Category Archives: public participation

Bridging Our Divides with NCL’s All-America Conversations

Posted on by
Reply

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

The Challenge of Populism to Deliberative Democracy

Posted on by
Reply

As populism sees a global resurgence, it is critical for our field to examine what this phenomenon means for our work. That’s why we encourage our network to give some thought to the insights offered in this piece from Lucy Parry of Participedia – an NCDD member organization. In it, Lucy examines the way citizens juries in Australia might violate core tenets of populism, and encourage us to consider how deliberative democracy – especially approaches using mini-publics – may need to evolve to avoid being delegitimized by populist challenges. You can read the piece below or find it on Participedia’s blog here.

When is a democratic innovation not a democratic innovation? The populist challenge in Australia

The following article by Participedia Research Assistant Lucy Parry was originally published by The Policy Space on October 11, 2016.

Democratic innovation is burgeoning worldwide. Over 50 examples from Australia alone are now detailed on Participedia, an online global project documenting democratic innovations. In some states, ‘mini-publics’ proliferate at local and state level. South Australia in particular has wholeheartedly embraced the notion of deliberative democracy and has embarked on an ambitious raft of citizen engagement processes including several Citizens’ Juries.

According to Graham Smith (2009) a democratic innovation must (a) engage citizens over organised interests and (b) be part of the wider political process. Mini-publics operationalise these aims through convening a group of citizens who are at least broadly representative of the wider population to deliberate on a given topic.

Despite fulfilling Smith’s criteria, democratic innovations in Australia run the risk of becoming neither democratic nor innovative. Scholarly debate over mini-publics peaked over a decade ago – isn’t it time to move on? Moving on necessitates moving with the times and dealing with contemporary challenges. One such challenge is the rise of populism. Australian democratic innovations typically rely on premises that are fundamentally opposed by populism: random selection and expert knowledge. This populist challenge cannot be ignored, and theorists and practitioners must meet it together.

Inside the room

A Citizens’ Jury is a well-known mini-public format: a small(ish) group of randomly selected citizens who meet several times to deliberate on a given topic. Random selection underpins the process in two ways. It aims to produce a descriptively representative sample, making the jurors literally a ‘mini public’ (Fung 2003; Ryan and Smith 2014): a microcosm of the wider population. Random selection also relates to deliberative quality: bringing together a group of random citizens reduces the likelihood of the loudest voices dominating. As Australian research organisation newDemocracy Foundation points out, ‘governments inevitably hear from the noisiest voices who insist on being heard’; lobbyists, Single Issue Fanatics (SIFs), Not-in-my-back-yards (NIMBYs) – call them what you will. Mini-publics are designed to foster a less adversarial, more nuanced debate with a group of random citizens.

I have observed Citizens’ Juries in the flesh and it is quite an extraordinary experience. Watching a room of disparate and diverse people evolve into a committed team negotiating technical topics like wind farm development leaves me feeling almost jubilant (I don’t get out much). When you are inside the room, watching the deliberative process at play, it really is wonderful. Australia is home to a number of practitioners including newDemocracy Foundation, DemocracyCo and Mosaic Lab, and it is undeniable that some great work is going on in Australia in this area.

But alas, the path of democracy never did run smoothly. Suffice to say that cracks begin to emerge when you are outside the room. If decisions are legitimate to the extent that they have been deliberated upon, then the decisions made by a mini-public suffer a legitimacy deficit, given the typically small group involved (Parkinson 2003). And although some recent Citizens’ Juries have sought to expand the number of participants, this diminishes the quality of dialogue (Chambers 2009). Furthermore, in the past 15 years a growing number of scholars have sought to move beyond the mini-public paradigm in deliberative democracy to tackle deliberation at the large scale – through deliberative systems (Dryzek 2009; Parkinson and Mansbridge 2012), deliberative cultures (Sass and Dryzek 2013) and deliberative societies.

Yet, the practice of deliberative democracy (in Australia at least) clings to the mini-public approach. South Australia is notable for its extensive citizen engagement yes, but is it really innovative? The Western Australian Department of Planning and Infrastructure undertook a similarly ambitious program of mini-public style engagements over a decade ago. This critique is not a reflection on the quality of democratic practice in Australia, nor is it a criticism of what goes on inside the room. It is instead a concern that further underpins the need for deliberative theorists and practitioners to work together.

Outside the room: the populist challenge

Remember those NIMBYs and SIFs that mini-publics aim to exclude through random selection? Their exclusion rests on the assumption that the quality and outcome of deliberation is better without those insistent voices. The aim is that through a process of deliberation, people will become ‘more public-spirited, more tolerant, more knowledgeable, more attentive to the interests of others, and more probing of their own interests’ (Warren 1992, p8). Producing deliberated public opinion involves weeding out weak and poorly informed arguments. Again, this is all very well if you are inside the room. If you’re outside the room, you may very well object.

And let’s face it, those objectionable voices are not going away. As Ben Moffit points out, ‘Populism, once seen as a fringe phenomenon relegated to another era or only certain parts of the world, is now a mainstay of contemporary politics across the globe’. The voices that a Citizens’ Jury wants to keep out of the room now have the room surrounded. If we continue down the mini-publics road, the very thing that allegedly legitimises mini-publics will also be its downfall. The assumptions underpinning random selection are that it is representative of the wider community; and that it facilitates better quality deliberation by bringing together everyday citizens rather than insistent voices. Whether these things are accurate or not is a moot point – what actually matters is how they are perceived by broader publics. It is sad but possibly true that for those outside the room, what goes on inside the room doesn’t matter. And I suspect that the argument that a Jury is representative and very well informed is simply not going to cut it.

Trust in the Australian political system is at a staggering low with very little trust in any level of government; mini-publics in Australia are almost invariably associated with a government body or statutory authority. Mini-publics rely on information presented by experts; populism rejects the knowledge of experts. With all the will and most independently-recruited-and-facilitated process in the world – people may just not trust it. And yet, even if there were greater trust in politics, the justification of random selection explicitly rejects populist public opinion – and vice versa. Bridie Jabour’s Guardian interviews with One Nation voters exemplifies this disconnect. One Hanson supporter is quoted as saying:

“I’m not a politician, I’m not an accountant, I’m not anybody who knows anything but I see stuff and think ‘that doesn’t look right to me’, the average Joe Blow feels things more than they actually understand or know, they feel things, they know stuff.”

The logic of randomly selected mini-publics goes against this. The question is how to respond; the populist challenge cannot simply be ignored or sneered at. Yet in a way, this is exactly what mini-publics can be perceived as doing.

The time is right

We are at a critical juncture in Australia. One option is to continue plying the mini-public trade and make extra efforts to engage more people in the process, and to better explain mini-publics to a wider audience. The question is whether we simply need to work on explaining ourselves better, or whether the populist challenge requires deeper reflection on the practice of democratic innovation and deliberative democracy. I am inclined toward the latter.

The challenge that populism poses should be seized as a catalyst to re-think the practice of deliberative democracy in Australia. Mini-publics are one of many worthy options; deliberative democracy is a far broader church – and democratic innovation even more so. Randomly selected mini-publics are not a cure-all. At best, they are an important piece embedded in a broader democratic process. At worst, they are a viable threat to the practice of deliberative democracy itself.

You can find the posting of this article on the Participedia blog at www.participedia.net/en/news/2016/11/13/when-democratic-innovation-not-democratic-innovation-populist-challenge-australia.

Lessons on Long-Term Participation Efforts from PBNYC

Posted on by
Reply

We wanted to share an insightful article from NCDD member org the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation that shares lessons we can learn about avoiding pitfalls of long-term public participation projects from participatory budgeting in NYC. The piece focuses on PBNYC, but breaks down universal issues in engagement like waning interest from politicians and the ever-important problem of scaling up. We encourage you to read the piece below or find the original here.

How can PBNYC reduce the resource strain – without threatening its inclusive process?

To engage those often left out of democratic decision-making, Council Member district staffs and their volunteers rely on resource-intensive outreach work. They hand out flyers, knock on doors, staff booths at neighborhood events, and host information sessions at community centers.

Each district runs at least three events targeted to areas with less mobile populations or marginalized communities, such as NYCHA housing developments or senior centers. These face-to-face interactions have built trust – and proven crucial to engaging a rich cross-section of the city.

Behind the scenes, the City Council Speaker’s office offers centralized resources and guidance to help each participating district run its process. Meanwhile, nonprofit partners such as the Participatory Budgeting Project and Community Voices Heard spend hours building resources, running volunteer trainings, and evaluating the results of the process.

All of this work adds up to a voter base that is more representative of New York’s diverse population than general elections or other political processes. In 2014-2015 (the last cycle to produce detailed demographic data), 57% of PB voters identified as people of color, compared to 47% of local election voters.

Nearly a quarter of PBNYC voters would have been ineligible to vote in general elections, including 12% who were under 18 and 10% who were not U.S. citizens. It’s a dynamic and inclusive process that more and more Council Members want their districts to join.

Yet as PBNYC continues to grow to more districts and more voters, the long hours and large volunteer commitments become less and less sustainable. It would be tempting to use digital outreach to reach more residents more efficiently. But analysis of past PBNYC cycles shows that tactics like social media and emails from Council Members engage a disproportionately white, highly-educated, and high income group, to the detriment of more diverse voices.

The city faces the challenge of including more residents in the process without drowning out the voices PB was meant to raise up.

In meeting this challenge, PBNYC has rightly put its values first, continuing to emphasize the type of face-to-face outreach that pulls in new participants. The task going forward is to translate those values into new outreach tactics.

For instance, the city should explore digital technologies that expand participation rather than limiting it: using SMS texting rather than online applications, and providing communal digital resources at libraries and community centers. Central staff should continue streamlining their processes and reducing resources needed on the back end. Partnerships that let grassroots organizations continue to take the lead will allow PBNYC to bypass red tape and avoid getting stuck in bureaucratic slowdowns.

Now that the initial excitement has worn off, how can PBNYC continue to improve?

City Council districts vary widely in their demographics, physical characteristics, and needs. Each district’s staff and volunteers must decide what a successful PB cycle looks like. Should they provide translated ballots for those who speak the 5th most common language in the district? The 6th? The 10th? In a world of limited time and resources, how much outreach is enough?

In addition to this district variation, the devolution of decision-making to the district level makes it challenging for central staff to oversee performance or hold districts accountable to any particular standard. In the past, central staff have worked to ensure accountability and consistency through personal relationships. Districts that strayed from best practices were given extra attention and guidance. But as more districts participate, this level of oversight becomes difficult.

Meanwhile, political incentives have inevitably shifted. The original flurry of media attention and public praise has died down. And while there are plenty of incentives for a new Council Member to set up a PB process in her district, doing it well – engaging more voters and ensuring the process is truly inclusive – may seem to offer diminishing returns and little public recognition.

How can PBNYC build structures and incentives for accountability? One promising approach would be to provide more transparency for the public, in the form of open access to PB data. Central staff have considered posting a PB project tracker online to help the public track the progress of projects that have won funding.

The tracker would serve as a focal point for district-by-district praise or analysis, both of which would incentivize districts to continue improving their process. Publicizing yearly statistics on vote counts and other metrics would also help the public judge their districts’ performance and encourage improvement over time.

With the initial excitement worn off and longer-term results not yet visible, the program risks entering a dead zone of usefulness to politicians. As a particularly resource-intensive process, PB needs to start demonstrating tangible benefits or risk being on the chopping block.

Tracking and sharing longer-term results could provide evidence for the broader benefits that advocates have touted – benefits like more equitable government spending, happier communities, and more engaged citizens. Such results have started to come in from PB processes that began several years ago in Brazil. Evidence of longer-term benefits to communities would help re-engage politicians in the process, and would bolster New York City as a national leader in the civic engagement space.

The PBNYC example reminds us that pilot programs are useful testing grounds, but promising experiments are unlikely to translate into large-scale successes without careful effort. Such a transformation requires shifts in strategy and tactics, matched with steadfastness in mission and values. Those interested in government innovation can learn a lot from watching PBNYC as it charts this course for participatory budgeting processes around the world.

You can find the original version of this piece from the Challenges to Democracy blog at www.challengestodemocracy.us/home/pbnyc-the-challenges-and-opportunities-of-scale/#sthash.Hp0uKvoD.dpuf.

ILG Releases Results of CA Public Engagement Survey

Posted on by
Reply

We encourage our members on the West Coast to take note of the results of a survey of local public engagement in California recently conducted by NCDD member organization the Institute for Local Government. The survey results show that local governments need more support in key areas that many of our members work in, which hopefully means more opportunities are on the horizon! We encourage you to read ILG’s post about the survey results below, or click here for more on their effort.

ILG Public Engagement Program Releases Findings from Self Evaluation Effort

“When citizens are actively involved in their civic and democratic institutions, their community and nation are stronger, more just, and more prosperous.”  — Alan Solomont, Dean, Tufts University

As public engagement is a foundation of our democracy, the Public Engagement Program has been a foundation of the Institute for Local Government (ILG).  A key component of our organization’s vision is to work toward a future where “all segments of the community are appropriately engaged in key public decisions.”

We’ve been working on this vision for more for a decade. But last year we decided to pause, assess our effectiveness and look at how we can best assist local governments. We retained outside consultants to help us undertake an ambitious, objective assessment of where we stand, what our local government partners need and how we can help them achieve their goals. The result was an in-depth evaluation resulting in informative infographics and accompanying narrative reports: “What We Did and What We Learned” and “Electronic Survey Results.”

These reports provide insight into the process used and input considered to assess the effectiveness of our program, while a complementary document, “The Future of Public Engagement Work,” outlines 10 recommended steps for the Public Engagement Program to take in order to better engage communities and local governments.

What We Did & What We Learned

ILG engaged with stakeholders across California to discuss what our public engagement program is doing well, how it can better serve local governments, and the challenges that local governments often face in making policy decisions. The result was a number of key observations, for example:

  • The public engagement field is still developing;
  • While local governments in California have made strides towards more inclusive public engagement in decision-making, they continue to report significant challenges; and
  • ILG is uniquely positioned to expand training and technical assistance to local governments in California.

The Program also completed a resources inventory that includes the publishing of more than 500 resources and 200 conference sessions since 2005. In addition, we interviewed 11 similar organizations, providing a nationwide scan of the field. During these interviews, many key themes were expressed, including the importance of a practitioner support network and the need to share lessons learned at a national level.

Statewide Electronic Survey Results

In conjunction with our consultants, we also conducted an extensive survey that was completed by more than 250 stakeholders representing counties, cities, special districts, and public engagement champions in 42 of California’s 58 counties. The survey provided ILG with insight on the impact of the Public Engagement Program; for example, 83 percent of those who had participated in an ILG learning opportunity reported that it increased knowledge and/or capacity to engage people.

The survey also provided many insights into the challenges that local government officials face in making local policy decisions. Among the most cited problems were “it’s the same people who always participate” and a “lack of staff and/or financial resources.” Participants stated that they believed a public engagement model for policy decision making is best applied to the following areas: parks and recreation, land use and planning, transportation, and infrastructure.

The Future of Our Public Engagement Work

Additionally, the consultants recommended 10 possible “next steps” for the Program to consider pursuing. Highlights included:

  • Increasing in-person outreach to discover local government needs and how ILG can assist;
  • Establishing new cross-sector partnerships to expand effective public engagement practices; and
  • Expanding the Public Engagement Program’s training opportunities and developing new tools.

The evaluation was conducted by our project consultants: Deb Marois, Converge CRT, and Adele James, Adele James Consulting. We thank The James Irvine Foundation for their generous support in making this assessment a reality, as well as in sharing our vision regarding the value of effective public engagement.

At ILG, we are excited about the future of our Public Engagement Program, and we are ready to put our consultants’ recommendations into practice.

You can find the infographics and their accompanying narrative reports on the Institute for Local Government’s website at: www.ca-ilg.org/PE2015Evaluation.

2017 Frontiers of Democracy Conference Call for Proposals

Posted on by
Reply

We are happy to announce that once again, the Frontiers of Democracy conference organizers at Tufts University are accepting session proposals for their annual gathering. The 2017 conference will take place, as always, at the Tufts University downtown campus in Boston, this time from June 22nd – 24th.

The annual Frontiers of Democracy conference is a key gathering for our field that brings together leading deliberative democracy thinkers, public participation practitioners, and civic educators to explore ideas at the forefront of advancing democracy. NCDD’s leadership attends almost every year, and many of our members are staples of the conference, so mark you calendars to join us!

This year, the Frontiers gathering’s framing statement highlights the global rise in authoritarianism and the challenge it poses for continuing to expand democracy:

In 2017, the frontiers of democracy are threatened around the world. Leaders and movements that have popular support – yet are charged with being undemocratic, xenophobic, and illiberal – are influential or dominant in the Philippines, Russia, Turkey, Hungary, South Africa, France, Britain, and the United States, among other countries. Meanwhile, many peoples continue to face deep and sustained repression. Social movements and networks are confronting this global turn to authoritarianism. Please join us for a discussion of what we must do to defend and expand the frontiers of democracy.

If this theme speaks to work you do or conversations you are eager to have, consider applying to host  workshops or learning exchanges of your own! You can find the form to submit proposals by clicking here.

More details about the 2017 gathering are forthcoming, so make sure to check back frequently to the Frontiers of Democracy conference website at http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/civic-studies/frontiers for news and updates. We look forward to seeing many of you there!

New IAP2 Trainings Schedule for 2017 from TCP

Posted on by
Reply

If you are looking for D&D trainings to kick off your year, we encourage you to check out the new calendar of trainings offered by NCDD member organization The Participation Company. TCP offers certification in the International Association for Public Participation‘s model, and dues-paying NCDD members get a discount on registration! We encourage you to to read more about the trainings in the TCP announcement below or learn more here.

The Participation Company’s 2017 Training Events

If you work in communications, public relations, public affairs, planning, public outreach and understanding, community development, advocacy, or lobbying, this training will help you to increase your skills and to be of even greater value to your employer.

This is your chance to join the many thousands of practitioners worldwide who have completed the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) certificate training.

Foundations in Public Participation (5-Day) Certificate Program:

Planning for Effective Public Participation (3-Days) and/or *Techniques for Effective Public Participation (2-Days)

  • Jan. 23-27 in Phoenix, AZ
  • Feb. 6-10 in Arlington, VA
  • Mar. 27-31 in Austin, TX
  • Apr. 24-28 in Oakland, CA
  • May 1-5 in Orlando, FL
  • Jun. 5-9 in Denver, CO
  • Jun. 26-30 in Chicago, IL

*The 3-Day Planning training is a prerequisite to Techniques training

IAP2’s Emotion, Outrage and Public Participation – Moving from Rage to Reason (2-Days)

  • Apr. 27-28 in Austin, TX
  • Jul. 20-21 in Phoenix, AZ
  • Aug. 17-18 in Chicago, IL

Register online for these trainings at www.theparticipationcompany.com/training

Introducing TPC’s newest course offering “FP3”

Facilitation for P2 Practitioners – FP3 (3-Days)

Building on best practices from both the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) and the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), this course introduces the basics of facilitation in the public arena. Participants learn how to design and conduct successful facilitated public involvement events. It is designed as a small, intensive interactive learning opportunity. For more information go to: www.theparticipationcompany.com/training/facilitation.

Is your organization interested in hosting a training event? Host discounts are provided. Contact us at melissa@theparticipationcompany.com.

Please check our website for updates to the calendar.

The Participation Company (TPC) offers discounted rates to NCDD members. 

TPC can also assist you and your organization in other endeavors! Our team of highly experienced professionals help government and business clients manage public issues to accomplish client’s objectives. We can plan and manage your participation project from start to finish. We can provide strategic advice and direction. We can coach and mentor your staff and managers. We help you build agreements and craft durable and defensible decisions.

Phoenix Launches First-Ever School District PB Process

Posted on by
Reply

We were excited to learn recently that the team at the Participatory Budgeting Project, one NCDD’s member organizations, and Phoenix schools made history when they launched the first participatory budgeting (PB) process in the US to allow students across to deliberate on how to use district money. The effort will build D&D capacity in Phoenix’s student body, and we can’t wait to see how it goes. Read more about this historic initiative and how to spread School PB in the PBP blog piece below, or find the original here.

PBP-Logo-Stacked-Rectangle-web1Phoenix schools are making history AGAIN with PB

“We’re here to make history!” exclaimed Shari Davis, PBP Director of Strategic Initiatives, to a room full of students, teachers, principals, district administration, and sunshine.

Three years ago, the first high school-based PB process in the U.S. began at Bioscience High School in Phoenix, Arizona. This year, the Phoenix Union High School District (PUHSD) is launching the first school PB process in the U.S. to use district-wide funds, beginning with five public high schools and intended to expand across the district in future years.

On September 24th, PBP hosted a PB 101 Training for more than 60 high school students, teachers, principals, and PUHSD staff. The training introduced participants to PB by inviting them to take part in a mock PB process that began with idea collection and culminated in a mock vote.

After learning PB by doing it, trained facilitators worked with teams of students, teachers, and principals from each of the five high schools to begin planning individual PB processes; each team discussed goals for their process, which model of school PB to use, who could participate in each phase of PB, and how they would begin collecting ideas.screen-shot-2016-10-19-at-9-06-20-am

In what we could call a (brain)storm in the desert, discussion among high school teams resulted in their commitments to creating student-driven PB processes that will develop student leadership, magnify student voice, involve entire schools in meaningful and transparent experiences, and build healthy and respectful relationships between students, teachers, and parents.

The models of school PB selected by each team ranged from steering committees made of single classrooms to committees led by student government and existing clubs. Some schools began planning for large idea collection assemblies involving the entire student body; others discussed utilizing advisory periods and online forms to collect project ideas. Regardless of specific strategies, all schools prioritized plans to include students that don’t often engage in school processes.

In a concluding activity, students and teachers were asked to share one word to describe how they felt at the start of the workshop and one word to describe how they felt at the end. Many shared pairs of words that expressed feeling nervous, unsure, confused, or tired when they arrived and feeling excited, energized, intrigued, and supported as they left. A group of teachers said they looked forward to continuing to connect across school teams to learn from and support one another in launching school PB. After participating in the mock PB process, one freshman student described what he hoped PB would accomplish at his school: “I’d like to see PB help other shy freshmen like me gain confidence and come to have a voice in our school community.”

So, what’s the problem with – and potential for – school budgets?

School districts operate large and complex budgets, often with little participation from the students and community members they serve. Schools have used PB around the world to engage students, parents, teachers, and community members in deciding which school programs and improvements to fund. School PB builds understanding of school budgets, provides leadership development for students, directs funds to pressing needs and innovative ideas, and helps students learn democracy and active citizenship by doing it.screen-shot-2016-10-19-at-9-09-40-am

Sound like something that could strengthen your school? Wondering how to start?

In response to increasing interest in School PB, PBP developed a free guide to PB in schools with 18 lesson plans and six worksheets – which walk through planning, idea collection, proposal development, voting, and implementation – to help teachers bring PB into their classrooms. Earlier this summer, PBP hosted a free webinar to review the Guide’s content and to support educators in learning how to use tools that strengthen the school community, cultivate collaboration, public speaking, and research skills, and teach democracy by doing it. Take the first step towards introducing PB in your school by downloading our free guide and watching our webinar!

You’re invited to join the movement!

It starts with you! Join the Phoenix Union High School District, Overfelt High School, the MET High School, Sullivan High School, and others in a growing movement for school PB. PBP welcomes you to take the first step in bringing your school community closer and educating your students in an engaging democratic process by downloading our free Guide, watching our Webinar, and centering your students as leaders in planning this student-driven participatory process.

Looking for more in-depth support from PBP?

Direct inquiries about working with PBP to launch PB in your school to Ashley Brennan at ashley@participatorybudgeting.org.

You can find the original version of this PBP blog piece at www.participatorybudgeting.org/phoenix-schools-are-making-history-again-with-pb.

Phoenix Launches First-Ever School District PB Process

Posted on by
Reply

We were excited to learn recently that the team at the Participatory Budgeting Project, one NCDD’s member organizations, and Phoenix schools made history when they launched the first participatory budgeting (PB) process in the US to allow students across to deliberate on how to use district money. The effort will build D&D capacity in Phoenix’s student body, and we can’t wait to see how it goes. Read more about this historic initiative and how to spread School PB in the PBP blog piece below, or find the original here.

PBP-Logo-Stacked-Rectangle-web1Phoenix schools are making history AGAIN with PB

“We’re here to make history!” exclaimed Shari Davis, PBP Director of Strategic Initiatives, to a room full of students, teachers, principals, district administration, and sunshine.

Three years ago, the first high school-based PB process in the U.S. began at Bioscience High School in Phoenix, Arizona. This year, the Phoenix Union High School District (PUHSD) is launching the first school PB process in the U.S. to use district-wide funds, beginning with five public high schools and intended to expand across the district in future years.

On September 24th, PBP hosted a PB 101 Training for more than 60 high school students, teachers, principals, and PUHSD staff. The training introduced participants to PB by inviting them to take part in a mock PB process that began with idea collection and culminated in a mock vote.

After learning PB by doing it, trained facilitators worked with teams of students, teachers, and principals from each of the five high schools to begin planning individual PB processes; each team discussed goals for their process, which model of school PB to use, who could participate in each phase of PB, and how they would begin collecting ideas.screen-shot-2016-10-19-at-9-06-20-am

In what we could call a (brain)storm in the desert, discussion among high school teams resulted in their commitments to creating student-driven PB processes that will develop student leadership, magnify student voice, involve entire schools in meaningful and transparent experiences, and build healthy and respectful relationships between students, teachers, and parents.

The models of school PB selected by each team ranged from steering committees made of single classrooms to committees led by student government and existing clubs. Some schools began planning for large idea collection assemblies involving the entire student body; others discussed utilizing advisory periods and online forms to collect project ideas. Regardless of specific strategies, all schools prioritized plans to include students that don’t often engage in school processes.

In a concluding activity, students and teachers were asked to share one word to describe how they felt at the start of the workshop and one word to describe how they felt at the end. Many shared pairs of words that expressed feeling nervous, unsure, confused, or tired when they arrived and feeling excited, energized, intrigued, and supported as they left. A group of teachers said they looked forward to continuing to connect across school teams to learn from and support one another in launching school PB. After participating in the mock PB process, one freshman student described what he hoped PB would accomplish at his school: “I’d like to see PB help other shy freshmen like me gain confidence and come to have a voice in our school community.”

So, what’s the problem with – and potential for – school budgets?

School districts operate large and complex budgets, often with little participation from the students and community members they serve. Schools have used PB around the world to engage students, parents, teachers, and community members in deciding which school programs and improvements to fund. School PB builds understanding of school budgets, provides leadership development for students, directs funds to pressing needs and innovative ideas, and helps students learn democracy and active citizenship by doing it.screen-shot-2016-10-19-at-9-09-40-am

Sound like something that could strengthen your school? Wondering how to start?

In response to increasing interest in School PB, PBP developed a free guide to PB in schools with 18 lesson plans and six worksheets – which walk through planning, idea collection, proposal development, voting, and implementation – to help teachers bring PB into their classrooms. Earlier this summer, PBP hosted a free webinar to review the Guide’s content and to support educators in learning how to use tools that strengthen the school community, cultivate collaboration, public speaking, and research skills, and teach democracy by doing it. Take the first step towards introducing PB in your school by downloading our free guide and watching our webinar!

You’re invited to join the movement!

It starts with you! Join the Phoenix Union High School District, Overfelt High School, the MET High School, Sullivan High School, and others in a growing movement for school PB. PBP welcomes you to take the first step in bringing your school community closer and educating your students in an engaging democratic process by downloading our free Guide, watching our Webinar, and centering your students as leaders in planning this student-driven participatory process.

Looking for more in-depth support from PBP?

Direct inquiries about working with PBP to launch PB in your school to Ashley Brennan at ashley@participatorybudgeting.org.

You can find the original version of this PBP blog piece at www.participatorybudgeting.org/phoenix-schools-are-making-history-again-with-pb.

Tips for Online Engagement with Millennials

Posted on by
Reply

We encourage our online engagement practitioners to check out this post from NCDD member organization the Davenport Institute. It offers tips for encouraging your stakeholders, especially younger people, to participate in your efforts online, which may make sense during busy times like the holidays. You can read the post below or or find the original version here.

Tip: 5 Ways To Promote Online Engagement

The Davenport InstituteDo you need help increasing your online engagement efforts? In a recent article published on informz.com, Senior Digital Marketing Strategist at Informz, Vivian Swertinski shares with readers 5 Ways to Promote Online Community Engagement. In her article she points out:

It’s been reported that 74% of millennials feel technology helps them stay connected to the people in their social network, at work, and at home. It’s not surprising that audiences that grew up with technology often prefer to interact with colleagues and peers through online channels. These preferences are not likely to change, in fact, millennials will purposefully seek out organizations that make it easy to engage through digital channels.

As a result, she recommends (1) promote online community and networking opportunities at the time of recruitment, (2) welcoming new members to the community should be a part of the onboarding campaign, (3) promote popular topics and encourage audience members to join the conversation, (4) recognize individual community contributors, and (5) incorporate online community in the member renewal campaign as appropriate.

To read more, including access to online engagement resources click here.

You can find the original version of this Davenport Institute post at http://gov20watch.pepperdine.edu/2016/10/tip-5-ways-promote-online-engagement.

Top Resources for Post-Election Dialogue Across Divides

Posted on by
Reply

Earlier this week, NCDD hosted a special post-election Confab Call during which over fifty of our members and affiliates had a rich, inspiring, and for some, therapeutic conversation about what kind of work people in the dialogue and deliberation field are doing to address this post-election moment.

XS Purple NCDD logoThe call was part of our ongoing #BridgingOurDivides campaign, during which we’ve been encouraging our members to share about the work happening in our field that’s aimed at fostering bridge building, and to share resources that can build capacity to move forward together despite differences. The Confab Call was its own kind of resource, and if you missed the call, you can hear about all the great projects, insights, and resources that were discussed during it by listening to the recording here or reading over the discussion and links from the call’s chat transcription here. But there are many more resources we want to share with you all today.

As we’ve mentioned before, there are important needs being felt in the wake of the election year’s end that dialogue and deliberation can address: D&D can help us process our feelings and what’s next, it can help promote and maintain civility, it can assist in bridging long-standing divides, and it can facilitate interactions that humanize people or groups who’ve been made into caricatured “others” and out groups. NCDD wanted to know how our field is responding to these needs, so we recently asked our D&D community to share their resources, tools, and projects that could help address post-election issues with us.

We received a wide variety of wonderful resources in response to that call, and in our continued efforts to help the field rise to the needs and opportunities presented in this challenging moment for our country, we’ve created a list of some of the best resources the NCDDers shared. We’ve linked to over two dozen resources below that we hope D&D practitioners will find useful as you engage with your communities over the coming weeks and months.

Please continue to add to this list in the comments section, as we’ll be continuing to archive the best of these and other tools in our Resource Center for future use. For now, take a look through the list below of valuable D&D resources.

Processing Emotions and What Happens Next

Much of what is needed across the country after the election is simply spaces and methods to process our thoughts and feelings about the election season, the outcome, and what they want to see happen next – together. There are tons of great resources in our field for doing that, and here are some of the good ones:

Promoting and Maintaining Civility

With the divisiveness and rancor of the election season’s rhetoric on all sides, a huge part of the need D&D can fill right now is to help build the capacity for civil conversations when we’re disagreeing – whether within families, in the media, or in the legislature. Below are some of the best resources for supporting civility after the election:

Bridging Our Dividesflag-cracked

The election both opened new divides and deepened old ones in our society, and helping individuals and communities bridge those divides need to be a special focus of D&D work today. We encourage you to learn more about how you can facilitate that bridging using the resources below:

Humanizing Groups Seen as “the Other”

One of the most troubling needs after the election, especially in light of the spike in hate crimes over the last month, is the need to develop and implement D&D methods that can help people see the humanity in those who they’ve written off as “other” or “less than” themselves. This need is one that our field urgently needs to develop more robust resources for addressing, but there are some good ones out there, which we’ve listed below:

  • NCDD member organization Not In Our Town has a treasure trove of resources for hosting conversations and taking action to oppose bullying and hate groups. Check out their huge catalogue of videos (most of which come with discussion guides) you can use to start conversations about addressing intolerance. You can also check out their guide on bringing stakeholders together, their Not In Our Schools guides for educators, and their quick start guide
  • NCDD recently launched our new Race, Police, & Reconciliation listserv to support collaboration and exchange among those working in racial dialogue, community-police relations, and truth-telling & reconciliation work – all of which help break down barriers between “us” and “them.” We encourage all involved in such work to join
  • We recommend reading and sharing about AllSides.com, a project that helps reduce the disconnection from other perspectives that the echo-chamber effect of social media fosters by providing comparisons of the same news stories from left-leaning, right-leaning, and center-based sources
  • If you want to get sense of how thick your “bubble” is or help your friends think about theirs, check out this quiz that purports to give a rating of how insulated you are or are not from the experiences of working class people
  • On the creative side, the US Department of Arts & Culture is inviting communities to participate in their annual People’s State of the Union between Jan. 27 – Feb. 5 by hosting story circles that encourage telling real stories of connection, disconnection, and breaking through barriers. Check out the downloadable toolkit for hosts
  • This illustrated video of a webinar on the power of storytelling to humanize “others” has important lessons on listening to people we’ve been taught to hate
  • For some reflection on how we make those we don’t know into “the other,” check out the classic TED talk from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about “the danger of a single story”

What Other Resources Are Out There?

This list features some incredible resources, but we know it’s just a taste of what’s out there in our field, so we encourage everyone to continue sharing your resources for addressing post-election needs in the comments section below! For now, we encourage you all to keep thinking about how our field can make its broadest impact possible in moving our communities and our nation beyond its deep divides and toward a positive future.

If you want to find even more amazing D&D tools, be sure to visit NCDD’s Resource Center.