NCDD’s Year in Numbers: 2016

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Courtney Breese

2016 was an important year for the dialogue & deliberation community, and a very active one for NCDD!

The following end-of-year infographic highlights NCDD’s impact and activity during the past twelve months, including activity at our national conference, on our website, listservs, events, and new and exciting efforts. Our sincere thanks to NCDD co-founder Andy Fluke for his fabulous design work!

Thanks to our fabulous community for engaging with us in so many ways in 2016! We look forward to continuing this important work with you all in 2017.

Please share this post with others you think should know there’s an amazing community of innovators in public engagement and group process work they can tap into or join!

In addition to sharing this post and/or just the image above, feel free to download the print-quality PDF.

Moving Forward with NCDD’s Emerging Leaders Initiative

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

During our NCDD 2016 conference, we were proud to officially announce that NCDD would be launching our new Emerging Leaders Initiative – a new effort to support and engage the next generation of D&D leaders and practitioners that NCDD has been developing since our 2014 conference on Democracy for the Next Generation. Today, we’re happy to share more details on the next steps in developing the initiative’s offerings!

What is the Emerging Leaders Initiative?

The Emerging Leaders Initiative (ELI) emerged from the NCDD members’ recognition of our need to foster long-term resilience for the field of dialogue & deliberation and that we can do that best by intentionally cultivating D&D’s next generation of leadership – that is, the younger folks in our ranks as well as those who are newer to the field.

To that end, the ELI will seek to provide extra resources and support to rising leaders in our field and to create more “on ramps” into the dialogue, deliberation, and public engagement field, especially for young people 35 and under, but also for newcomers to the field of any age. We want to offer these emerging leaders a means to become more involved in the world of D&D, connecting them with opportunities to build their capacity as practitioners, scholars, and professionals while lifting up the contributions, innovation, and leadership of young and new people in our field.

To accomplish these goals, NCDD has already created several tools that will be cornerstones of the Emerging Leaders Initiative – including the Emerging Leaders Discussion Listserv, social media forums, and a compilation of introductory D&D resources – and we are currently working on building a robust mentorship program, youth-focused webinars, and other capacity-building efforts for emerging leaders. We encourage our NCDD members, especially our younger and newer ones, to learn more about what the ELI by visiting its the brand new web page at www.ncdd.org/youth – the hub for all things related to the initiative.

Have Your Say in How the ELI Develops!

In addition to the new page, we are also launching the Emerging Leaders Survey – a short questionnaire that we’re using to better understand how we can support and collaborate with our emerging leaders. We are asking anyone in NCDD’s network or the broader field who is 35 and under, relatively new to D&D, and/or a current student to fill out the survey by Friday, February 10th.

Our field is already full of promising young folks and newcomers, and we want to hear from you! This survey is your chance to directly inform what you want the Emerging Leaders Initiative to look like and how you want to be involved. And to sweeten the deal, two survey participants will be randomly selected after Feb. 10th to win a $25 gift card! Don’t miss your chance – please fill the survey out today or encourage any of the younger or newer D&D folks who you are connected with to do so!

We’re Just Getting Started

The ELI will continue to develop and evolve over time, and collaboration with our NCDD members will play a key role in how that happens. So if you want to connect with this important work and help support and cultivate the next generation of D&D leaders, please don’t hesitate to get in touch me, Roshan Bliss, NCDD’s Youth Engagement Coordinator, at roshan@ncdd.org.

On a personal note, I am incredibly honored and humbled to be spearheading the Emerging Leaders Initiative for NCDD, and I can’t wait to connect with others who understand the importance of cross-generational collaboration in dialogue, deliberation, and public engagement. The D&D field’s future is bright and full of potential, and we hope that you will support the Emerging Leaders Initiative in unlocking even more of that potential in the coming years!

Want to support the Emerging Leaders Initiative and all of the great young people in the field? Make a donation in support of the next generation of D&D!

Conversation Café Training Webinar Published Online

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

NCDD was pleased to host a training webinar for those wanting to learn to host the Conversation Café (CC) process earlier this week, but we were even more pleased by the great turnout we had! We were joined by 45 participants, who spent 90 minutes learning about the ins and outs of hosting Conversation Cafés from Susan Partnow, one of the CC co-founders. It was a great training!

If you missed the training, don’t worry – we recorded the whole thing! You can find the whole training webinar recording by clicking here. For additional tips, we also encourage you to click here to read the chat transcript from the call, where there were a number of resources, links, and answers to questions shared.

With this new round of trained hosts, we’re excited to see the Conversation Café community continue to grow! We encourage everyone to check out the Conversation Café website at www.conversationcafe.org, especially if you are looking for more resources. We recommend checking out the “Resources for Hosts” page here and printing out some of the CC how-to cards here to help you be as prepared as possible to host your first Café.

We also highly recommend that new Conversation Café hosts consider joining the CC updates and announcements list and the CC hosts email discussion list so that you can stay informed and connected to the broader CC network. Let’s all stay in touch!

NCDD Podcast Episode 3: Opportunities for D&D in Congress is Now Live

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Courtney Breese

Yesterday a new Congress was sworn in, including many newly elected members, eager to get to work. In light of this new year and the new opportunities and challenges it presents, we are releasing our next podcast episode which focuses on the possibilities for connecting Congress men and women with dialogue and deliberation for better constituent engagement.

You can find this, our third episode, on iTunes, SoundCloud and Google Play!

In this episode, I, Courtney Breese, NCDD’s Managing Director, speak with Brad Fitch of the Congressional Management Foundation. The Foundation works with Members of Congress and staff to enhance their operations and interactions with constituents. Brad and I discussed the work of the Foundation, as well as his reflections from NCDD 2016 and the possibilities he sees for bringing dialogue and deliberation practices to Members of Congress. It’s an enlightening conversation and good food for thought for this field as we consider efforts to bridge divides in our nation.

This first series of episodes in the NCDD Podcast were recorded at the NCDD 2016 Conference, where we asked leaders and practitioners from the D&D field to share their stories and ideas, as well as discuss opportunities and challenges in our audio room. These episodes are being released as we continue our conversation from the conference about #BridgingOurDivides.

We invite you to listen to this episode and share your thoughts here, particularly about the opportunities and challenges for incorporating dialogue and deliberation into constituent engagement: What opportunities do you see for dialogue and deliberation practices to be used by Congress men and women in engaging those they represent? How might we overcome some of the challenges, particularly the systemic challenges outlined in the podcast? We look forward to your ideas!

Again, our thanks to Ryan Spenser for recording and editing these podcast episodes, to Barb Simonetti for her financial support of this initial series, and to everyone who participated in the episode recording sessions at the conference!

Please continue to tune in and share the podcast with your networks!

NCDD Launches D&D Training Partnership with Am. Library Association

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

As we begin the new year, NCDD is excited to announce we are launching a two-year partnership with the American Library Association (ALA) that will train library staff across the country to use methods and processes from the dialogue and deliberation field to support their communities. Our Libraries Transforming Communities: Models for Change partnership will take the form of both online and in-person trainings that we hope will help strengthen the capacity for libraries to serve not only as places of learning and research, but also as hubs for dialogue, engagement, and healing our divides.

We see this partnership as a chance to broaden the reach and the impact of our field’s work, as well as an opportunity to create new audiences and collaborative potentials for D&D practitioners in the future. We’ll be sharing more info on the partnership soon, but for now, we encourage you to read more about the upcoming trainings in the ALA announcement below or to find the original here.

Facing a Divided Nation, ALA Offers Free Training for Libraries

The ALA Public Programs Office and the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) invite library professionals to attend a free learning series to explore various dialogue facilitation approaches and position themselves to foster conversation and lead change in their communities.

“As our nation becomes increasingly divided, ALA sees tremendous opportunity for libraries to be a leading force for reconciliation, progress, and common ground,” said ALA President Julie Todaro. “We are proud to make community engagement resources available to all libraries, free of charge, through this initiative.”

Through Libraries Transforming Communities: Models for Change, a two-year project, ALA and NCDD will produce ten webinars and three in-person workshops. Change-making leaders, such as Everyday Democracy, National Issues Forum, and World Café, will develop and lead the trainings, which will be customized to meet the needs of various library types and sizes: large public library systems; small, medium-sized, and rural public libraries; and academic libraries.

First four sessions announced

Registration is currently open for four learning sessions.

Libraries of all types and sizes are invited to attend a one-hour introductory webinar about the resources and opportunities available throughout the initiative. Register for “Libraries Transforming Communities: Models for Change Overview” (Thursday, Feb. 9, 1 p.m. CST)

Representatives of public libraries serving large or urban communities are invited to attend the following three-part series:

In Session 1, NCDD will discuss the range of dialogue and deliberation models available to large public library systems. Register for “Libraries Transforming Communities: Introduction to Dialogue & Deliberation” (Thursday, March 9, 1 p.m. CST)

In Session 2, leaders from World Café will discuss their method for bringing together large groups of people in a series of small, conversational rounds to spark in-depth conversation. Register for “Libraries Transforming Communities: World Café” (Thursday, April 6, 1 p.m. CST)

In Session 3, representatives of Everyday Democracy will share their Dialogue to Change process, which encourages diverse groups of people to come together, engage in inclusive and respectful dialogue, and find common solutions to community problems. Register for “Libraries Transforming Communities: Everyday Democracy’s Dialogue to Change Process” (Monday, May 1, 1 p.m. CST)

Each session will be recorded and archived for free on-demand viewing on the Programming Librarian Learning page.

Individuals who view all three webinars, live or recorded, will be invited to attend a free pre-conference workshop at the 2017 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

Future sessions for academic libraries and small, mid-sized, and rural public libraries

Future learning sessions will be designed for academic libraries (Fall 2017) and small, mid-sized and rural public libraries (Spring 2018). Details for future sessions will be announced in 2017. To stay informed about future offerings, sign up for the Programming Librarian e-newsletter.

Libraries Transforming Communities: Models for Change follows up on Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC), a two-year initiative offered in 2014-15 by ALA and the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation that explored and developed the Harwood Institute’s “Turning Outward” approach in public libraries.

With this second phase of LTC, ALA will broaden its focus on library-led community engagement by offering professional development training in community engagement and dialogue facilitation models created by change-making leaders such as Everyday Democracy and National Issues Forums.

LTC: Models for Change is made possible through a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program.

You can find the original version of this announcement on the ALA’s Programming Librarian site at www.programminglibrarian.org/articles/facing-divided-nation-ala-offers-free-training-libraries.

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!

Help NCDD Rise to the D&D Challenges of 2017

Posted on December 22, 2016 by Courtney Breese

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Looking ahead with hope,

The NCDD Team

NCDD Podcast Episode 2 about Conversation Café Now Live

Posted on December 14, 2016 by Courtney Breese

NCDD’s second podcast episode is now live on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Google Play! It features the story of Conversation Café as told by three stewards of this process: co-creator Susan Partnow, past steward Jacquelyn Pogue, and NCDD Resource Curator Keiva Hummel, who plays a key role in helping NCDD serve as the steward of the Conversation Café (CC) process.

cc_cards As you may remember from our post last week, the first series of episodes in the NCDD Podcast were recorded at the NCDD 2016 Conference, where we asked leaders and practitioners from the D&D field to share their stories and ideas, as well as discuss opportunities and challenges in our audio room. These episodes are being released over the next several weeks as we continue our conversation from the conference about #BridgingOurDivides. Additional episodes will be produced on an on-going basis.

In this episode, Keiva asks Susan and Jacquelyn to share the story of Conversation Café’s inception and history over the past fifteen years. They explain how this elegantly simple process works, talk about how it has been utilized, and their hopes and advice for NCDD as the recent steward. This is a fantastic introduction to the CC process and a great lead into our Confab Call being held next Monday, December 19th about Conversation Café – learn more about that event here.

We invite you to listen to this episode and share your thoughts here, including responses to these questions: What experiences have you had with Conversation Café? Or, what more would you like to learn about it? What opportunities do you see for Conversation Café in your community or in our nation generally?

A Look Back at NCDD 2016 on Storify

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

With so much that’s happened since October, it’s a little hard to believe that the NCDD 2016 national conference was less than two months ago! Since the gathering, Bridging Our Divides has only become more relevant, and we want to remind our D&D community of the powerful conversations and experiences we had and the commitment we made when we were together.

So we’ve released an awesome Storify page for the NCDD 2016 conference! This compilation of the best photos, quotes from evaluations, links, and other gems from this engaging event will be great for seeing how it was if you missed out, or remembering some of the best moments if you were there.

We encourage you to check out the NCDD 2016 Storify below, and don’t forget that you can always continue the conversation by participating in NCDD’s ongoing #BridgingOurDivides campaign.

NCDD Launches First Episode of New D&D Podcast!

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Courtney Breese

NCDD is excited to announce the launch the first ever episode of our new NCDD Podcast! This podcast will bring together members of the D&D community to share tools and resources, as well as discuss ideas, opportunities and challenges in our work. We’ve launched the podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. Small green NCDD logo

The first series of episodes in the NCDD Podcast were recorded at the NCDD 2016 Conference, where we asked leaders and practitioners from the D&D field to share their stories and ideas, as well as discuss opportunities and challenges in our audio room. These episodes will be released over the next several weeks as we continue our conversation from the conference about #BridgingOurDivides, and we’ll continue to add new episodes into the future.

This first podcast episode features a conversation between NCDD Board Chair Barbara Simonetti and me, NCDD’s new Managing Director. In the episode, Barb shares a powerful metaphor she came upon during her time at the conference that compares the D&D field to a multi-purpose public utility or smart grid, and we discuss other ways we’ve described the NCDD community in the past. We had an insightful conversation about thinking of our field as a generative network and what that means for opportunities that the network has going forward. We think will be good food for thought for many of our members!

We invite you to listen to this episode and share your thoughts here and in the comments on the episode and the main questions we’re raising: are dialogue & deliberation tools and processes a public utility? How should we describe our community and our work?

Many thanks to Ryan Spenser for recording and editing these podcast episodes, to Barb Simonetti for her financial support of this initial series, and to everyone who participated in the episode recording sessions at the conference! We are excited to launch this effort and hope you’ll tune in and share with your networks and on social media!

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