Register for the March NCDD Confab Call between Journalists and D&D Practitioners!

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Courtney Breese

We invite our network to register to join us for an especially exciting NCDD Confab Call about strengthening partnerships and collaboration between journalists and dialogue, deliberation, and public engagement practitioners on Wednesday, March 15th from 1-2:30 pm Eastern / 10-11:30am Pacific! The Confab is part of NCDD’s ongoing #BridgingOurDivides campaign, and it’s going to be a very special call.

NCDD will be co-hosting this webinar with Journalism That Matters, one of our member organizations, and we are working in collaboration to bring both journalists and public engagement practitioners together on the call to continue the conversation we began at NCDD 2016 on ways that we can work together.

As you may remember, Peggy Holman, Executive Director of Journalism That Matters, moderated a panel of journalists at the NCDD conference this past fall who discussed innovative ways they are engaging communities, as well as their ideas for how journalists and public engagement practitioners can partner more substantively. What we also heard in this conversation was that journalism is more challenged than ever to share stories of people coming together across differences.

Based on our conversations at NCDD 2016, both journalists and public engagement practitioners are needed now more than ever to help us be in conversation on the issues that divide us. How can we bring our skill sets together to do this? How do community engagement practitioners and journalists work together to share stories? We’ll do a deep dive on these questions and more to see what’s possible now with these two worlds coming together to heal communities, and you won’t want to miss it!

This call will be highly interactive. Peggy Holman and Michelle Ferrier of Journalism That Matter will help us launch discussion among participants both in small, region-based breakouts and all together. And we’ll be joined by Kyle Bozentko of the Jefferson Center, Betty Knighton of the W. Virginia Center for Civic Life, and other NCDD members will share stories of their journalist-practitioner partnerships. We hope you’ll plan to join us for this exciting opportunity to initiate a conversation we hope will continue to bring these two fields closer together and spark some exciting collaborations!

This 90-minute call will use Zoom technology to allow for video and audio, screen sharing and breakouts. Register today for this exciting call!

About Journalism That Matters

Journalism That Matters is a nonprofit that convenes conversations to foster collaboration, innovation, and action so that a diverse news and information ecosystem supports communities to thrive. More information can be found on their website.

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!

About our Speakers

Kyle Bozentko is the Executive Director of the Jefferson Center. Kyle brings over a decade of civic engagement, public policy, and political organizing experience to oversee the strategic and organizational development of the Jefferson Center. He received his BA in Political Science and Religious Studies from Hamline University in Saint Paul and his Masters of Theological Studies from the Boston University School of Theology with an emphasis on sociology of religion and politics.

Dr. Michelle Ferrier is an associate professor at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, where she conducts research on online communities, digital identity and community engagement. She is the president of Journalism That Matters and has been a pioneer in developing online communities and community engagement work. Since 2009, she has been exploring the intersection of communities and journalism through articles on Poynter.org and through development of hyperlocal news platforms such as MyTopiaCafe.com, LocallyGrownNews.com and Troll-Busters.com.

Peggy Holman is Executive Director of Journalism That Matters, a nonprofit she co-founded with three journalists to re-conceive news and information civic communication to support communities and democracy to thrive. As an author and consultant, Holman has helped explore a nascent field of social technologies that enable diverse groups to face complex issues. In The Change Handbook, she & her co-authors profile 61 practices that involve people in creating their desired future. Her award-winning Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity provides a roadmap for tackling complex challenges through stories, principles, and practices.

Betty Knighton is the director of the West Virginia Center for Civic Life, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes public dialogue on issues that affect the quality of life in West Virginia. A primary focus of her work has been building a network for civic engagement in the state through collaborative partnerships with educational, civic, faith-based, and governmental organizations. Through the Center, she works with West Virginia communities to develop balanced frameworks for local issues, to convene and moderate community discussions, and to develop processes to move from dialogue to action.

Doug Oplinger is responsible for convening and leading the Ohio media collaborative, Your Voice Ohio. He has 45 years of exemplary journalistic work in Ohio as a reporter and Managing Editor at the Akron Beacon Journal that includes editing two Pulitzers and a Casey Medal for Service to Families and Children.

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!

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…

Join Conversation Café Host Training Call, Jan. 3rd

Posted on December 27, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

Last week, NCDD hosted another one of our Confab Call events featuring the co-founders of Conversation Café (CC), Susan Partnow and Vicki Robin. The call featured a history of the CC process, reflections from the experiences of CC hosts, and a brief tour of the new CC website at www.conversationcafe.org.

If you missed this engaging discussion, don’t worry. You can still listen in on what the Conf Call was like by finding the recording at this link.

There is also a great next step that came out of this call that we want to make sure our members hear about. We had so much interest from folks wanting to learn to use the CC process that co-founder Susan Partnow offered to host a free Conversation Café Host Training to start the new year!

So NCDD and Susan will be hosting 90-minute CC training webinar on Tuesday, January 3rd at 12pm Eastern/9am Pacific with much appreciation to Susan for making this training available before she takes her sabbatical. We encourage everyone who would like to host Conversation Cafés or just wants to learn more about the process to register today take advantage of this opportunity to learn how to host Conversation Cafés!

This upcoming training call will be the perfect opportunity to get personalized support in hosting Conversation Cafés. Whether you’re considering using the process for the first time or want to brush up on it before hosting a new conversation, we encourage all of our NCDD members with an interest in the CC process to register now to participate in this CC host training!

The CC process is an accessible tool for hosting needed conversations on difficult issues in our communities, and we are excited to see more people getting trained to use it. We look forward to having many of you join us on January 3rd for the event!

Looking Back at NCDD 2016 and What Has Happened Since

Posted on December 20, 2016 by Courtney Breese

The 2016 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation brought together 350 innovators in dialogue and deliberation to discuss the conference theme of Bridging Our Divides. Over the course of three days we discussed how to tackle some of today’s toughest divides, including partisan, racial, economic, and more. For a recap of the conference in numbers, see our earlier blog post.

Since the conference, NCDD has been producing and gathering media that captures our time together and the stories of our work. And, we’ve been following up on the conversations that happened at the conference and continuing the important work that began or was renewed in our time together.

Sharing the Stories of the Conference

At NCDD 2016 Keith Harrington of Shoestring Videos recorded our plenary sessions as well as short videos of participants. Keith is in the process of producing several videos, and has shared with us the following two videos:

Panel on Philanthropy and Fundraising

Mark Gerzon of the Mediators Foundation moderated a discussion among a panel of philanthropists about the constraints and opportunities facing our field’s efforts to bring people together across divides. Panelists shared their experiences funding bridge building efforts and answered participant questions about how we can all be better advocates for our work.

Panel on Journalism and Public Engagement

Peggy Holman of Journalism that Matters moderated a panel discussion among journalists, discussing both their work in engaging the public and discussing the opportunities they see for public engagement practitioners to partner with journalists.

ncdd_podcast_200x200 Sharing More Personal Stories

In addition to video, for the first time ever at an NCDD conference we offered participants the chance to record stories and conversation in an audio room, run by sound designer Ryan Spenser. We recorded several conversations that would become our first episodes of our new NCDD Podcast. Check it out on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Google Play. Our first episodes are now live:

Listen to Barbara Simonetti, NCDD’s Board Chair, and myself discuss her metaphor for the D&D field as a utility
Hear the story of Conversation Café from co-creator Susan Partnow and past steward Jacquelyn Pogue, as they speak with NCDD Resource Curator Keiva Hummel about the process and their hopes for it under NCDD’s stewardship

Stories of bridging our divides were shared throughout the conference – in workshops, informal gatherings, and particularly in our first plenary session where we asked all participants to share a story of a time they witnessed divides being bridged.

We welcome additional stories of how you or those you are working with are bridging divides. In particular, we’d love to have people share using our Storytelling Tool. Using the tool gives NCDD the details for a great case story that we can share on our blog, so your story is shared with more people!

Last but not least, last week we shared our Storify page – take a look at that for a great recap of the social media activity during the conference, along with great photos and quotes!

Continuing this Work

Lots of inspiration was drawn from our time with you all at NCDD 2016, and we have been working to continue to address the needs and desires that arose at the conference. Some of the ways we’ll continue to do that include:

The Race, Police and Reconciliation Discussion List: The racial divide was a central part of the conference theme. Many workshops addressed this divide and we heard from three panelists in our first plenary about their work in this area (video coming soon!). Many participants expressed a desire to connect with others on this work, and so NCDD has launched a discussion listserv for folks interested in connecting with one another. So far, more than one hundred of you have joined! Learn more here and then join the listserv.
Our #BridgingOurDivides campaign: NCDD has continued our conversation at the conference over the past several months through our #BridgingOurDivides campaign. We’ve been sharing information and resources on social media and the blog. We also hosted a call for our community to talk about our post-election work. We’ll keep this conversation going in 2017, as this work is more important than ever.
The Emerging Leaders Initiative: NCDD has worked hard to bring students and youth to our conferences in 2014 and 2016, and in between we have been talking with these young and emerging leaders about how to get them involved in NCDD. This has all culminated in our new Emerging Leaders Initiative, which we’ll be more formally launching in 2017. We need to foster long-term resilience for the field of dialogue & deliberation, and we can do that best by intentionally cultivating our field’s next generation of leadership.

We had such a great time at NCDD 2016 connecting and re-connecting with you all and discussing how we can continue to do this important work of bridging our divides in today’s world. Let’s use what has been generated from the conference and continue to build upon it – our communities and our country need dialogue and deliberation right now.

Register for Conversation Café Confab Call on Monday

Posted on December 15, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

In case you missed our post last week, we want to share a friendly reminder encouraging our NCDD network to register for our next Confab Call this Monday, December 19th, from 1-2pm Eastern/10-11am Pacific!

This Confab will feature the insights of long-time NCDD members Susan Partnow and Vicki Robin – two of the three original co-creators of the Conversation Café (CC) process that NCDD now stewards – and leading practitioners from across the country who host Cafés in their communities.

The CC process is easily accessible and flexible enough to be picked up quickly by many people, helping them move from “small talk to big conversation.” Monday’s call will be the perfect opportunity to learn all about the history of Conversation Café, connect with the network of people already hosting Cafés, learn the basics of being a host, and share your thoughts on how NCDD can best support the CC network.

You won’t want to miss this collaborative conversation – make sure you register today for the call! We look forward to talking with you Monday!

Join the NCDD Confab on Conversation Café, 12/19!

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

We’re excited to announce our next NCDD Confab Call will be featuring the co-creators of Conversation Café! Join us on Monday, December 19th from 1-2pm Eastern/10-11am Pacific for this one-hour call where we will learn more about this simple but powerful dialogue tool from the people who made it.

This Confab will be an opportunity to learn all about the Conversation Café (CC) process, connect with people already doing Cafés, understand the basics of being a host, and share with NCDD how we can be of support to the CC network. Conversation Café is supported by a bank of resources for conversations and a wide network of CC hosts and groups, many of whom will be on the call. Register today to be part of the discussion!

The Confab will feature insights from NCDD supporting members Susan Partnow and Vicki Robin, two of the three original co-creators of the process. They will share with us how CC was started, their experience developing the process, and even run a miniature host training!

Conversation Cafés are open, hosted conversations held in public spaces – not just in cafés! The CC process is elegantly simple – it’s nimble, accessible, and easy enough to be used very quickly by many people. As a process that moves participants from “small talk to big conversation,” our vision for CC, in part, is that it will be used to help communities address national and local crises that call for the immediate, real dialogue which we need in so many ways today. We invite you to join this call to find out more about how you can start using CC today!

NCDD recently became the steward of the Conversation Café process because we are particularly well equipped to help new CC groups use other forms of dialogue and deliberation when the time is right, and we know that it’s a wonderful model for dialogue that can and should be widely adopted across the U.S. and the globe. NCDD would love to see more people in more places joining the CC network and engaging regularly in conversations that matter – register today to find out how you can be involved!

About NCDD’s Confab Calls…

Confab bubble image 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!

Sign Up for Tomorrow’s Post-Election Confab Call with NCDD

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

As we’ve previously stated here at NCDD, dialogue & deliberation is more critical than ever after this election season. That’s why we are hosting a very special 90-minute post-election Confab Call tomorrow, Tuesday, November 29th at 1pm Eastern/10am Pacific, and we want to encourage you to register to join!

On this special call, we are inviting our network to discuss the question of “what’s next for the dialogue & deliberation field?” in light of the division that this election year has fostered in our country, to have an open conversation about how the D&D community should be addressing the nation’s post-election needs, and to lift up some of the work of those who are already launching projects or new initiatives that respond to this important moment.

NCDD has been getting some great responses to our #BridgingOurDivides campaign that asks what kind of bridge-building work folks in our field are doing – which we encourage you all to continue contributing to – and we are convening this Confab to build upon those responses by facilitating more real-time exchange of ideas and reflections about what our field is and will be doing in this critical time. We encourage you to join over forty D&Ders who will already be part of this discussion by registering today!

This call will be unique in that NCDD staff will facilitate, but there will be no featured presenters this time – we will simply be inviting folks to talk with us about their current projects, ideas for our community’s response, and hopes for how we’ll change the landscape through our efforts. Be sure to join us!

There is more need now than ever for quality dialogue and deliberation today that can increase understanding, build bridges, and foster capacity for moving forward together despite differences. Be part of the conversation on Tuesday about what we’re doing now and what this moment makes possible for the future of our field’s work, both individually and collectively! Sign up today!

Join our Confab on “What’s Next?” Post-Election, 11/29

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Courtney Breese

As we posted about earlier this week, the Presidential election has brought forth new needs for dialogue and deliberation, as well as renewed importance of the work to bridge divides that our field has been doing for many years. We’ve been appreciating the responses our community have had so far to this post, and we’d like to provide an additional opportunity for us all to discuss this important time in our work.

Join us Tuesday, November 29th at 1pm Eastern/10am Pacific for a 90-minute Confab Call to talk together as a community about what’s next after the election. This will be an open call, allowing community members to talk about their bridge building work, or ideas for what they can do post-election. NCDD staff will lead the call, but we won’t have any featured presenters – we want to hear from you!

The need for dialogue and deliberation is stronger than ever, and our network is poised to help our communities and nation come together across divides to tackle our toughest challenges. Join us as we talk about what’s being done now, and what’s possible for us in our work individually and collectively.

NCDD’s interactive Confab Calls are free and open to all members and potential members. Register today if you’d like to join us!

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. Register today if you’d like to join us.

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Category Archives: NCDD Events