NCDD member, Everyday Democracy – a sponsor of #NCDD2018, recently announced they are seeking applications for their new Institute for Community Change Leaders program. The Institute will be a year-long experience to strengthen leadership and community building skills through a racial equity lens. The first part will be a five-day retreat in December to learn and build relationships with your fellow cohort; then design a plan over the following year to address an issue your community is facing. Applications are due November 9th. You can read the announcement below and find the original on Everyday Democracy’s site here.
Now Accepting Applications: Institute for Community Change Leaders
Strengthening democracy in our country and communities will depend on strong, diverse leaders – leaders from all backgrounds and ages who have the skills, knowledge and courage to help people engage with each other across difference, understand and embrace racial equity, and create equitable and sustainable community change.
The Everyday Democracy Institute for Community Change Leaders is a unique experience that will deepen your leadership in engaging your community, in using a racial equity lens, and in leveraging the power of voice and participation as a pathway to equitable change on the issues your community is facing.
Join peers from across the country and across sectors who want to take their leadership to the next level. You will have the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of democracy in this moment, consider ways to address racial equity in the current context, create plans for engaging your community for equitable change, and connect across generations in a community of learning and practice.
The Institute for Community Change is for you if…
- You want to connect your community leadership to the broader challenges facing our democracy
- You want to reflect deeply about the kind of leadership that creates opportunity for voice and participation for all and a powerful racial and intergenerational equity framework
- You would appreciate learning with a community of leaders from all ethnic backgrounds, sectors, and ages
- You want to improve your skills in engaging the community in dialogue to address tough public issues with a racial equity lens and sustained, people-driven impact.
- You see the potential of Everyday Democracy’s Dialogue to Change approach for your community and want to learn more about how to apply it.
More about the Institute
The Institute begins with a five-day learning experience designed to help leaders from a variety of sectors deepen their knowledge, skills, and readiness for leading community change in inclusive, participatory and equitable ways.
There will be time for connection, reflection, and skill building in an environment that is supportive of deep learning and fun. Our curriculum will address these topics:
- The theory and practice of democracy and what it means for today
- Using a racial and intergenerational equity framework
- Coaching for inclusive community organizing and community-level change
- Facilitating intra- and inter-group dialogue
- Communicating with clarity to various audiences to support inclusive, equitable engagement and change
- Issue framing that helps people start where they are, talk productively about racial equity, and move to individual and community-level change
- Using evaluation as a tool to model racial equity and build others’ capacity for leadership and community change
- Using the arts to expand and deepen community change
- Self-care in the context of authentic community as a leadership practice
The in-person retreat is the first phase of year-long learning opportunity, as part of a cohort of leaders. In the second phase, Everyday Democracy will support the group through personalized webinars and conference calls, to deepen the learning begun in the retreat and provide opportunities to exchange ideas and experiences. In phase three, we will support participants as they implement a community engagement strategy of their own choosing and design, on an issue of importance to their community. In the final phase, we will support leaders as they reflect on and assess their leadership experiences, share their lessons with each other, and apply their learning to planning their future leadership development.
Who should apply?
The Institute is designed for leaders in a variety of sectors and settings who care about engaging the community in dialogue and change with a racial and intergenerational equity lens. Whether you are a neighborhood problem solver, community organizer, faith leader, school leader, public official, non-profit leaders, or another kind of concerned resident who wants to improve your community’s ability to cross divides and work together in equitable ways, this is for you. We welcome folks from every stage of their leadership practice.
When and where
The practicum and retreat will take place December 10 – 14, 2018 in a hotel and conference center located in scenic south-west Connecticut in the vicinity of parks, museums, and gardens. The facility includes a spa, which participants can enjoy at their own cost. If you are flying into Connecticut, use either Bradley International or Tweed New Haven Airports.
Cost
Your payment of $500 that includes an entire year-long experience will cover your lodging (up to five nights), breakfast and lunch each day of the retreat, and all materials. Other meals and your travel will be your responsibility. If two people are able to attend from the same community, your combined cost will be discounted to $850. If cost is a barrier for your participation, please apply for a scholarship.
How to apply
The application period ends November 9, 2018. Individuals will be notified regarding acceptance by November 14, 2018. Click here to download the application.
We all have a spark within and we choose every day how we will or will not use our spark. In our NCDD community, we spark conversations–dialogues that change hearts and minds and steadily change the world. Our sparks can be small or big, but we must work intentionally to ensure that the sparks catch fire. What do I mean by this? I mean that it is up to us, as those working firsthand in the creations of spaces for dialogue and deliberation, that we do not work in isolation. Like the catalysts in science, we must interact with others to create the chemistry worth having in our world.
We hope these examples evoke excitement for the D&D community (and for the upcoming conference)! In true NCDD form, we want to engage this community of innovators in discussing how we build capacity for D&D in more communities and design action steps to make this happen moving forward. How have you succeeded in building capacity for engagement in the communities you serve? What do you think the next innovations might look like for dialogue, deliberation, and engagement? What do we need to discuss and think about together as a field, in order to succeed in broadening the use of D&D?
Over 90 participants tuned in to learn more about Konveio and how we plan to use the platform to bring the conference guidebook to life for #NCDD2018. Because NCDD conferences are highly engaging experiences, and we are always seeking new ways to bring in new tools and processes, that’s why we teamed up with Konveio to enrich the experience of conference attendees with this interactive option of the guidebook (in addition to the hardcopy one we will provide in each participants’ tote bag when you arrive).
Here’s what you need to know: 
Do not miss the plenaries! Our opening plenary will feature “lightning talks” by civic innovators to spark inspiration and will include a networking activity to assist every attendee with identifying goals for the conference and beyond. On Saturday and Sunday, we will be focusing the plenaries almost exclusively on connecting, by using Open Space and Pro Action Cafe, respectively, for folks to propose the topics and ideas they most want to connect with others about!
We’ve announced several exciting components that we encourage you to check out, like the 
Our Collaborator (donated $5000) is the Democracy Fund.
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Based in Dayton, Ohio, the National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI), is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that serves to promote public deliberation about difficult public issues. Its activities include publishing the issue guides and other materials used by local forum groups, encouraging collaboration among forum sponsors, and sharing information about current activities in the network. The institute has a distinguished group of 16 directors and officers drawn from such diverse fields like government, journalism, and secondary and higher education. Many NIFI directors also have extensive experience in neighborhood and civic organizations, libraries, and religious organizations.
Led by founder Susan Stuart Clark, Common Knowledge specializes in bringing new combinations of people together to listen to and learn from each other. Leading together. We facilitate powerful new connections across sectors, silos, and social divides that generate breakthrough civic participation, employee and community engagement programs. Why? Every project shows that greater inclusion leads to greater innovation.
The mission of the National Civic League is to advance civic engagement to create equitable, thriving communities. We achieve this by inspiring, supporting and recognizing inclusive approaches to community decision-making. Founded in 1894 by a group of civic leaders that included Theodore Roosevelt and Louis Brandeis, the National Civic League is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. Today, more than ever, the work of the National Civic League is critical to helping create vibrant and healthy communities and a strong democracy.
