learn more about online public engagement and get advice on digging deeper with digital tools. There is no better way to spend your Friday afternoon, so register now!

You can find the original version of this post at www.communitymatters.org/blog/deepening-public-participation%E2%80%93digitally.

Power of Dialogue Training Sept. 18-20 from PCP

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We are pleased to announce that the Public Conversations Project is hosting a great dialogue training Sept. 18-20 which features a steep discount for NCDD members. PCP is an NCDD organizational member and we are proud to have them as one of our NCDD 2014 All-Star Sponsors. Find out more about the training below or by clicking here.

Public Conversations ProjectDo you work with groups challenged by deep differences? Do you need new ways to help them engage? Join Public Conversations in Minneapolis on September 18-20 for our signature workshop, The Power of Dialogue.

This Public Conversation Project signature workshop offers a deep exploration of Reflective Structured Dialogue, an intentional communication process to reduce threat and foster mutual understanding across lines of deep difference. Through immersion in an intensive case simulation, participants will learn about the dynamics of polarization and conflict, and explore modes of communication that increase understanding, re-humanize opponents and shift relationships. Learn more and register.

Learn:

  • The dynamics of polarization and conflict, including the effects of strong emotion on our capacity for communication
  • The difference between the intent and impact of speaking
  • Ways of speaking, listening, and asking questions that open up conversation and relationships
  • Core components of Reflective Structured Dialogue

Develop:

  • A “dialogic” mindset: the ability to create a space for multiple complex or conflicting views
  • Questions for personal reflection, opening dialogue and shaping conversation

Experience:

  • The process of dialogue – preparing participants, planning, facilitating, and participating – via an extended dialogue simulation
  • The power of connecting with practitioners from different fields who are committed to transforming conflicted conversations

We encourage you to learn more about this great opportunity and to take advantage of the NCDD discount! Find out more and register at http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e9qm0j6f08c7992b&llr=c55866bab

Can Pinterest Make Local Public Engagement More Effective?

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We were intrigued by this commsgodigital piece on the ways that Pinterest can be used by local government officials for public engagement, and we wanted to share it with the NCDD community. The article was penned by Andrew Coulson, a local community engagement officer, and you can read it below or find the original commsgodigital piece by clicking here.

Pintresting: 10 tips for using Pinterest in local government

At 4 years old Pinterest is still recognised as a young social media platform. It has survived the storm of its first steps in society and has been accepted as a survivor. As a tool for potential engagement, I love it.

We started using Pinterest at the City of Salisbury very early on when it was still in Beta and in some case studies have been recognised as one of the first councils in Australia if not the world to use it as a tool in Community Engagement.

Pinterest overview

Pinterest is a free platform that basically resembles those old scrapbooks you used to keep as kids but instead of keeping paper clippings, stamps and stickers you can pin pictures on boards that link back to a whole world of things you want to make, bake and fake.

For those of you not on Pinterest here’s a quick overview of how it works. You can use Pinterest to upload, save, sort, and manage images as well as videos, known as ‘pins’, into collections on ‘boards’ you have created.

Pinners can browse others pins on the main page as well as follow friends and search specific topics/pins opening up a whole world of lost time. If you see something you like you can then pin it to your board and by using an additional ‘Pin It’ button can even pin direct from most websites. Interaction can be increased by liking and commenting on others pins and if you’re feeling collaborative you can start a pin board others can contribute too.

But how does this fit in with local government and council services. Jokes often refer to Pinterest as an abyss of wedding preparation boards and cakes you’ll never even attempt to make. But with just under 400,000 people in Australia using it (and rising) Pinterest holds a different key to peoples online experience because of its heavy reliance on the visual.

My top 10 tips for using Pinterest

Here are my 10 tips why and how local government could look at harnessing this free communication and potential community engagement tool. Some basics on how to set up, use and have a play.

1) Pinterest is growing every day. In over 4 years it has amassed over 70 million users worldwide. Yes the stats in Australia are low and slow but with Aussie trends often following America its potential here is huge. Stats show 8 in 10 users are female so think about how your council could harness this when setting up boards, preparing images to share that are maybe more female friendly. I spoke with The South Australian Country Fire Service recently about how pictures of hot fireman (come on we all know sex sells) could drive amazing traffic to other more serious boards about Bush Fire Survival and Health and Safety.

2) Plan your boards. Boards can be pinned too randomly but if you’re setting up a specific board to highlight an event or service; planned in advance boards can also tell a story. Pics you pin will start at the bottom of a board and fill from the top. A great way to tell a story is to think about pinning your pins in order. So for example if telling the story of a 3 day conference then pin pics from day three first and finish with day one if you want the story to go in order down the board. This is probably our best planned board showing the story of the making of our council film. In this case the story starts at the bottom and finishing at the top with the finished product: Lights, Camera, Action!

3) Secret boards. To help with tip 2 and also 6, Pinterest gives you the opportunity to set up a board in secret. By setting a board to secret when setting up it means not only does the public not see it until its ready to be launched but it allows you to plan and pin appropriately. This is helpful when starting a new board as each board cover shows the last 5 pins you have pinned and I will never let a board go live without those 5 spaces being filled… for me that’s like leaving an egg as your user profile pic on your Twitter, it looks unprofessional.

4) Pinterest board layout. Once you have set up a number of boards you can edit their position on the page. This is helpful to highlight certain boards as with most websites people’s eyes are drawn to the middle of the page. If you put your most recent or popular board in the middle then engagement is likely to be higher. You can also change each board cover photo which is important as I have read that people are more likely to open a board if the cover image is inviting you in. For example a smiling person or cute animal. Check out our homepage layout.

5) A picture is worth 1000 words. A picture will tell a story. A picture can evoke memories. A picture can aid discussion. Pictures are accessible across cultures, religions and languages. Next time you take photos think about how you can use them on Pinterest as well as your community magazine or website. Need I say more?

6) URL secrets. If pinning from another person’s board be aware that the picture will more than likely have an embedded URL. To check before you pin just click through the picture and if it does have a web link embedded you will be directed to that website. Its better safe than sorry as you never know where the image originally came from (under each image it should also say the URL). If pinning direct from a website the picture will automatically embed the web site URL for you.

Use this to your advantage. If the URL is unsuitable for a council board or you are uploading a picture directly from your computer, under the edit tool you can actually change or add a URL. This is important as in turn it can drive traffic back to your website and who wouldn’t want people finding your website simply by you pinning a great image of what services you offer in council.

7) More URL secrets. Pinterest is still new enough that most customized URLs, how people find your collections, are still available. As a council image is important claiming your URL while you can is crucial. This will allow you to make it easier share your Pinterest elsewhere and for people to find you especially if you’re not the only council with that name in the world. I work for the City of Salisbury of which there at least 2 others in the US and UK.

8) Use to inform in advance. Pinning pictures before an event; for example of speakers with bios, visual workshop content and videos of past opportunities may help people decide whether the event is for them rather than a standard heavy text based flyer/email. You can then enhance ticket sales by embedding a URL that takes people direct to your ticket sales page. Then once the event is over you can use the board to pin pictures of what happened and close the loop, great for feedback. Here is one of our upcoming events, the 10th Salisbury Writers Festival.

9) Share your photos. Like data sharing Councils have access to content people want so why not share your photos. Local councils have collections of pictures people would love to see and share dating back many many moons. Often these pictures just sit in archives or on databases and would never see the light of day once taken. 20+ photos can get taken at a ribbon cutting for a new leisure centre but only one will actually be used in your council magazine… so why not share the others; they have value to the people in them, connected to them and to the history of your area.

10) Collaborative projects. On Pinterest when you set up a board you have the option to add other people, who have Pinterest accounts, to the board so they can contribute. Now this one does come with a little warning as you have no way of moderating another person’s contribution until it’s already live and this could be a risky tactic for local government. However imagine the possibilities.

Ask your community to pin ideas for budget spends, park renewal designs or nominating priority areas that need attention. The comments function can then be used to provide feedback on pictures collected. Of course you can always set up a board and ask people to share pictures in other ways (Email, Instagram, Twitter) which you then pin on their behalf with a named credit. This is something I did when collecting photos of a 30 year old iconic playground as pre-engagement before looking at renewing the site through a full consultation process.

So there we have it, 10 tips why and how Pinterest for Local Government is a Pinteresting concept. I’m sure there are many others reasons to so why not let us know by commenting below and please do share how you use Pinterest especially in local government.

Happy pinning.

Picture credits: Top – The Art of Pinterest by MKHMarketing
Other pictures – City of Salisbury Pinterest.

You can find the original version of this commsgodigital piece at www.commsgodigital.com.au/2014/08/using-pinterest-local-government-pinteresting-concept.

Participate in Conversation Day in NYC, Aug. 30th

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We want to make sure that our NCDD members, especially those of you in and around NYC, are aware of a very cool event called Conversation Day coming up this Saturday. We received the announcement below from NCDD Sustaining Member Ronald Gross, and we encourage you to check it our or find our more at www.conversationsnewyork.com.

Join us on Saturday, August 30th, at 3 pm in Bryant Park, located between 40th and 42nd streets between 5th Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas (6th Ave.), at the Fountain on the west edge of the Park. RSVP ASAP to reserve your  place to grossassoc@aol.com.

Conversation Day is a celebration of the joys and benefits of Good Talk, presented by Conversations New York in concert with our friends in Boston, San Francisco,  London, and Paris and as far afield as Kuala Lampur — by talking the talk here in the Big Apple!

Join us at 3 pm in Bryant Park on the 30th. Look for us wearing colored hats (red/yellow/blue/green). Exact location and details will be provided when you RSVP to grossassoc@aol.com.

OR… Do-it-yourself! You can hold your own conversation anytime during that day or evening, anywhere in NYC, indoors or outdoors, with old friends or new ones.

The simplest thing you can do to show your support of the day is to simply have a conversation with someone you don’t know!

To go one step further, just bring together a few people (4-6 is ideal), and choose an enjoyable and meaningful topic or two to talk about (suggestions below or on reverse of flyer).

If you like, partner with a friend to be co-convenors. If you want to enlarge your circle even further, consider using MeetUp to announce your event.

A Few Possible Topics for Your Conversations

Here are a few topics for consideration – or ask for suggestions from your participants, then vote, and talk about the top two or three choices.

  • What is happiness and how can we make ourselves happier?
  • What makes New York City great (for you) – and how might we make it greater (for all of us)?
  • What is health and how can we achieve it?
  • Who in history or nowadays do you most admire as a human being, and why?
  • What’s on your bucket list: the things you’d most like to do in the rest of your life?
  • What lessons does history teach us?
  • What concerns do you have about privacy today, in areas ranging from your health, your employment, your on-line life, your politics, your relationships, or…?
  • Or create some of your own!

For more information, or to let us know what you did, and how it went, please contact us at grossassoc@aol.com. Our website is www.conversationsnewyork.com.

Conversation Day in NYC is inspired by Global Talk-to-Me Day, a project of Talk to Me London.

Top #NCDD Resources for Addressing Racial Conflict & Inequality

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The NCDD community has a long history and strong track record of helping people address racism, racial tensions and inequity in their communities. Many of our long-time members were drawn to dialogue work during national crises we’re all reminded of as the situation in Ferguson, Missouri plays out, like the 1991 Rodney King trial, and subsequent Los Angeles riots back in 1992.

These days, with social media and 24 hour news at our fingertips, it seems like local crises can become national crises in a heartbeat. The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri is the latest in a long string of incidents that spark outrage in cities where racial tension and inequity is already high, and raise public concern about police treatment of minorities, fairness in the U.S. justice system, media bias, wealth and opportunity gaps, and more.

FacingRacism-coverIn times like these, dialogue is key to helping people come together across divides (power divides, income divides, race divides, political divides) to talk through what’s happening and see if we can agree on steps to take going forward.

I want to point you to some helpful resources on race dialogue developed by NCDD members.

Recently, we’ve shared these top-notch resource compilations from a long-time leader in race dialogue, Everyday Democracy:

In the NCDD Resource Center, where you’ll find nearly 3,000 carefully indexed resources to help you in this important work, it’s worth checking out the 67 resources in our Race Issues tag.

Maggie Potapchuk’s resource-rich website, Racial Equity Tools, is another important destination for those engaging people across racial divides.

And you should certainly utilize the discussion guides that NCDDers have developed around these issues…

  • Racial and Ethnic Tensions: What Should We Do? (NIF Issue Guide)
  • Crime & Punishment: Imagining a Safer Future for All (IF Discussion Guide)
  • Community Dialogue Guide (US DOJ’s Community Relations Service)
  • Fostering Dialogue Across Divides: A Nuts and Bolts Guide (Public Conversations Project)
  • Facing Racism in a Diverse Nation (Everyday Democracy)

In the Resource Center, I found these by utilizing the sidebar search tool that says “I’m Looking For…” and selecting “manuals & guides” for Resource Type (category) and “race issues” under On This Topic (tag).

What do YOU think are the best resources to help people run dialogues on race issues or the other issues being surfaced by the events in Ferguson? Please add them via the comments here.