PB Network to Host Study Session on Deliberation & Voting

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

The Participatory Budgeting Project team recently launched the exciting PB Network – a learning and collaboration infrastructure for cities and institutions using participatory budgeting – which is hosting periodic “study sessions” online, and the NCDD network is invited! Their next study session will be a webinar focused on citizens juries and deliberative methods of decision-making this Wednesday, March 22. We encourage you to learn more in the PBP announcement below or sign up here.

Upcoming PB Network Event

We’d like to invite you to the PB Network’s next PBP Study Session on Wednesday, March 22nd!

One of the ideas behind participatory budgeting is that we need to get beyond the simple yes/no votes we’re usually presented with at ballot boxes. Choosing between 2 options doesn’t capture the breadth and subtlety of the needs that many communities face. Deliberation and new voting techniques can help get better decisions that benefit broader groups of people.

The study session will feature Kyle Bozentko of the Jefferson Center, who will share some lessons from “citizen juries“, which take a randomly selected and balanced group of citizens to deliberate and make informed and thoughtful recommendations about a public issue. We’ll also learn from Ashish Goel of Stanford’s Crowdsourced Democracy Team, who works on collaborative decision-making, including developing innovative ballot platforms for participatory budgeting in many cities across the US.

Join us for a discussion on new innovations in participatory decision-making with broad sets of stakeholders.

The webinar will be:
Wednesday, March 22nd
1pm EST/10am PST
Click here to register and receive the webinar info

Don’t Miss the Special Journalism-D&D Confab Call on Wed.

Posted on March 13, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

As we announced last month, NCDD is co-hosting a very special Confab Call along with member org Journalism That Matters (JTM) on deepening collaboration between the world of journalism and the field of dialogue, deliberation, and public engagement this Wednesday, March 15th from 1-2:30pm Eastern / 10-11:30am Pacific. It’s going to be one our most engaging Confabs yet, so we encourage you to register today!

During the call, we’ll continue the conversation that we began during NCDD 2016 about how journalists and public engagement practitioners are needed now more than ever to help our communities in #BridgingOurDivides, enhance the impact D&D practitioners’ work, and find new ways to change the narrative about whether and how our country can overcome our bitter partisanship and political disfunction.

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 have in-depth conversations about these questions and more, hear from case studies of successful D&D-journalist partnerships, and even host special region-based small group discussions using Zoom technology to allow for more concrete opportunities to move from conversation to action.

We are excited to have NCDD’s Managing Director Courtney Breese co-hosting this call with JTM Executive Director and NCDD member Peggy Holman. We’ll also be featuring insights and stories from JTM President Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Kyle Bozentko of the Jefferson Center, Doug Oplinger of the Akron Beacon Journal, and Betty Knighton of the West Virginia Center for Civic Life. You can find more info about the details of the call and our speakers in our original announcement here.

Don’t miss this highly interactive discussion about an exciting new direction emerging in our field! Be sure to register today!

How are WE Doing? A Public Engagement Evaluation Platform

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

In June 2016, the Davenport Institute released, How are WE Doing? A Public Engagement Evaluation Platform, which was designed for public leaders to evaluate their public engagement processes and/or apply to be recognized as a “publicly engaged city” on a silver, gold, or platinum level. The Davenport Institute offers support to officials looking to engage their public better; and offer training and resources to help improve this process. Below describes how the platform works, the way it was designed, and the support provided by the Davenport Institute. You can find the link to the eval platform, access resources, and apply to be recognized for your public engagement processes here.

From the Davenport Institute

For almost a decade, the Davenport Institute has been researching, training, and consulting with public officials to improve the ways in which governments involve their residents in making tough policy decisions. This work has taken us throughout California and across the country, learning about and teaching the latest techniques in effective participatory governance.

We continue to hear from public leaders seeking to capture a “30,000-foot view” of their government’s practices in this area. That is why we are launching “How are WE Doing?” to be that lens through which you can evaluate your municipality’s public engagement processes.

There are two ways to use this tool:

Self-Evaluation: These questions are designed to help you think through your own engagement efforts. We hope they will help you identify areas of strength and weakness, and guide you to appropriate resources for making your relationship with residents even stronger.
Recognition: If your municipality is already doing a great job of legitimate public engagement, we want to know! This platform allows you to submit an application to be recognized as a “publicly engaged city” at one of three levels. Answer the questions, and share some of your story to encourage other local governments to keep engaging!

For more information, we’ve answered some frequently asked questions below. You can also email the Davenport Institute or give us a call at 310-506-4494 for more information.

How do WE Measure Up?
This platform has been developed based on conversations and observations from our training, grant-making, and consultation, as well as on a survey of accepted best practices in the public engagement field. We have relied on input from dozens of public officials, and our advisory council. All of this has been directed by the following members of the Davenport Institute task force to develop How are WE Doing?:

Artie Fields, City Manager, City of Inglewood
Rod Gould, City Manager, City of Santa Monica (retired)
Ken Hampian, City Manager City of San Luis Obispo (retired)
Dennis Donohue, former Mayor, City of Salinas

Together, this task force has developed a tool that will offer participants an accurate look at the quality and breadth of their own engagement efforts and allow municipalities to see how they rate and to apply for recognition as a publicly engaged organization. It will also help us gather data and stories about how we are all doing in our attempts to better involve our residents – information we look forward to making available to all participants.

What if WE aren’t quite there?
At the Davenport Institute, we are fully aware that legitimate public engagement requires more than just a desire to engage. We hope that as agencies, cities, counties, and special districts work through this checklist, they will begin to see areas where their engagement practices can improve.

As you explore this evaluation tool, we are also committed to helping you find the best resources to improve engagement with your residents. Here are some places you can start:

Training: The Davenport Institute offers both full-day and half-day trainings in the basics of public engagement, including aligning purpose and process. We also offer a shorter, executive seminar for upper level management and a variety of customized trainings. Or perhaps you are ready to tackle the world of online engagement. Our Gov 2.0 training is a great place to start. For more information on all of these options, visit our training page. Ready for something deeper, or looking to train engagement facilitators? We are happy to direct you to outside organizations offering facilitation and other trainings in the public engagement field. Email us to set up a call to discuss your particular needs.
Grant-making: Is a lack of resources to hire an outside consultant or facilitator holding you back from embarking on a project you would love to undertake in your community? Each year the Institute offers a number of public engagement grants to help California cities, counties, special districts, and civic organizations engage residents across a variety of issues. For more information, check out our annual grants page.
Resources: The Davenport Institute is committed to connecting cities to the public engagement resources that will help them succeed in legitimate public engagement. Check out the News & Resources pages on our website, and explore links to outside resources. And don’t forget to follow our public engagement blogs: Incommon and Gov 20 Watch.
Personalized strategizing and consulting: Looking for something more specific? We can help connect you to our broad rolodex of public engagement consultants, facilitators, and experts across the state. Email us to set up a call to discuss what support your organization needs to meet your public engagement goals.

Fill out the evaluation to find out how your public engagement process is and/or apply to be rated as a publicly engaged city here.

About the Davenport Institute
Since our founding as a multi-partisan and non-profit organization in 2005, The Davenport Institute (formerly Common Sense California) has worked to engage the citizens of this state in the policy decisions that affect our everyday lives. It is our firm belief that, in today’s world of easy access to information, and easy connectivity to others, California’s municipal and education leaders are seeking ways to involve the residents of their communities in the important issues they confront. Done legitimately, this new kind of leadership produces better, more creative policy solutions and better, more engaged citizens committed to the hard work of self-governance.

Follow on Twitter: @DavenportInst

Resource Link: publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/davenport-institute/evaluating-engagement/

Growing Civic Infrastructure with D&D-Library Collaborations

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

As we announced early this year, NCDD is partnering over the next two years with the American Library Association on the Libraries Transforming Communities: Models for Change project, during which we will be helping introduce libraries and their staff to various models of D&D work and training them to use our field’s tools to support the communities they serve. It’s an exciting collaboration that we think will yield potentially transformative results.

To kick-start the project, our Managing Director Courtney Breese and ALA presented a webinar last week introducing NCDD’s work and the LTC collaboration to over 400 librarians and library staff from across the country. We were blown away by the level of participation, and are looking forward to seeing the project grow even further beyond this amazing start!

During the webinar, Courtney shared about our NCDD partner organizations, the models we’ll be training on, the NCDD engagement streams framework, and featured examples of libraries and communities using these models for engagement. Participating librarians expressed excitement for learning techniques that can benefit the libraries and the communities they serve, and they are eager to engage with the NCDD community more broadly as well.

The Libraries Transforming Communities: Models for Change project is a follow-up to the ALA’s Libraries Transforming Communities: Turning Outward project which introduced the Harwood Institute – an NCDD member organization – and their Turning Outward approach to libraries. Libraries have been using the Turning Outward approach over the past several years to engage their communities and identify the needs of their community.

NCDD is especially excited about this collaboration with ALA because we believe it will produce possibilities for members of our network to partner in concrete ways with libraries over the long-term. But we know that some of our members already collaborate with libraries, and we’d love to hear about how!

If you collaborate with local libraries in your D&D work or have collaborated with them in the past, tell us about it! Please share a bit in the comments section below about what your partnerships have looked like, what sort of you’ve done, or how you hope to work with libraries in the future.

We know there are mountains of potential in building library-D&D collaborations as part of our nation’s civic infrastructure, and we can’t wait to see and catalyze more!

Bridging Our Divides with NCL’s All-America Conversations

Posted on February 3, 2017 by Roshan Bliss

NCDD members might want to check out the All-America Conversations initiative being hosted by the National Civic League, an NCDD member organization. NCL is encouraging communities across the country to host short, public conversations focused on questions of how we can begin #BridgingOurDivides, showing that our country can still work together. They are providing a toolkit and webinar training series to help conversation hosts plan and convene these events, and we encourage practitioners in our network to consider hosting one yourself. You can learn more in the NCL announcement below or by learning more here.

All-American Conversations: Bridging Divides. Building Community.

National Civic League is launching All-America Conversations to demonstrate that locally, we are still able to work together across dividing lines to create stronger, more equitable communities.

Communities that host All-America Conversations will:

Better understand residents’ aspirations for the community
Learn how residents talk about and see community challenges and divisions
Gain clear insight into what small actions would give people confidence that we can work together across dividing lines
Help residents engage with one another in a productive conversation
Demonstrate a commitment to inclusive engagement

All-America Conversations are designed to help cities and other groups understand residents’ aspirations for the community, the divisions facing the community and, most importantly, the small, specific actions that give people a sense of confidence that we can work across dividing lines.

The format/template for All-America Conversations is flexible and scalable. Some communities will decide to focus on engaging underrepresented residents about their specific concerns and perspectives. Others will hold conversations designed to bring together people on different sides a specific divide to talk with one another and explore shared values. Some communities will use these questions and conversations as part of a large public meeting with breakout conversations.

Conversation Resources and Support

All-America Conversation Toolkit

Everything necessary to hold a productive and meaningful conversation – just add residents.

The toolkit walks you through:

How to identify whom you want to engage and how to recruit participants
Where to hold the conversations
How to set up the room
Selecting and preparing facilitators and note takers
What questions to ask
How to adapt the conversation guide to different types of meetings

The kit also includes a tips for facilitators and note takers, a note taking tool, ground rules, a sign-in sheet, sample recruitment letter, sample email to engage the media around these conversations.

Download the Toolkit and other resources

Support and Coaching Calls

NCL is hosting a series of 1-hour conference calls to provide support for communities or organizations hosting All-America Conversations. Calls will include a brief overview of the purpose and potential of these conversations and available resources. The main focus is providing local communities with the support, coaching and guidance necessary to make the conversations work for them. So, each call will include dedicated time for support and coaching from NCL experts to help you adjust the conversations to fit with existing efforts, your local context, staff resources and community needs.

You can watch the Jan. 31st, 2017 toolkit webinar here:

You can find the original version of this National Civic League announcement at www.nationalcivicleague.org/all-america-conversations

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.

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!

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?

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