NEW IAP2 Training Event in 2014, presented by The League of Extraordinary Trainers

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Sandy Heierbacher

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.

Emotion, Outrage and Public Participation (EOP2): Moving from Rage to Reason (2 days)
January 9-10, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois

Please check their site at www.extraordinarytrainers.com/schedules periodically as they are working to confirm additional 2014 event locations in Tempe, Kansas City, Nashville, Austin and Boston.

LET offers Early Bird Registration Discounts. Dues-paying NCDD members receive a 10% discount on all trainings — and a 20% discount if you register by the Early Bird Deadline. Email them directly to take advantage of your NCDD member discount, at info@extraordinarytrainers.com.

CIVICUS looking for convening partners to conduct local dialogues

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Sandy Heierbacher

My friend Ileana Marin at the Kettering Foundation brought my attention to this announcement the other day, thinking it would be of interest to some NCDD members…

CIVICUS is looking for Expressions of Interest by potential convening partners to conduct locally-initiated multi-stakeholder dialogues, following the methodological approach proposed by the project New Social Contract. The dialogues shall take place between November 2013 and May 2014. Selected partners will receive a financial contribution of $4000.

We’re looking for NGOs, CBOs, CSOs, umbrella organisations and other relevant entities across the world to get involved in this project. Interested? Apply online before 15 October! Or consult the call here.

CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation is an international alliance of members and partners which constitutes an influential network of organisations at the local, national, regional and international levels, and spans the spectrum of civil society. CIVICUS includes the following in its definition of civil society: civil society networks and organisations; trade unions; faith-based networks; professional associations; NGO capacity development organisations; philanthropic foundations and other funding bodies.

Citizens’ Initiative Review (Featured D&D Story)

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Roshan Bliss

If you haven’t heard of the Citizens’ Initiative Review before, you should have! We’ve featured it at two of our conferences, and spent a day introducing NCDDers to Healthy Democracy Oregon’s work back in August 2010. Healthy Democracy just won TWO of the core values awards presented at the IAP2 conference in Salt Lake, so their success is certainly no secret.

This mini case study was submitted by Lucy Palmersheim via NCDD’s new Dialogue Storytelling Tool, which we recently launched to collect stories about innovations in D&D. Add your story today to help spread the word about your great work!

Title of Project:

Citizens’ Initiative Review

Description

The Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) is Healthy Democracy’s flagship program. It is an innovative method of public engagement, passed into law in Oregon in 2011, that directly empowers citizens to deliberate and provide information to their fellow voters.

During the CIR, a randomly selected and demographically balanced panel — a microcosm of the public — is brought together and given the time and resources to fairly evaluate a ballot measure. The panel hears directly from campaigns for and against the measure in question and calls on policy experts during the multi-day public review.

At the conclusion of each review, panelists deliberate and then draft a “Citizens’ Statement” highlighting the most important fact-based findings about the measure and the most relevant arguments for and against the measure. In Oregon, the CIR is overseen by an independent commission, and each statement is published in the voters’ pamphlet as a new and easily accessible resource for voters to use at election time.

The Citizens’ Initiative Review is a major innovation in democracy, and in Oregon, one of the first states in the nation to enact the initiative and referendum, we’ve successfully developed the model, passed it into law, and tested it rigorously over three iterations. Major studies of the CIR in 2010 and 2012 (funded in part by the National Science Foundation and Kettering Foundation) have conclusively demonstrated that the CIR process provides voters with a fundamentally sound and easy-to-use source of trustworthy information to make better choices.

Studies found that a majority of voters read a CIR statement in 2012, and that roughly two-thirds – over 627,000 Oregonians – found it helpful when making voting decisions (statistically significant). Additionally, voters who read a CIR statement demonstrated greater knowledge leading to greater confidence about how to cast their ballot and learned more about the ballot measures than those who read official explanatory and fiscal statements or saw equivalent doses of paid pro and con arguments.

These results are incredibly exciting, and show us that the CIR is having a major impact on improving voters’ understanding of ballot measures.

Which dialogue and deliberation approaches did you use or borrow heavily from?

Citizens’ Juries

What was your role in the project?

Healthy Democracy provides project management and fundraising.

What issues did the project primarily address?

Economic issues
Education
Partisan divide
Planning and development

Lessons Learned

Healthy Democracy is extremely satisfied with the 2012 Citizens’ Initiative Reviews. A few factors that contributed:

Building on past success: We ran the CIR as a pilot program in 2010 and used our learnings to enhance the 2012 project. Some changes included providing feedback from campaigns to panelists on final statements and asking panelists on one side of a measure to provide feedback to those writing the statement for the opposite side. These changes ultimately improved the Citizens’ Statements produced and distributed to voters.

Assembling an effective team: We brought together a team of full-time and project-specific staff with deep experience in deliberation and project management. Our team was able to foresee potential obstacles and plan an effective program.

Planning for potential setbacks: We built contingency plans to ensure the CIR would be viable even if our original plan could not be carried out.

Maintaining objectivity: The CIR can be a very effective tool for public deliberation, but its credibility is dependent on maintaining a process that is free from bias. We built staff training, panelist selection, and expert testimony around objectivity. As a result, 96% of participants reported being satisfied with staff neutrality during the CIR process, with 76% of those reporting they were “very satisfied.” Furthermore, 89% of voters who read the voters’ pamphlet reported that they placed at least some trust in the CIR statements, which was higher than trust in paid pro and con arguments or the measures’ official fiscal statements.

Achieving media endorsements and publicity: We were pleased to receive several new newspaper endorsements in 2012, and independent research funded in part by the Kettering Foundation found that over 51% of Oregon voters knew about the CIR, an increase from 42% in 2010.

Measuring our work: We brought in researchers early in the process so that they were able to follow the 2012 CIRs from start to finish. They surveyed participants each day and followed up with broad polls of the Oregon electorate. This depth of research allows us to understand our impact, search for ways to improve our process, and will help us plan future expansion.

Where to learn more about the project:

You can find more information at www.HealthyDemocracy.org. You can also read the 2012 report by clicking here.

International public engagement news & domestic learning opportunities

Posted on October 2, 2013 by NCDD Community

This post was submitted by Rosa Zubizarreta of DiaPraxis via our Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have field news you want to share with the rest of us? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

Hi all! I’ve begun translating some articles from the news media in Austria about their growing public participation efforts. This first article is called “Developing Self-Efficacy” by Selbst Wirksam Werden and was published in Biorama, an Austrian online magazine on sustainability. The English version can be found here, and here is an excerpt:

2013 has been officially declared the “European Year of Citizen.” Twenty years after the introduction of EU citizenship, the focus of this year is the achievements of the people themselves and their own aspirations for their future. In the course of this European Year, events are being held to explain to citizens how they can use their EU rights directly and what measures and programs exist. There are also conversations with citizens throughout the European Union, on their views about what the European Union should look like in the future and what reforms are needed to obtain improvements in their daily lives.

The article goes on to describe the public participation efforts taking place in Vorarlberg, Austria, where there have been more than 20 successful “Bürger-Räte” (Citizen’s Councils) held since 2006, using the Wisdom Council model developed by Jim and Jean Rough. They describe the model as follows:

Twelve people from a county, a city or a region are selected at random to spend 1-2 days exploring an issue in a rather open manner. To this end, the facilitation method ‘Dynamic Facilitation’ is used, which allows an associative and creative approach to discovering new possibilities for action. A specially- trained facilitator helps participants uncover what it is they want and how they can creatively develop collaborative solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems. At the same time, the process generates a dialogue marked by a high degree of listening.

For anyone interested in learning more about the practice of Dynamic Facilitation, also known as the Choice-Creating process, I will be offering two upcoming workshops this Fall. One in is Burlington, Vermont, from November 7 – 9, and another one will be in Voluntown, Connecticut, from November 14 – 16. For more info on the trainings, please visit www.diapraxis.com.

Collaborative Master Planning (Featured D&D Story)

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Roshan Bliss

Today we’d like to feature another great example of dialogue and deliberation in action, Collaborative Master Planning. This mini case study was submitted by Karen Wianecki via NCDD’s new Dialogue Storytelling Tool, which we recently launched to collect stories from our members about their work.

We know that there are plenty of other stories from our NCDD members out there that can teach key insights about working in dialogue, deliberation, and engagement. We want to hear them! Please add YOUR dialogue story today, and let us learn from you!

Title of Project:

Collaborative Master Planning – The Difference Between Consultation & Engagement

Description

We were retained to develop Master Plans for three very special and very unique communities in Ontario, Canada. In developing the Master Plans, we made a commitment to work with the community and to embrace a co-creative and collaborative mindset, at the process.

We recognized early on that whole community engagement was critical and moreover that those who called these communities home knew more about their communities than we did. We were there to learn. The process was designed with participants. Each community determined the approach they wanted to see unfold. In each case, an open, inclusive, engaging, iterative and evolutionary approach was used.

The Master Plans that emerged received broad support from the community members – full time residents as well as seasonal residents. In one case, the community offered the Mayor and Members of Council a standing ovation. A number of major milestones were put in place and some real tangible results have emerged including the infusion of funds from upper levels of government, the acquisition of a signature waterfront site, and the development of a much needed public park, boat launch and beach area.

Which dialogue and deliberation approaches did you use or borrow heavily from?

Appreciative Inquiry
Conversation Cafe
Charrettes

What was your role in the project?

Primary Facilitator

What issues did the project primarily address?

Economic issues
Environment
Planning and development

Lessons Learned

Engage, do not consult. For many, the only message that emerges from consultation is the ‘con’ part.
Engage early and often.
Say what you mean and mean what you say. commitments. 5. Follow up and follow through.
Value the voices of all.
Build a ‘whole team approach.’ All of us have some of the answers; none of us have all of the answers.
Process is as important as product.
Recognize that collaboration and partnership can produce results that are truly remarkable.

Where to learn more about the project:

www.e-planningsolutions.ca

Poverty & Wealth in America: the National Dialogue Network begins coordinated conversations

Posted on September 25, 2013 by NCDD Community

This post was submitted by John Spady of the National Dialogue Network via our Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have field news you want to share with the rest of us? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

NCDD member John Spady, who received our 2012 Catalyst Award for Civic Infrastructure, has announced that the National Dialogue Network achieved a major milestone on September 18 when it released its public Conversation Kit on the topic of Poverty & Wealth in America for voluntary and coordinated national conversations. To remember why NDN decided on this issue, check out their their May update here.

Groups and individuals are now invited to join the effort. Click the “Get Involved” button on the NDN home page and take an action on the topic. An important first action is to simply download the Conversation Kit, then ask your friends, family, neighbors, or community to join in and inform the national dialogue.

The National Dialogue Network coordinates distinct individual and community conversations — giving everyone a “sense of place” and voice within the larger national dialogue. NDN’s dedicated volunteer’s seek to revitalize and promote civic infrastructures within communities where all who choose to participate will impact the national conversation by:

Focusing intently on an issue over time with others;
Listening to the opinions and ideas being discussed in your community and across the United States; and
Speaking up about your own opinions and ideas in conversations with your family, friends & community.

Jim Wallis, President and Editor-in-Chief of Sojourners Magazine, appeared prescient about the NDN topic when he wrote in the March-April 1999 issue:

“The growing economic inequality of American life presents the most crucial moral issue for the health of democracy, according to historian James MacGregor Burns. It’s an issue that affects almost every other issue, from campaign finance to corporate welfare to the daily priorities of the U.S. Congress. The widening gap between the top and bottom of American society is now the 900-pound gorilla lurking in the background of every political discussion. It’s just sitting there, but nobody is talking about it. It’s time we started talking about it. Our moral integrity demands it. And the common good requires it.”

The NDN is appealing to participants and the general public to raise at least another $10,000 for 2014 so they can continue to develop processes and content for another year of national dialogue. Any amounts raised over $15,000 will be used to develop more professional content, coordination, and promotional grants. Donations can be made online at www.GoFundMe.com/NatDialogue.

Finally, the NDN is grateful to the people who volunteered their hearts and hands to make this project happen. Their collaborations are exactly what NCDD intended when it promoted the Catalyst Awards and NDN acknowledges and memorializes their contributions below:

2013 NDN Conversation Guide Volunteers:
Mary Dumas, John Spady, John Perkins, Dyck Dewid, Colin Gallagher, Craig Paterson, and Fedor Ovchinnikov.

2013 NDN Working Group Members:
John Spady, Mary Dumas, Colin Gallagher, Ben Roberts, Craig Paterson, Roshan Bliss, Vanessa Roebuck, John Perkins, Dyck Dewid, Fedor Ovchinnikov, Mark Frischmuth, and Michael Briand.

2013 NDN Advisory Group Members:
Linda Blong, Stephen Buckley, Daniel Clark, Lisa Heft, Peggy Holman, Don LaCombe, Stephanie Nestlerode, Steve Strachan, Sarah Thomson, Faith Trimble, and Rosa Zubizarreta.

Making Municipal Laws More Accessible

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Roshan Bliss

We were quite impressed with the updated version of an innovative tool that our friends at the OpenGov Foundation have been working on that is called BaltimoreCode.org. The website is designed to make the laws that govern Baltimore not only open and transparent, but open for comment, criticism, or input from everyday citizens.

Today, BaltimoreCode.org doesn’t just give you a Google-level law search engine. It doesn’t just give you a modern, user-friendly experience. Now, you can speak out and comment directly on the laws of Baltimore City.

That’s right. When you discover a law that isn’t working well for Baltimoreans, or that is a massive headache for you, you can quickly and easily identify it right there on the same page.

With municipal, state, and federal laws and their interactions being more complex than ever, this nifty tool could provide a great jumping off point for broader accountability, transparency, and participation in our laws.

You can read the original post about the new update on OpenGov Foundation’s blog here, or go straight to the www.BaltimoreCode.org to find out more.

Kettering’s David Holwerth on the Question “What is a Citizen?”

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Roshan Bliss

Kettering-Signs-border Our partners at the Kettering Foundation recently posted about a write-up on their own David Holwerk’s talk at Rhodes University in South Africa on how journalists talk about citizens. His remarks focused on the question, “What is a citizen?“, and how the answer is related to the role of the press in a democracy.

In the U.S. Constitution, the role of the press is given explicit protections, ostensibly because a free press that can cover whatever it wants is an integral part of a well-functioning democracy. Indeed, journalism is sometimes conceived of a service provided for citizens to be able to participate in an informed way in their governments. But in a time like ours when news is often hard to discern from entertainment — with celebrities, Twitter commentary, and the results of award ceremonies often getting as much air time air time as local political issues, if not more — what do the big stories in our press say about what journalists are thinking about what is is to be a citizen?

Holwerk delved into the question’s implications for journalists:

Holwerk said that it seems to be a universal article of faith among journalists that they serve the needs of citizens in democracy. But journalists seem much less certain about what citizens actually do, which raises doubts about the ability of journalists to serve citizens’ needs effectively. “Why do people need things?” asked Holwerk. When you need something, he said, it implies that you want to do something. “If need implies action, then what is it that citizens do? They vote. We give them the information they need to vote. Why? Are citizens only voters?”

These are the questions Holwerk has been grappling with for the past four years. At the Kettering Foundation many political scientists and theorists have some ideas about what citizens do. So Holwerk started to think, “You ought to be able to figure out what citizens do by looking at what journalists do.” But when you look at newspapers, watch television or listen to the radio, it’s difficult to find citizens there doing anything, he said.

Journalists and editors need to develop a broader, denser, more robust understanding of what it is that citizens do, he said, but the conversation seems completely theoretical in the context of American journalism.

His reflections were made all the more powerful because Holwerk was in South Africa, a country still relatively early on in its life as a democracy, where questions of citizenship are more regularly discussed in newspapers and the press. But when it came to actually answering the question, “what is a citizen?”, Holwerk offered an insightful answer that pointed to the fact that other people in one’s community

Holwerk’s definition of “citizen” is actually a definition of “citizens” – casting the word as one necessarily addressed to implying a plurality of people.

What is a citizen?

Holwerk said an obstacle to journalists everywhere is not having a clear definition of the word. The legal definition of citizen is someone who is entitled to full rights, including voting rights, in their native state, he said, but this is both too broad and too narrow for the purpose of journalism. Another definition is anyone with the ability to act, he said, but if merely having the ability to act makes you a citizen and you choose not to act, there is no need for journalists to act, and nothing to cover.

Holwerk’s definition of citizens is two people working together to solve a shared public problem. For journalists, if two people work together to solve a private problem, it’s not news, but if they find a solution that benefits the public, that is news.

This definition of citizen is, for me, one of the best I’ve ever heard. It gets to the heart of why we value things like dialogue and deliberation: at bottom, we know that we are in something together with other people around us, and we need to relate to and interact with them to make it work. And when we engage in collaboration with others around us for our common good, that is getting to the essence of what it is to be a citizen.

How do you answer the question “what is a citizen?” How does Holwerk’s definition strike you? And what does it mean for the journalists of our nation? Share your reflections with us in the comments section or in the NCDD Facebook group.

You can find the full coverage of Holwerk’s talk on the Rhodes University website here: www.ru.ac.za/jms/jmsnews/name,93835,en.html.

Take advantage of your 25% NCDD discount with the Future Search Network!

Posted on September 17, 2013 by NCDD Community

This post was submitted by Jennifer Neumer of the Future Search Network via our Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have field news you want to share with the rest of us? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

Please join us this December 9 – 11, 2013 for the Future Search Training Workshop with Sandra Janoff. Save 25% off with your NCDD discount! We offer non-profit discounts as well!

Managing a Future Search – A Learning Workshop (MFS) is for facilitators, leaders, students and managers who want to learn how applying Future Search principles enables a community, company or organization to transform its capability for action. Participants will acquire the tools needed to organize and manage Future Search conferences with integrity in any sector or culture.

Future Search Workshop participants will learn:

How to manage a meeting in which the target of change is a whole system’s capability for action now and in the future.
Key issues in matching conference task and stakeholders.
A theory and practice of facilitating large, diverse groups.
How to keep critical choices in the hands of participants.
How freeing yourself from diagnosing and fixing enables diverse groups to come together faster.
Basic principles and techniques that can be used to design many other meetings.

Date: December 9 – 11, 2013

Fee: $1690. (SAVE 25% when you mention this special NCDD offer! Ask about all nonprofit, student and group discounts as well!)

Location: At the Crowne Plaza Philadelphia West in Philadelphia, PA, USA.

For more info, you can contact Jennifer at 215-951-0328, 800-951-6333, or email her at fsn@futuresearch.net.

Want to get a better sense of what a Future Search looks like? Click here too see just one example of Future Search being used around the world at a Youth Future Search in Ireland.

Future Search Network co-sponsored, and Sandra Janoff facilitated, a G8 Youth Summit in Northern Ireland in May, 2013. It was held in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh in the same location and one month prior to the G8 Summit where President Obama and the other 7 world leaders met. 110 young people from across the country created a shared agenda. The youth voice, with their dreams for the future, was brought into the G8 Summit the following month. Their report was translated into each of the 7 languages.

Registration: www.futuresearch.net/frms/workshop/signup1.cfm

More info: www.futuresearch.net/method/workshops/descriptions-50748.cfm

Gathering photos of public meetings for Legal Frameworks project

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Sandy Heierbacher

NCDD is working with the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and National Civic League to “crowdsource” some great photos of public meetings. What photos do you have that you feel depict what “bad” public meetings look like? And do you have favorite photos that show what “good” public meetings can look like?

Send in your photos this week via email, to NCDD’s Creative Director Andy Fluke (andy@ncdd.org). Send in the highest-quality versions you have, and include a by-line (photographer name, where taken, etc.) and verifies that this is your photo to use/share. We’ll ask more questions if we need them, and we’ll check with you before using the photos in print.

Your photo may be chosen to help promote an important project we want to bring your attention to. For the past year, Matt Leighninger (director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium) has been spearheading a Working Group on Legal Frameworks for Public Participation with representatives of the American Bar Association, International Municipal Lawyers Association, NCDD, National Civic League, National League of Cities, and International City/County Management Association, as well as leading practitioners and scholars of public participation.

The group has developed several new tools, including a model local ordinance and model amendment to state legislation, in order to help create a more supportive, productive, and equitable environment for public participation. These open source documents will soon be released as a publication of the National Civic League (where your photo could be featured!).

Why develop new legal frameworks for public participation?

Most people dislike official public meetings. This is true for both the public officials who preside over them and the citizens who attend them. Over the last two decades, a wide range of participatory meeting formats and dynamic online tools have emerged – so why do we continue conducting public business in such an outdated fashion?

There are a number of reasons, but one is the legal framework that governs public participation.

Most of these laws and ordinances are over thirty years old; they do not match the expectations and capacities of citizens today, they pre-date the Internet, and they do not reflect the lessons learned in the last two decades about how citizens and governments can work together.

We’re looking for photos from the field to help us illustrate the need for better laws to support better public meetings. We also welcome your anecdotes and examples that help bolster the need for more a supportive legal framework for public participation. How have existing laws made it harder for high-quality engagement to take place in your community? How have you worked around those laws to make sure citizens can be informed by each other and heard by public officials? Have you help upgrade your city’s legal framework already? Please send your responses to Andy so he can collect them for the team.

If you want to continue this discussion face-to-face, please join us at the Brookings Institution on October 12 from 9:30 to 11:30 am for “Making Public Participation Legal Again,” a session that will launch the model ordinance and the NCL publication. Brookings is located at 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC.

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Category Archives: public participation