Category Archives: public participation

Fusion Partnerships Wins Social Activist Award

Posted on by
Reply

We hope you’ll join us in congratulating NCDD supporting/founding member Polly Riddims and the wonderful team at Fusion Partnerships on recently being awarded the Social Activist Award from the Justice Studies Association. We are proud to count Polly and her team as part of our NCDD community, and we hope you’ll take a moment to read the Fusion team’s statement on their award below. 

On Friday, May 30, 2014, Fusion Partnerships, Inc. received the Social Activist Award from the Justice Studies Association in recognition for their continuing work for justice and well-being in Baltimore. The award was presented during their 16th Annual Conference “Revisiting to Revisioning: Restorative Justice to Transformative Justice” at Towson University, May 29-31, 2014. Polly Riddims, Managing Partner and Jim Kucher, Board Chair were there to accept the award.

Through collaborative action, including fiscal sponsorship, Fusion Partnerships works to be a catalyst for social justice and peace. Fusion currently provides fiscal sponsorship and incubation support for over 65 community based program in the Baltimore region working for social change. These projects are making a difference in areas of youth development, health and nutrition, gender and LGBT issues, criminal justice reform, racial justice, and the arts.

Fusion was established in 1998 to educate and facilitate community building and collaborative efforts toward social change. Through work in the community, Fusion found many underserved grassroots community leaders with great new ideas, entrepreneurial projects and innovative strategies, struggling to do their best with little financial support and without access to the nonprofit resources. Fiscal sponsorship provides an opportunity for individuals or groups tocarry out their ideas, where they can succeed and grow, and create a space for collaborative work and sharing of resources.

Justice Studies Association (JSA) is an international not-for-profit membership association established in 1998 to:

  • Foster writing and research about, the practice of, and activism for, justice without violence;
  • Provide venues in the form of an annual conference and a journal of progressive thought to tackle pressing issues of criminal, social, restorative, and economic justice;
  • Foster a sense of community among scholars, activists and practioners of justice interested in creating a global community in which the needs of all are met; and
  • Welcome scholars from all disciplines to think and write about issues of justice from an interdisciplinary and global perspective.

A Glimmer of Hope in Pew’s Polarization Report

Posted on by
Reply

The Pew Research Center recently released a report on polarization in the US that has important insights for our field. The report is huge, but luckily, NCDD Board of Directors member John Backman created a wonderful overview of the report’s findings, with an eye toward what it means for our work. We highly encourage you to read John’s thoughts below and add your reflections on the Pew study in the comments section. 

How Far Apart Are We, Really? A Closer Look at Pew’s Polarization Report

by John Backman

The findings look dark, no doubt about it. Play with the numbers, though, and you can begin to see glimmers of hope—and opportunities for D&D practitioners.

The report from the Pew Research Center bears the ominous title “Political Polarization in the American Public,” and the first sentence in the web version is no better: “Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines – and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive – than at any point in the last two decades.” The nationwide survey of 10,000 adults found that:

  • The two ends of the spectrum are growing. 21% of respondents now identify as “consistently liberal” or “consistently conservative”—double the percentage in 1994.
  • Overlap between parties is in steep decline. Twenty years ago, 64% of Republicans were more conservative than the median Democrat, and 70% of Democrats were more liberal than the median Republican. Today those figures are 92% and 94%, respectively.
  • Hostility is more intense. The percentage of respondents with a highly negative view of the other side has more than doubled since 1994. Worse, most of these “high negatives” believe the opposing party’s policies to be “so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being.”
  • The silos are hardening. Half of consistent conservatives and 35% of consistent liberals value living in a place where most people share their views. Nearly one-third of consistent conservatives and one-quarter of consistent liberals would be unhappy if one of their family married into the other side.

In other words, the American public is moving in a direction diametrically opposed to the bridge-building instincts of most D&D practitioners. On the whole, it’s hard to be happy about the situation.

Until you dig deeper. Some of the under reported findings and unexpressed facts hold more hope for both our public square and our ability as practitioners to make a difference:

If 21% of Americans are now firmly ensconced in their worldviews, then 79% are not.

That leaves roughly 250 million people who, in theory, might be open to an exchange of views with others of different opinion. One key strategy for ensconcing dialogue in our public square, as I see it, is to build a critical mass of people who are (or become) oriented toward dialogue. It’s easier to find participants for that critical mass in a pool of 250 million than it would be if the middle were actually vanishing instead of declining.

The middle of the political spectrum is quiet. Dialogue and deliberation could change that.

The Pew report notes that the people at the ends of the spectrum have a disproportionate voice in the political process because they are more vocal. “Many of those in the center,” the authors write, “remain on the edges of the political playing field, relatively distant and disengaged.” Yet they don’t have to stay on the edges, and anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that D&D can draw them in. For how many people has a dialogue been their first experience with any sort of civic engagement? And how many of them have been delighted with the process?

Data to validate or refute these impressions would be helpful here, of course. But if the impressions are accurate, they point to the power of dialogue, not only to engage people in the civic/political arena, but to start them out with a civil, productive approach.

There is still common ground to use as a starting point for dialogue, and much of it involves one of our most powerful motivators: the drive to make a good life for ourselves and our loved ones.

According to the Pew report, even the most strident conservatives and liberals want to live near extended family, high-quality public schools, and opportunities to get outdoors. By and large, concern for those closest to us trumps political affiliation: for about three-quarters of respondents, a family member’s marrying across political divides doesn’t matter.

Yes, the trends are troubling. Yet there is more than enough “raw material” for D&D practitioners to advance the cause of dialogue and deliberation.

What do you see in the numbers? Please share your thoughts below in our comments section.

New Reports on Civic Dialogue & Business Leaders

Posted on by
Reply

Our friends at the Network for Business Sustainability recently released two reports that we think NCDD members should note. The reports focus on the potential for business leaders to be more involved in civic dialogues, and we encourage you to read more about them in the NBS statement below.

Businesses have traditionally played little role in civic dialogue, but their involvement can help advance issues. The Network for Business Sustainability (NBS) has recently published two reports, written by Dr. Thomas Webler, that identify the potential for business involvement in civic dialogue.

The reports are aimed at a business audience, and can serve to introduce businesses to civic dialogue concepts. We hope that they will also be useful for anyone seeking to understand business perspectives or the value of engaging businesses in dialogues.

The reports are:

Both are freely available. We very much appreciate thoughts and feedback, and will evolve the reports accordingly. Comment on the report webpage or by sending a note to Maya Fischhoff at mfischhoff@nbs.net.

About the reports and NBS

NBS is a non-profit based at Western University (Canada) which connects research and practice around sustainable business. Each year, NBS’s Leadership Council of leading Canadian businesses identifies priority issues. For 2013, they asked: How can businesses help citizens become informed, inspired and engaged in a national dialogue about sustainability?

This project represents an innovative collaboration between research and practice. Researcher Dr. Thomas Webler summarized the best academic and practical research available on civic engagement. A working session of leaders from the business, non-profit and academic communities provided extensive feedback, which Dr. Webler incorporated into the final documents.

The Village Square’s Creative Civic Conversations

Posted on by
Reply

We recently read a great piece in the Christian Science Monitor that featured one of NCDD’s organizational members, The Village Square, and we hope you’ll take a few moments to read it. Much like the Albany Roundtable that we just recently featured on the blog, The Village Square is creating a civic infrastructure that brings people together for regular conversations on local politics.

The CSM article, titled “Civil Discourse That Doesn’t Taste Like Broccoli”, was penned by NCDD member Liz Joyner, who works for Village Square, and details the history and approach of this innovative organization. In it, Liz details how The Village Square has taken its inspiration from our nation’s early days of politics:

In the early 1800s, things weren’t looking particularly good for the American experiment in self-governance. Coming to Washington with differences of opinion natural to a vast new land, early legislators lived and ate in boarding houses that became entrenched voting blocs. Thomas Jefferson wrote that these men came to work “in a spirit of avowed misunderstanding, without the smallest wish to agree.”

Apparently neither human nature nor legislatures have changed much since.

Jefferson’s solution was to bring lawmakers to the White House in diverse groups for good dinner and conversation. Two hundred years later, The Village Square takes a page from his book when we invite politically diverse citizens to break bread at our “Dinner at the Square” series or “Take-out Tuesday” town meetings.

As Liz notes, the concept of a coming together in a village square is not in any way a new idea. Yet in a time when we have grown disconnected from our communities and polarized into echo chambers of like-minded people, creating a common space to come together with those we disagree with is increasingly a radical idea.

The Village Square project exists to help create and hold that space:

…The Village Square engages people socially around civic issues – bringing neighbors back in relationship with each other across ideological difference. People aren’t built to reexamine the basics of their positions unless they feel some sense of friendship and common purpose with those suggesting they do so.

But as Liz notes, getting folks from our polarized, siloed communities to sit down and talk is some times like pulling teeth. That is why Village Square takes a fun and playful approach to its serious civic work.

To address this challenge, our irreverently named programs are part civic forum, part entertainment. Each event is casual (the stage is set up to feel like the facilitator’s living room) and involves sharing food. As we begin, we give out two “civility bells,” ask that the audience avoid tribal “team clapping,” and share a quote to inspire our better angels. We welcome fluid audience participation and always try to laugh.

From here our formats vary widely – ranging from huge community dinners with a panel and social time, to 20 elected officials moving from table to table in “Speed Date your Local Leader,” to a barbecue competition between a Republican and Democratic commissioner.

It’s creative ideas for bringing people together that The Village Square is bringing to cities in Florida, California, and Missouri – and hopefully more. We encourage you to read Liz’s full article in the Christian Science Monitor, which you can find at www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Common-Ground/2014/0611/Civil-discourse-that-doesn-t-taste-like-broccoli, and learn more about The Village Square at http://tothevillagesquare.org.

Learning from the Albany Roundtable

Posted on by
Reply

We read a fascinating article that NCDD member John Backman wrote for our partners at CommunityMatters that we think you should read. John writes about an innovative civic experiment that has become an institution called the Albany Roundtable, and we hope you’ll read more about it below or find the original piece here.

CM_logo-200pxAppropriately, the idea for a bastion of civic infrastructure in Albany, New York—a luncheon series—arose from a luncheon organization.

“I had been attending Kiwanis luncheons downtown since high school,” said Paul Bray. “At one point in 1979, I got to thinking that an open-to-all civic lunch forum might be helpful in Albany. It was my idea that it be monthly, open to the public by reservation, and have a civic or business leader speak at the luncheons.”

Thirty-five years later, the Albany Roundtable  has become an institution in New York’s Capital Region. Speakers at the monthly luncheons, which typically draw 100 participants, include local leaders from healthcare, higher education, the arts, business, and other elements of the community. Just as essential, the Roundtable serves as a gathering place for civic leaders and other citizens to build their networks across sectors and industries and beyond. It helped create the basis for establishing the Albany Heritage Area which is now one of 20 state designated heritage areas. Heritage areas is a new concept of park that utilizes whole cities and/or regions as a park. Lowell, Massachusetts is the first national city as a park and there are now 49 national heritage areas including 4 in New York State that are all regions.

The Albany Roundtable’s network infrastructure barely existed when Bray first conceived the Roundtable idea. The mayor of Albany, Erastus Corning 2d, had completed 37 years in office and headed a machine with complete control over all things political. And many people believed at the time that all things were political in Albany.

“Local officials were generally deferred to on most matters,” Bray recalled. “Albany had a fair number of neighborhood associations, a historic preservation organization, numerous social service organizations, etc., etc., but they didn’t get involved in governance. There was little sense of the community at large.”

The initial meetings reflected that assessment. Speakers drew crowds largely from their own industry or venture, and attendance hovered around 35. At one point, Bray mentioned the Roundtable to Corning, a conversation that eventually led to the Roundtable’s hosting the mayor’s annual State of the City message. “Only when the mayor spoke was there a greater diversity of attendees, and attendance went up,” Bray said.

Today attendees comprise a broad cross-section of Albany, and the monthly speakers reflect that diversity. The chancellor of the State University of New York has addressed the Roundtable; so have the CEO of the largest local healthcare system, a business leader in the region’s burgeoning nanotechnology sector, directors of the best-known museums, the head of the local transit authority, and many others.

In recent years, the Roundtable has spread its activities beyond the lunch hour. Each year, it invites a visiting speaker to an evening gathering, and the roster of past speakers looks like a who’s who of livable cities. Last year’s gathering featured Jeff Speck, the author of Walkable City and an international advocate for smart growth and sustainable design; this year the speaker is Kaid Benfield, a senior leader at the National Resources Defense Council and one of the world’s “top urban thinkers” according to the city planning website Planetizen.

The Roundtable also gives out awards. The Good Patroon Award goes annually to a person or organization that makes the community a better place to live. (Bray himself won in 2004 for his work with the Roundtable.) Just last year, the organization founded the Albany Roundtable Scholarship, a $1,000 award given to a high school senior recommended by a Roundtable member.

Over the years, the Roundtable has catalyzed a number of civic projects. For example, one Roundtable attendee urged Bray to invite Fred Salvucci, the former Transportation Commissioner in Massachusetts who led the $15 billion “Big Dig” project bury a highway in downtown Boston. When he came to Albany, Salvucci met the Mayors of Albany and Schenectady, met with transportation planners about a transit connection that became the existing Bus Rapid Transit between downtown Schenectady and Albany and he saw a lot of potential for expanding Albany’s downtown and accomplishing other infrastructure projects. Salvucci organized a proposal for a diversity of projects in the Capital Region that was entitled Revest. Although many of the projects were not realized initially, it sparked the awareness the collaborative efforts are possible.

Though Bray no longer serves as Roundtable president (“It took me over 30 years to find someone who would take over”), he remains active as a board member and founder.

And he has the satisfaction of knowing that his brainchild has made a difference. “For me,” Bray noted, “the Roundtable experience has confirmed an important truth: that there is great value in community-wide opportunities for citizens to gather, break bread, and hear from the civic leaders whose decisions affect their lives.”

You can find the original version of this article at www.communitymatters.org/blog/building-civic-infrastructure-your-lunch-hour.

Engaging Students & Youth in the NCDD 2014 Conference

Posted on by
Reply

As you may have read by now, the theme for the NCDD 2014 Conference is Democracy for the Next Generation. We chose this theme for many reasons. We wanted to bring more attention to the exciting and innovative ways that next generation technology is changing our field, to think about new ways to embed our work into old processes of governance, and to invite people to join us in envisioning what it would look like for dialogue, deliberation, and public engagement to take an evolutionary leap forward as a field of practice.

NCDD2014-blogimageBut another important reason that we chose Democracy for the Next Generation as the conference theme was because it invites us to think literally about the “next” generation(s) of people who we want not only to be effective participants in democracy, but who we also want to see join our field as practitioners.  We wanted the theme to encourage us to think about how we can involve more young people in the future of our work and the future of democracy – both 10 years from now and 100 years into the future. That is why we are making a special effort to invite students and young people from our communities of practice to attend NCDD 2014.

The “Why”

Involving young people in bigger ways addresses a number of the goals for our conference: expanding the scope of our work, connecting newer practitioners with seasoned veterans, and creating new partnerships, just to name a few. We think that having this kind of focus is particularly important for our field because in many ways, the current cohort of young adults – the Millennial generation – embodies the next generation of democracy as well as the challenges and opportunities for our field’s evolution.

AustinPic2-350Millennials are the most diverse generation of Americans ever as well as the most tech savvy, so thinking about their inclusion means opening up discussion both around technology’s role in our work as well as the challenge of making sure we are ready to engage with diversity and go beyond “the usual suspects” in terms of participants in our work. And since most Millennials are currently in or just a few years past being in college, engaging them in our work also means engaging institutions of higher education in promoting democratic practices and processes, as well as doing more of our own teaching – and learning – about our work with a new wave of potential recruits and participants.

Additionally, let’s face it – the leaders in our field are not getting any younger. ;) As we see some of the pillars and pioneers of our work getting closer to retirement age, it is vital to have an eye on the development and inclusion of the younger folks in our network who will be the ones to pick up the slack when our contemporary leaders leave the work. If we are thinking about our work on a generational scale, we want to be making conscious decisions around mentoring tomorrow’s leading engagement practitioners and scholars today.

The benefits for youth & students

With all of that said, we at NCDD are putting our money where our mouth is with incentives for students and young people to attend NCDD 2014. We are offering a reduced student registration rate for the conference of just $250 (early bird registration is $375), and we are offering even lower group rates for teachers and other practitioners who are bringing groups of students from their youth-oriented programs. The group rate will be worked out on a case-by-case basis, but one group that came with 8 students to NCDD 2012 worked with us to receive two free student spots in addition to the already-discounted rate. The more students you bring, the bigger the discount!

Student attendee at NCDD Austin workshop in 2010Plus, we are excited to announce that we are looking to identify a cadre of mentors that will support and guide the students and youth who attend this year’s NCDD conference in how to best make use of the conference and get involved in the field. The mentors who are selected will be seasoned D&D/engagement practitioners who are willing to spend some time with the students and youth who attend to mentor them during the conference. We hope that some of the mentors will continue in that role after the conference, to help pave the way for the next generation of practitioners and leaders in our field. It’s a very exciting opportunity for anyone looking for a way into the field!

Testimonials

We know that attending NCDD conferences is a great opportunity for students and young people. But you don’t have to take our word for it – you can hear about it yourself from student attendees and their teachers who have shared their feedback about the NCDD 2012 conference with us.

Kacey Bull, a Colorado State University undergraduate, had this to say about her experience in Seattle:

Attending NCDD was an incredible opportunity for me. It opened my eyes to a world that I didn’t know existed. I had been involved in the Center for Public Deliberation for about a year before I attended the conference and I had no idea how vast the world of Dialogue and Deliberation was.

I learned so many different models and activities, I was encouraged by all the people doing great work, and ultimately it led me one step closer to dedicating my academic efforts and career pursuits to the world of Deliberation. I wish every college student could be inspired by such an event.

And Dr. Martín Carcasson, who helped 8 of his students attend NCDD Seattle in 2012, shared with us his reflections on why bringing students to NCDD 2014 is a great opportunity:

CPD-MartinAndStudents-borderClearly NCDD is the ideal conference for college and university students interested in dialogue and deliberation. It provides students with an excellent overview of the overall field, and a chance to meet and work with many of the national leaders. Over a few short days, they will get exposure to multiple methods and strategies for supporting dialogue and deliberation back on their campuses and community. NCDD’s lively, interactive sessions will put the students in the middle of the work, working side by side with academics and practitioners.

Those experiences will not only be valuable to the students, but the students also provide a great service to the deliberation community by providing new voices and fresh perspectives to the conference events. I had several students attend the conference in Seattle, and those students came back incredibly invigorated, passionate about deliberation, and newly equipped with great ideas and fresh skills.

Several of those students have decided to stay at CSU for grad school, mostly in order to continue their journey with deliberation. Their wonderful NCDD experience certainly played an important role in their growing interest and commitment to the field. As the D&D movement continues to expand, attracting bright new voices will be critical, and bringing your best and brightest students to the NCDD conference is a great step in that direction.

Martín and his students also helped us make a great video, produced by our friends at Song of A Citizen, about their experience at NCDD 2012.

How you can get support this effort

  1. Bring a group of young people or students to the conference this October (connect with NCDD’s director, Sandy Heierbacher, at sandy@ncdd.org or our conference manager, Courtney Breese, at courtney@ncdd.org for info about discounts and more)
  2. Serve as a mentor at the conference or suggest people who work with students/youth we should reach out to (contact student/youth outreach coordinator Roshan at roshan@ncdd.org or Sandy)
  3. Make a donation to NCDD at www.ncdd.org/donate earmarked for sponsorships for students and youth
  4. Encourage ALL the students you know to take advantage of NCDD’s Student Membership rate, which is only $25/year for full access to all membership benefits
  5. At the conference, do all you can to help the young people who attend NCDD 2014 to feel welcomed and valued
  6. Help us spread the word to students at your schools, youth who are part of your work, and other young people who might be interested in attending — we’d love to have them! Direct people HERE to this post for details.

Table-group-600px-outlined

Three Principles for Innovation in Governance

Posted on by
Reply

Our partners at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation recently published a great piece on their Challenges to Democracy blog by Hollie Russon Gilman that we are re-posting here. Gilman’s insightful article about innovation in governance is the third in a series (first and second), and we hope you will read it below or find the post from the Ash Center here.

Ash logoIt isn’t easy to innovate in governance. Bureaucracy can be hidebound. The private sector’s lean startup model, with its “fail forward” ethos, is antithetical to government as we know it. Electorates are not tolerant of failure, and voter confidence in government is at an all time low. In a 2013, more people listed government dysfunction as the problem they believe is the country’s most serious challenge. Given these headwinds, it’s not surprising that many officials resist the experimentation and risk necessary to innovate.

However, partly in response to this same citizen disaffection, a new wave of participatory policy reforms is springing up across the United States. This includes New Urban Mechanics in Boston and Philadelphia piloting experiments to engage citizens with City Hall to Participatory Budgeting, a process to enlist citizens as decision makers on public budgets. While the civic experiments differ in form, they reflect common principles in action that offer lessons for policy makers considering their own civic innovations.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel. Instead of thinking about new laws, create innovation within existing institutional structures. For example, the U.S. already has a regulations comment and notice period. Instead of creating a new apparatus for citizen engagement, improve on existing structures such as Regulations.gov. This requires an investigatory, opportunistic approach to finding areas ripe for improvement and putting new tools to use.

When people apply the lens of innovation to existing structures, even small improvements can lead to more significant shifts by informing a new playbook that officials can replicate and scale.

Take a Hybrid Approach. Government cannot do it alone. Instead, find opportunities for non-government actors to contribute to governance. This can include public-private partnerships or leveraging the talent of universities. Citizens themselves are also a great, and often underutilized, repository of talent and local knowledge.

For example, Adopt a Hydrant is a Code for America project that enables citizens to take responsibility for shoveling out fire hydrants after heavy snowfall.

Collaboration Instead of Competition. The first mover advantage that is so critical in the private sector does not apply to the public sector. Innovation is most likely to spread when governments across localities work together to share lessons learned and best practices.

For example, Chicago is building an open source predictive analytics tool that other governments can use to translate open data to improve service delivery. This approach empowers citizens across geographic boundaries.

Government will never function like a Silicon Valley startup. But each of these observations – building on existing structures, enlisting the private sector, and sharing lessons—helps lower barriers.

What do these principles look like in practice?

Technology has transformed how the two major political parties compete for votes, from how campaigns receive donations to how they target voters. Yet we have not seen a commensurate civic-minded effort aimed at transforming voting processes and elections to empower citizens. Although voters often now tap a screen instead of punching a ballot, the act of voting otherwise remains relatively unchanged over the past several decades—even as technology remakes political campaigns.

As suggested above, governance innovations will be most successful when working within existing institutional structures. Elections, the wellspring of leaders’ and institutions’ democratic legitimacy, could also benefit from tapping into the energy and potential of technology and innovation.

One critical measure of successful elections is whether citizens feel equipped with information. This includes everything from where elected officials stand on key policy arenas to who is running and where to vote. Unfortunately, this information is scattered across many sources. A range of innovations, from open data API’s to new mobile apps are working to more effectively increase access to information.

One example is TurboVote. After signing up, a user will receive customized information on relevant voting rules, deadlines, and forms. All the voter has to do is drop them in the mail. This model suggests that providing easy access to information can reduce barriers to voting.

Even when citizens are empowered with information about elections, there is the further challenge of getting people to the polls. Nations handle this differently. Australia has compulsory voting. Some countries make Election Day a public holiday. Many countries host elections on Saturdays or Sundays. Thirty U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia, now have the option for a mail in ballot.

Political scientists Donald Green and Alan Gerber have conducted experiments demonstrating that personalized messages are most effective in voter mobilization. Google launched a pledge website for India’s elections. Here people can take a personal pledge to vote and learn about their candidates. These examples suggest that creative and customized approaches can encourage people to get out to the polls.

Finally, the very process of voting can be filled with frustration. Long waiting times, obscure locations, and in some places, questions about the fidelity of vote counting processes can leave people disillusioned about the act of voting. Crowd sourcing mechanisms could empower citizens both during and after voting.

Political scientist Archon Fung launched MyFairElections a crowd sourced platform, based on the success of Ushahidi’s election monitoring, where people can “rate” their voting location. Voters can submit reviews of their polling place. This can capture everything from long voting lines to the number of voters turned away from the polls. The information is then publicly displayed and can create a transparency and accountability feedback mechanism. Further opportunities for feedback could lead to improvements in election processes. This could also enable voters to feel more agency in the basic procedures that determine their governance.

Technology is creating new expectations for how citizens engage with their world. Governments must adapt to keep pace or risk the dissatisfaction of those they represent. The problems are large and complex. Meanwhile, democracy requires free and fair elections to exist. Elections are its sacred rites. There is good reason to be cautious about changing them. Yet there is also a democratic imperative for elections to seize 21st century innovation opportunities.

Civic innovation—done right—can serve as an important part of the solution.

This story is copied from the Challenges to Democracy blog and can be found at www.challengestodemocracy.us/home/public-sector-principles-for-encouraging-and-supporting-innovation-in-democratic-participation/#sthash.6zyxhPYw.LlUFGWWa.dpuf.

New EvDem Documentary on Youth Mental Health Dialogue

Posted on by
Reply

We hope you will take a moment to read about a great project that our organizational partners at Everyday Democracy are working on with a New Mexico youth organization called Generation Justice. Their new documentary is helping young people have the difficult but needed conversations about mental health in connection with the NCDD-supported Creating Community Solutions initiative. We hope you’ll take a moment to read about their work or find the original post from EvDem here.

EvDem LogoWhen the Mask Comes Off, produced by the youth media organization Generation Justice, is a video documentary featuring young people from New Mexico discussing their experiences of living with mental illness. We hear stories of struggle on their journey from misperception and alienation toward self-acceptance and healing. The documentary comes with adaptable discussion guides for use in communities and schools.

Generation Justice Executive Director Roberta Rael said, “We want to make sure that young people have a voice in the discussions about mental health and that young people contribute to the change that is needed.” View the video trailer here:

When the Mask Comes Off is a partnership between Generation Justice and Everyday Democracy, a national organization working with communities to create positive change by providing tools, advice and strategies that help make democracy real for everyone.

Everyday Democracy answered the call of President Barack Obama for a National Dialogue on Mental Health and helped establish Creating Community Solutions to help local communities enter the national conversation. In July 2013, Albuquerque became one of the first cities to launch a multi-year initiative to bring people into dialogue as part of the National Dialogue on Mental Health.

At the launch event on July 20, hundreds of residents across the community participated in dialogue and identified a priority to expand mental health resources for young people and to create opportunities for youth to talk about mental health. Subsequent neighborhood dialogues throughout the region have also identified that priority. The release of When the Mask Comes Off is a step in fulfilling that need.

Martha McCoy, executive director of Everyday Democracy, said, “Bringing young people’s voices into this critical conversation has surfaced as a priority in community dialogues across the United States. When the Mask Comes Off will open the door for that difficult conversation.”

See the full version of the film.

View and download the discussion guide for schools.

View and download the discussion guide for communities.

The original version of this post from Everyday Democracy can be found at http://everyday-democracy.org/news/young-people-talk-about-living-mental-illness-new-documentary-when-mask-comes#.U6HZaPldUlp.

New EvDem Documentary on Youth Mental Health Dialogue

Posted on by
Reply

We hope you will take a moment to read about a great project that our organizational partners at Everyday Democracy are working on with a New Mexico youth organization called Generation Justice. Their new documentary is helping young people have the difficult but needed conversations about mental health in connection with the NCDD-supported Creating Community Solutions initiative. We hope you’ll take a moment to read about their work or find the original post from EvDem here.

EvDem LogoWhen the Mask Comes Off, produced by the youth media organization Generation Justice, is a video documentary featuring young people from New Mexico discussing their experiences of living with mental illness. We hear stories of struggle on their journey from misperception and alienation toward self-acceptance and healing. The documentary comes with adaptable discussion guides for use in communities and schools.

Generation Justice Executive Director Roberta Rael said, “We want to make sure that young people have a voice in the discussions about mental health and that young people contribute to the change that is needed.” View the video trailer here:

When the Mask Comes Off is a partnership between Generation Justice and Everyday Democracy, a national organization working with communities to create positive change by providing tools, advice and strategies that help make democracy real for everyone.

Everyday Democracy answered the call of President Barack Obama for a National Dialogue on Mental Health and helped establish Creating Community Solutions to help local communities enter the national conversation. In July 2013, Albuquerque became one of the first cities to launch a multi-year initiative to bring people into dialogue as part of the National Dialogue on Mental Health.

At the launch event on July 20, hundreds of residents across the community participated in dialogue and identified a priority to expand mental health resources for young people and to create opportunities for youth to talk about mental health. Subsequent neighborhood dialogues throughout the region have also identified that priority. The release of When the Mask Comes Off is a step in fulfilling that need.

Martha McCoy, executive director of Everyday Democracy, said, “Bringing young people’s voices into this critical conversation has surfaced as a priority in community dialogues across the United States. When the Mask Comes Off will open the door for that difficult conversation.”

See the full version of the film.

View and download the discussion guide for schools.

View and download the discussion guide for communities.

The original version of this post from Everyday Democracy can be found at http://everyday-democracy.org/news/young-people-talk-about-living-mental-illness-new-documentary-when-mask-comes#.U6HZaPldUlp.

Announcing the 2014 All-American City Award Winners

Posted on by
Reply

We hope you will join the National Civic League and NCDD in congratulating the winners of the 2014 All-American City Awards. The NCL, an NCDD member organization, used this year’s awards to give a special focus to healthy communities. We encourage you to read the NCL press release below or find more information at www.allamericacityaward.com.

NCL-logoThe National Civic League announced the ten winners of the 2014 All-America City Awards (AAC) tonight. The award is given each year to towns, cities, counties, neighborhoods and metropolitan regions that demonstrate outstanding civic accomplishments.

Listed alphabetically by state, the 2014 All-America Cities are:

  • Montgomery, Alabama
  • San Pablo, California
  • Brush!, Colorado
  • Fort Lauderdale, Florida
  • Cedar Rapids, Iowa
  • Chelsea, Massachusetts
  • Independence, Oregon
  • Brownsville, Texas
  • Hampton, Virginia
  • Eau Claire, Wisconsin

The criteria for winning an All-America City Award include impact, inclusiveness, public engagement and collaboration by the private, public and nonprofit sectors. This year AAC had a special focus on healthy communities.

More than 650 communities have won the All-America City Award since the program was launched in 1949. Some have won the award multiple times. To win, each community had to make a presentation to a jury of civic experts focusing on three outstanding examples of collaborative, community problem solving.

“Congratulations on a job well done,” said Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock in a message to the All-America Cities. “Not only have you proven your ability to innovate, work together and take on the complex challenges facing America’s communities, you’ve given inspiration and ideas to other communities across the country.”

For two days, groups of civic leaders and community activists met in Denver to present their stories of positive change to a jury of civic experts and to network and exchange ideas and insights.

The 2014 All-America Cities applied grassroots efforts to address such issues as childhood obesity, economic development, neighborhood revitalization, greenway development. They engaged the public directly in budget-making, city planning and communitywide fitness programs. They promoted local arts and cultural opportunities, reduced high school drop-out rates and turned polluted brownfields into parks.

“These communities are amazing,” said National Civic League President Gloria Rubio-Cortés. “They deserve to be recognized for the great work they are doing to make their communities stronger, healthier and more inclusive. They have found innovative ways of aligning existing programs to achieve greater impact.”

Sponsors of the 2014 All-America City Awards are Southwest Airlines, The Official Airline of the All-America City Awards; Campaign for Grade-Level Reading; Colorado Health Foundation; The Colorado Trust; Kaiser Permanente Denver/Boulder Offices; Alameda Gateway Community Association; Delta Dental of Colorado; FirstBank; Greenberg Traurig; Mile High United Way; PCL Construction; St. Anthony Hospital; City of Aurora, Colorado; City and County of Denver, Colorado; City of Lakewood, Colorado; City of Dublin, California; City of Gladstone, Missouri; City of Rancho Cordova, California; City of Hickory, North Carolina; and RubinBrown.

NCL is a 120-year old nonpartisan, nonprofit organization based in Denver, Colorado. Its mission is accomplished by fostering and sharing promising practices of local government and public engagement and celebrating the progress that can be achieved when people work together.

For more information contact Mike McGrath at the National Civic League at 303 571-4343; mikem@ncl.org, or visit the All-America City Blog at www.allamericacityaward.com or the NCL web site at www.ncl.org.