Category Archives: public participation

Capturing Lessons from the Journalism-D&D Confab Call

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Last week, NCDD and Journalism That Matters (JTM) co-hosted a special Confab Call between journalists and public engagement practitioners, and it was an incredible discussion. We had just shy of 70 practitioners, journalists, and others from our network who participated, along with some distinguished guests.

Confab bubble imagePeggy Holman and Michelle Ferrier of JTM kicked us off with a discussion of some of the amazing potential of more meaningful collaboration between the D&D world and journalism professionals, then we launched into examples of what’s already been happening. Kyle Bozentko of the Jefferson Center and 45-year journalism veteran Doug Oplinger shared stories of how they collaborate to help Ohio journalists rebuild public trust in the press. Betty Knighton shared about how the W. Virginia Center for Civic Life has partnered with public broadcasting groups to help regular people explore the interconnections between hot current issues. We also discussed how journalists can provide a much-needed “community listening infrastructure” for public officials and many other critical topics in our break out group discussions.

If you missed the call, you missed an exciting and thought-provoking conversation. But don’t worry – we recorded it, and you can hear (and see) the whole thing again by checking out the recording below or here. You can also follow along with what was happening in the live chat during the call by downloading the saved conversation here.

We know that we only scratched the surface on this call, and that the conversation about how we can strengthen our field’s connection to the power of the media world will continue to percolate over the coming months and years.

If you want to delve deeper into this topic, we highly encourage you to register to attend JTM’s Elevate Engagement Un-Conference this May 18th-21st in Portland, OR where journalists and public engagement/D&D practitioners will all come together in person to take this collaboration to new heights. We also recommend checking out the recent NCDD podcast on the same topic here, or revisiting the D&D-journalism panel discussion that we hosted during NCDD 2016 here.

Thanks again to Journalism That Matters, all of our featured speakers, and the participants for helping make this a great conversation. We look forward to continuing it in the future and seeing the fruits of where it can lead our work!

PB Network to Host Study Session on Deliberation & Voting

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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.

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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! Confab bubble image

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!

School-Community Engagement Conference in New England

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If you’re based in the New England region, we encourage you to check out the annual School Redesign in Action conference this March 27-28 in Hartford. The interface between schools and the communities they serve is a space full of under-explored possibilities for our field to grow – not to mention a great way to expose more young people to D&D methods – so we’re excited that the conference planners have included a whole track this year focused on increasing community engagement for schools. Regular registration is $325, but the deadline to register is Mon., March 13, so act fast! You can learn more about the conference in their announcement below or by visiting the conference website here.

School Redesign in Action is the New England Secondary School Consortium’s eighth annual conference for educators and stakeholders from across the country to share success stories, exchange best practices, and continue to build momentum for innovations that will prepare all students for success in the colleges, careers, and communities of the 21st century.

WHEN:  Monday, March 27th, 1:00-5:00pm + Tuesday, March 28th,  8:00am-2:30pm

WHERE:  Connecticut Convention Center, 100 Columbus Blvd · Hartford, CT 06103

WHO:  Educators, students, community stakeholders, policy makers, and teams from secondary schools along with career and technical education centers and higher education from across the country engaged in school improvement

NEW THIS YEAR! A strand dedicated to school-community engagement

Across New England, educators are increasingly aware that meaningful family and community engagement is vital to student achievement and that educators must effectively engage stakeholders to develop more equitable schools. But what does authentic engagement entail? How can educators make the shift from event-based, often-siloed strategies to deeper, more powerful approaches to engagement? And how can communities and educators come together to challenge inequities and effect lasting change for youth?

To explore these questions and more, this year’s School Redesign in Action conference incorporates a strand of presentations and workshops that will increase participants’ capacity to foster authentic school-community engagement, establish meaningful relationships with marginalized groups in schools and/or communities, and strengthen partnerships and systems to improve outcomes for all students.

Below is a preview of the sessions in the student, family, and community engagement strand. To see the full program, visit this page.

  • What’s Equity Got to Do With It?: Creating a Pathway for All Students to Succeed
    Everyday Democracy | Hartford, Connecticut
  • Empowering Parents and Families: Building Leadership Skills and Capacity Inside and Outside the School System
    Annenberg Institute for School Reform | Providence, Rhode Island
  • Recalibrating School-Wide Discipline and Student Support: Building a Restorative and Accountable Approach
    Engaging Schools | Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Reaching Across Language and Culture: Engaging Multilingual Families from Diverse Backgrounds
    Portland Public Schools Multilingual and Multicultural Center | Portland, Maine
  • Where Equity and Engagement Meet: From Funding to Implementation of Community-School Partnerships that Close Opportunity Gaps
    Puget Sound Educational Service District | Puget Sound, Washington
  • Being an Adult Ally: Practical Strategies for Emplowering Youth Voice, Agency, and Leadership
    Providence Student Union + Young Voices | Providence, Rhode Island
  • Building a Positive School Culture and Community Using Restorative Practices
    Prospect Hill Academy Charter School | Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Students as Change Agents for Personalization: Infusing Purpose, Meaning, and Hope In School Redesign
    Up for Learning | East Hardwick, Vermont
  • Opening Doors: How Home Visits Can Strengthen School-Family Relationships in the Upper Grades
    1647 | Boston, Massachusetts
  • Teachers as Designers: A Human-Centered Approach to Solving Problems – and Creating New Opportunities – in Schools
    Business Innovation Factory | Providence, Rhode Island
  • Authentic School-Family Partnerships: What Works and Why It Matters
    Lawrence CommunityWorks | Lawrence, Massachusetts

Financial Assistance

As part of the New England Secondary School Consortium’s commitment to improving equity, access, and diversity, we are offering a limited number of reduced-price registrations to community-based nonprofit organizations and parent or community leaders who either support youth or work in partnership with their local schools*. Applicants will be asked to demonstrate financial need and articulate how they anticipate the conference will benefit their work, organization, schools, and/or community.

Applications for financial assistance are due no later than 5:00 p.m. on March 13, 2017.

You can learn more and register for the School Redesign in Action conference at www.newenglandssc.org/conference/conference-details.

New Kettering Publication on Engagement & Higher Ed

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We want to encourage our members in higher education to check out the newest version of the Higher Education Exchange, a free annual publication from NCDD member organization the Kettering Foundation. The Exchange explores important and timely themes around the public mission of colleges and universities and offers reflections from both domestic and international scholar-practitioners on how higher education can and must shift toward teaching deliberation and civic engagement. We highly recommend it. You can learn more about the 2016 edition in the Kettering announcement below or find the full downloadable version here.

Higher Education Exchange 2016

This annual publication serves as a forum for new ideas and dialogue between scholars and the larger public. Essays explore ways that students, administrators, and faculty can initiate and sustain an ongoing conversation about the public life they share.

The Higher Education Exchange is founded on a thought articulated by Thomas Jefferson in 1820: “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”

In the tradition of Jefferson, the Higher Education Exchange agrees that a central goal of higher education is to help make democracy possible by preparing citizens for public life. The Higher Education Exchange is part of a movement to strengthen higher education’s democratic mission and foster a more democratic culture throughout American society.

Working in this tradition, the Higher Education Exchange publishes interviews, case studies, analyses, news, and ideas about efforts within higher education to develop more democratic societies. The Exchange is edited by David W. Brown and Deborah Witte.

  • Foreword by Deborah Witte  (PDF)
  • Inside the Graduate School Mess: An Interview by Leonard Cassuto  (PDF)
  • Assumptions, Variables, and Ignorance by David Brown  (PDF)
  • Deliberation and Institutional Political Cultures: A Brazilian Perspective by Telma Gimenez  (PDF)
  • An Island of Deliberation in an Authoritarian Environment: The Case of Russia by Denis V. Makarov  (PDF)
  • Publicly Engaged Scholars: Next-Generation Engagement and the Future of Higher Education, Edited by Margaret A. Post, Elaine Ward, Nicholas V. Longo, and John Saltmarsh by Etana Jacobi  (PDF)
  • Afterword: Citizens in a Global Society by David Mathews  (PDF)

You can find the original announcement of this Kettering Foundation publication at www.kettering.org/catalog/product/hex-2016.

Join Us at the Elevate Engagement Un-Conference on Journalism & Public Engagement

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We are excited to invite the NCDD network to register today to join us at the Elevate Engagement gathering this May 18-21 in Portland – a sequel to the 2015 Experience Engagement un-conference that will continue the exploration of how the journalism world and the dialogue, deliberation, and public engagement field can amplify and deepen each other’s work. Elevate Engagement is being hosted by the Agora Journalism Center and Journalism That Matters – an NCDD organizational member.
This un-conference will continue the exciting, field-wide conversation that we launched with the journalism-D&D panel during NCDD 2016 and will be continuing with our March 15th Confab Call. We encourage our members to learn more about Elevate Engagement in the announcement below and visit the conference website here to save your spot!

Elevate Engagement Un-Conference 2017

The 2016 election was a wake-up call. Trust in media is at an all-time low. Political polarization has taken a sometimes ugly turn. For some, it may feel as though the health of our democracy is in question. We must embrace this moment as an opportunity to consider how conversation, storytelling, journalism, and the arts, can better engage communities to thrive.

It is time to Elevate Engagement.

On May 18-21, 2017, the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication in Portland will host:

“Elevate Engagement: Listen. Connect. Trust.
How to take your engagement to the next level.”

We are delighted to partner with Journalism That Matters, which brings expertise in designing “un-conference” gatherings that maximize interaction and creative engagement among participants.

Who’s Coming?

This open-space gathering is made possible by a generous grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. It is designed to welcome a diverse group of people who care about journalism, storytelling, and communication in civic life. Included among them are: journalists, public engagement practitioners, academics and students, funders, public servants, and other engagement pioneers and community members. We also seek to welcome diversity that reaches across race, class, gender, generation, political ideology, and geography.

Our Focus

How can the public engage, not as an audience, consumers or marketplace, but as participants, with journalists, in creating civic structures for engagement and storytelling?

In addition, how must news organizations and journalists evolve so they are seen by diverse communities as trustworthy and culturally competent enough to tell their stories?

To mend and strengthen our civic fabric, we are connecting the diverse people who care about journalism and civic communication to elevate knowledge and practices of engagement that

  • build trust;
  • adapt to shifting power dynamics among politicians, people, and media;
  • promote dialogue and democratic values;
  • broaden diversity of participation;
  • build community capacity for telling their own stories;
  • clarify truth and understanding;
  • explore how engagement can lead to more authentic portrayals of communities of color

Anticipated Outcomes 

Our goal: to strengthen the capacity of journalists and communities to listen—and to tell stories that inform and inspire courageous actions.

Participants will

  • Discover insights that generate new ways to build engagement
  • Develop stronger relationships among the diverse people who care about civic communications
  • Help grow a community of practice among communications professionals that supports communities and democracy
  • Generate ideas on how to bolster engagement practitioners to be nimble when urgency is called for
  • Contribute to inclusive communications strategies that engage communities and   support thriving civic life in an era of change and challenge for democracy

We hope you will join practitioners on the leading edge of engaging with communities to learn from one another and to develop more practical, actionable ideas that can be shared and used beyond the gathering.

Interested? Here’s more information. Ready? Space is limited: register now.

You can find the original version of this announcement on the Experience Engagement website at http://pdxengage17.uoregon.edu.

Invite Your Local Librarians to Join Our Free Online D&D Trainings!

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NCDD is proud to be partnering with the American Library Association (ALA) to help build the capacity of libraries across the country to support their communities using dialogue and deliberation methodologies through a series of online trainings, and we are asking our network to invite your local librarians to join us!

This first series of webinar trainings is designed to support staff members at large and urban public libraries in employing D&D methods, but all libraries are welcome to participate. Subsequent series of trainings will focus on supporting medium, small, and rural libraries as well as academic libraries, respectively.

If you have connections at your local library, we encourage you to share more information about this great opportunity with staff there and invite them to join these free online trainings! They can learn all about the partnership by visiting the ALA website, reading our announcement about the partnership from earlier this year, or they can just go ahead and register for one of the upcoming trainings.

The dates, topics, and registration info for the first series is here:

  • Libraries Transforming Communities: Introduction to Dialogue & Deliberation
    Thursday, March 9, 2017, 1 – 2 pm Central
    Register Now
  • Libraries Transforming Communities: World Café
    Thursday, April 6, 2017, 1 – 2 pm Central
    Register Now
  • Libraries Transforming Communities: Everyday Democracy’s Dialogue to Change Process
    Monday, May 1, 2017, 1 – 2 pm Central
    Register Now

We also encourage you to invite your local librarians to participate in the training that will be part of the 2017 ALA Annual Conference, which will take place Friday, June 23, 9 am – 4 pm. You can learn more and register by clicking here.

This free webinar series is offered as part of Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC): Models for Change, an initiative of the ALA and NCDD that seeks to strengthen libraries’ roles as core community leaders and agents of change. LTC addresses a critical need within the library field by developing and distributing new tools, resources, and support for librarians to engage with their communities in new ways. As a result, we believe libraries will become more connected to and capable of supporting healthy, sustainable communities.

This initiative is made possible through a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

Linking Deliberation & Power for Better Democracy

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The gap between the outcomes of D&D processes and real power to implement them is one that our field has struggled with for years. What could be possible if the well-considered recommendations and outcomes of deliberative democracy processes were given the legal power of decisions made through direct democracy? That’s the question that the team at Public Agenda – an NCDD member org – asked recently in on their blog (spoiler alert: they think it would look like PB), and we think their reflections are valuable for us to consider. We encourage you to read their piece below or find the original version here.

Deliberative + Direct = Better Democracy?

Following the Brexit vote in mid-2016, many U.K. voters who elected to exit the European Union expressed remorse at their decision. Immediately following the vote, websites explaining its potential consequences received record traffic. Though the decision has yet to play out, the results of Brexit may have profound and long-lasting ill effects on the U.K. economy.

The Brexit vote was an example of direct democracy. Direct democracy enables the public to decide on policy decisions without a proxy, typically through ballot measures or referenda. California is well-known for its use of direct democracy in its many ballot propositions, a practice that started in 1911.

The counterpart to direct democracy is called deliberative democracy. In deliberative democracy, people discuss issues but usually do not make public decisions directly. In contrast, while people do make decisions in direct democracy, they usually don’t discuss those decisions first.

Each form of public engagement has its pros and cons. As we see in the case of the Brexit vote, direct democracy may not necessarily lead to well-considered decisions that benefit the common good and inspire public confidence. Meanwhile, deliberative democracy can and has led to informed recommendations based on common ground from citizens. However, in many instances those recommendations did not affect policy or other decisions. These experiences can leave citizens frustrated and even more distrustful of government.

Could a combination of direct and deliberative democracy better meet the (rightful) demand of the people tohave a greater say in the decisions that affect them? Could it rebuild trust and reduce alienation between the public and its leaders? Could it lead to common ground on decisions that benefit the public good?

These are questions that the present political moment, and its accompanying anxiety, demand that we explore. Luckily, there is a testing ground available for it right now.

Participatory budgeting (PB), a process that enables residents to have a say in how local tax money is spent, is the fastest-growing public engagement process in the U.S. While processes differ from community to community, PB has incorporated both direct and deliberative democratic practices to varying degrees.

As Matt Leighninger points out in a white paper we published in December, the steering committee meetings and neighborhood assemblies that occur at the beginning of the PB cycle, the delegate meetings that take place during the proposal development phase, and the idea expos held before the final vote can be (but are not always) deliberative. Meanwhile, the vote on the proposed ideas at the end of the cycle exemplifies direct democracy.

Can PB improve democracy? Can a combination of direct and deliberative practices achieve a balance that is both well-considered and actionable? To determine those questions, we need a critical mass of communities employing PB in a way that uses both deliberative and direct practices. We also need research that explores these questions specifically.

In the meantime, Matt, who is our vice president of public engagement, starts the conversation in the above-mentioned white paper, “Power to the People! (And Settings for Using It Wisely?)” “Power to the People” examines the extent to which North American PB processes are applying deliberative principles and practices, explores the tensions and challenges in making PB more deliberative, suggests questions for further research and offers recommendations for public officials and practitioners for improving their PB processes.

As Matt writes, “Through the creative exchange between people who care about public participation and approach it with different tools, assumptions and areas of expertise, we may gain the next wave of much-needed democratic reforms.”

To learn more about the extent to which PB employs deliberative principles and processes, click here.

You can find the original version of this Public Agenda blog piece at www.publicagenda.org/blogs/deliberative-direct-better-democracy.

New D&D Job Openings

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We’ve heard about several job openings this month in the NCDD network, and so we thought we’d share about them here on the blog.  We know that there are many people in our network who would be great fits for these openings, and we strongly encourage you to apply to these positions or share them with your networks!

The list of the openings and links we’ve seen lately is here:

Public Agenda – an NCDD member org – has an opening for a Public Engagement Assistant. Learn more about the position and how to apply here. This would be a great position for younger or newer folks in our field!

The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard – another NCDD member org – is in search of a new Associate Director for Democratic Governance. Learn more about the position and how to apply here.

The Environmental Dispute Resolution Program at University of Utah – also an NCDD member org – is hiring for an Associate Director / Senior Mediator. Learn more about the position and how to apply here.

The City of Laguna Niguel, CA is hiring for a Community Engagement Manager. Learn more about the position and how to apply here. The deadline to apply is March 14th.

The US Department of State is seeking a Regional Public Engagement Specialist. Learn more about the position and how to apply here. The deadline to apply is tomorrow, Feb. 28th, so don’t waste time on this one!

We’d love to see NCDDers fill all of these positions, so we encourage you to apply if one or more of these positions sounds up your alley. Best of luck to all the applicants!

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

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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

Confab bubble imageNCDD’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.