Category Archives: upcoming events

Register for Feb. Tech Tuesday Event feat. Balancing Act, co-hosted by IAP2!

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Registration is now open for a special Tech Tuesday event co-hosted by NCDD and IAP2, featuring the platform Balancing Act. Join us for this FREE event Tuesday, February 9th from 3-4pm Eastern / 12-1pm Pacific.

balancing-act-logoBalancing Act is a tool for learning about public budgets and the choices elected officials face in the budgeting process. It allows participants to try allocating funds – expressing their priorities and preferences – but also requires them to balance spending and revenue. Balancing Act brings people and government officials closer together in an informed conversation about what priorities are in everyone’s best interests. Because it is online, it is accessible to anyone at anytime and is far more convenient than a traditional public meeting or budget hearing.

Balancing Act was created by Engaged Public, a public policy consulting firm specializing in engagement-driven strategies. On this call we will be joined by Chris Adams, President of Engaged Public, who will tell us more about Balancing Act and how it has been used by governments and communities. Chris will also highlight its application for participatory budgeting efforts and talk about a special offer for participatory budgeting projects.

This tool is available for cities, counties, school districts, libraries, non-profits, states and others, and Engaged Public will soon offer a Federal budget tool as well! The tool can be used with different currencies and in some different languages (English, French and Spanish, currently).

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn more about this fun, exciting tool – register today!


Tech_Tuesday_BadgeTech Tuesdays are a series of learning events focused on technology for engagement. These 1-hour events are designed to help dialogue and deliberation practitioners get a better sense of the online engagement landscape and how they can take advantage of the myriad opportunities available to them. You do not have to be a member of NCDD or IAP2 to participate in this event.


About NCDD
The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation is a network of thousands of innovators who bring people together across divides to tackle today’s toughest challenges. NCDD serves as a gathering place, a resource clearinghouse, a news source, and a facilitative leader for this extraordinary community. Learn more about NCDD here.

About IAP2
The International Association for Public Participation is an international association of members who seek to promote and improve the practice of public participation in relation to individuals, governments, institutions, and other entities that affect the public interest in nations throughout the world. Learn more about IAP2 here.

Join OpenGov & CivicTech Online Unconference, Jan. 28th

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We encourage NCDD members to consider attending the 2016 OpenGov & CivicTech Online Unconference this Thursday, January 28th from 11am-2pm Eastern. The event is hosted by former NCDD Board member Lucas Cioffi, and NCDD members get a 30% discount on registration, so make sure to sign up today! Read more below or find the full invitation by clicking here.

2016 OpenGov & CivicTech Online Unconference

What is the purpose? Why should I attend?

  1. Spread the word about your civic tech project.
  2. Network with other innovators.
  3. Bring the toughest questions and challenges you’re facing and gain insights from other participants.

Use promo code “ncdd” when you register here to bring the cost down to just $10.

Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/2016-opengov-civictech-online-unconference-tickets-20428926469

What is an “unconference”?

Unlike standard conferences sessions where people give presentations, unconference sessions are far more conversational.  Professionals will discuss and work through the challenges at the cutting edge of the opengov & civic tech fields.

What is the agenda?

Participants (including you!) create the agenda during the opening session.  This ensures that everyone finds a session that interests them and sets a collaborative tone for the event right from the start. Add your session to the agenda after you register.

Who will be there?

Designers, developers, activists, practitioners, and entrepreneurs working at the intersection of civic engagement and technology.  The power of this event is that it will bring together people with different skills.

You can find more information on the OpenGov & CivicTech Online Unconference by visiting www.eventbrite.com/e/2016-opengov-civictech-online-unconference-tickets-20428926469?.

Next Stage Facilitation Intensive Feb. 23-25 in the Bay Area!

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We are pleased to share the announcement below about a new facilitation training opportunity in this February that NCDD members can get a $150 discount on! NCDD Sustaining Member Rebecca Colwell of Ten Directions shared this announcement via our Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have news you want to share with the NCDD network? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

Integral Facilitator® Next Stage Facilitation™ Intensives are 3-day workshops introducing the core competencies of an Integral approach to facilitation designed to enhance your capacity to generate greater coherence and increased collaboration and dialogue in the groups you work with.

In this three-day workshop, you’ll learn:

  • How to maintain presence in the face of challenging situations
  • How to work effectively with group energetics and emotional states
  • How to effectively build connection and working with tension to deepen coherence and intimacy
  • How to engage tension, power dynamics and conflict in a group
  • How to increase the positive impact you have on others
  • How to bring an integral approach to your work

As a Next Stage participant, you’ll learn directly from master facilitator, mediator, and former Director of Dispute Resolution for the Utah State Judiciary, Diane Musho Hamilton. Diane is author of Everything is Workable, a Zen Approach to Conflict Resolution.

Your participation will include a deep dive into your personal presence as a facilitator, including how bring an Integral approach to your work with groups, and opportunities to practice new approaches that will stretch your development as a skilled facilitator. Masterful facilitators with depth and presence are more responsive to the subtleties of group dynamics and can create more rewarding and effective dialogue and collaboration.

Two Next Stage Facilitation Intensives will be taking place in North America this year, February 23-25 in the Bay Area, CA, and in Halifax, Canada September 12-14, 2016.

Sign up for an upcoming Integral Facilitator Next Stage Facilitation Intensive and use NCDD coupon “NCDDmbrs” for $150 off the February training at http://bit.ly/1Sin6eJ.

Praise from workshop participants:

“The workshop has shifted my perception of issues such as power, and allowed me to understand where my choices lie. I feel confident to run with those issues now as opposed to fighting against them and using up all my energy.” – Marissa Moore, Senior Finance Executive

“This has been my best experience ever in a 3 day training. Diane is an amazing facilitator! I’m currently figuring out how to get myself in the 1 year program as the 3 days were so exciting and promising in terms of my personal growth.” – Tremeur Balbous, Consultant & Integral coach

“Take facilitation to a whole other level. The Next Stage Facilitation three day intensive shakes you out of conventional and stifled facilitation modes and expands your view to multi-perspectival, grows your competencies toward integral–exploring what it means to work with individuals, the collective and the topic at hand in a balanced, elegant and effective way, and, it strengthens your intuitive faculties to sense and trust the energetic field of the room and respond.” – Michelle Elizabeth, Consultant

Watch Integral Facilitator’s Lead Teacher and Author, Diane Musho Hamilton’s Google Book Talk on conflict resolution:

For more information, visit www.tendirections.com/next-stage-facilitation-3-day-intensive.

Join D&D Climate Action Call on COP21 Talks, Jan. 19

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We want to encourage NCDDers once again to plan to join the D&D Climate Action Network (D&D CAN) for their next teleconference on the intersection of D&D work and the issue of climate change on January 19th at 5pm Eastern.

Led by NCDD supporting member Linda Ellinor of the Dialogue Group, D&D CAN’s goal is to build a community of practice that fosters mutual learning, sharing, and inspires collaboration around the complexities of climate change. The monthly conference calls are one of the best ways to connect with this ambitious project, so we encourage you to learn more and register for the call at http://ddclimateactionnetwork.ning.com.

Here’s how Linda describes the upcoming call:

The D&D Climate Action Network will be holding its January Teleconference call this month on the topic of the Paris Climate Conference and Implications for our Work. It is scheduled for January 19th from 2pm, PST/5pm, EST.

Marti Roach will be facilitating using the Focused Conversation Method from the Institute of Cultural Affair’s Technology of Participation suite of facilitation tools. She has compiled a whole host of resources on what took place at the Paris talks that you can find on our D&D Climate Action Network Ning site: http://ddclimateactionnetwork.ning.com

Her questions for the discussion are also available there. We hope any of you who are focused on climate change work will join us on the call. All you need to do is to go onto our site, sign up with a password, etc., and then register on the top left hand side. We will then send you a link for the teleconference call using Zoom.

We look forward to your participation. Please contact any of our hosting team with your questions regarding our network.

Best,

Linda Ellinor
Co-Host: D&D Climate Action Network

Our Hosting Team: Marti Roach, Nancy Glock-Grueneich, Sharon Joy Kleitsch, Rosa Zubizarreta, Tim Bonneman, Ben Roberts, Linda Ellinor

We hope that many of our NCDD members will join this important and engaging call, and we can’t wait to hear more about what the D&D CAN project accomplishes!

Submit a Proposal for Frontiers of Democracy 2016

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We’re pleased to announce that once again, the Frontiers of Democracy conference is accepting proposals for their 2016 gathering. This year’s conference will be from June 23rd – 25th at the Tufts University downtown campus in Boston, as always, so mark your calendars!

The annual Frontiers of Democracy conference – now a pillar in the civic infrastructure of the D&D field – brings together leaders in deliberative democracy and civic education to explore ideas at the forefront of advancing democracy, and NCDD’s leadership and members are staples of the event every year. We know that our NCDD members could host some great workshops or learning exchanges based on the work you are doing, so we encourage you to consider submitting a proposal of your own!

You can find the form to submit proposals by clicking here.

More details about the 2016 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!

#CGAFridays Economic Opportunity Deliberations Return

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Last November, the Kettering Foundation and National Issues Forums Institute – both NCDD member organizations – teamed up to host #CGAFridays: a series of events where people can try out the new online deliberation tool, Common Ground for Action (CGA). The series is back this month, and we encourage our members to join, or if you can’t, to share this post with others you think should know about this great new tool! Learn more in the Kettering post below or find the original here.

#CGAFridays Return – Register for a Making Ends Meet Forum Today!

NIFI-CGA_Branded_LogoCommon Ground for Action, KF and NIF’s new platform for online deliberation, has been steadily growing over the past year. In fact, demand for opportunities to try the new platform has been so strong that in November of last year we launched #cgafridays, a recurring series of CGA forums held each Friday for anyone who wants to participate. This Friday forum series has been such a success, we’re continuing it into 2016!

Our January forums will be using NIF’s brand new issue guide on economic security, opportunity, and equality, Making Ends Meet. And all these forums will be included in the reporting Kettering is doing to policymakers on this issue throughout 2016, so it’s a great chance for participants who want to make sure their voice is heard!

To participate in a forum, all you need to do is register at one of the links below! And even if you can’t make one of these forums, please help by sharing this post with your networks!

You can find the original version of this Kettering Foundation blog post at www.kettering.org/blogs/cgafridays-2016.

Host a Story Circle During 2016 “People’s State of the Union”

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As a start to the new year, the US Department of Arts & Culture (USDAC) – one of our presenters during NCDD 2014 – is inviting communities across the US to come together from Jan. 23-31 to share stories that define the state of our nation in their People’s State of the Union project. The USDAC is looking for folks to host a story circle where they live, and we thought our members might be interested. Learn more about the PSOTU in the USDAC announcement below or find the original here.

People’s State of the Union: An Annual Civic Ritual & Participatory Art Project

Every January, the President delivers a State of the Union address highlighting important issues from the past year and suggesting priorities for the coming year. It’s a broadcast from one to many. But democracy is a conversation, not a monologue. Understanding the state of our union takes We the People reflecting in our own communities on our challenges and opportunities locally, nationally, and globally.

The People’s State of the Union is an invitation to supplement the President’s stories with our own, together hosting a national conversation in our own homes, schools, houses of worship, and community organizations. To change the world, we have to change the story!

Story Circles Nationwide & the Poetic Address

The People’s State of the Union has two main parts: story circles across the nation, and a collaboratively composed Poetic Address to the Nation. (Yes, our State of the Union address is a poem!)

Between January 23-31, 2016, individuals and organizations across the U.S. will host story circles. (Last year, more than 150 communities signed up.) Participants are invited to share their own take on the state of our union, either by reflecting on the following prompts or by creating their own prompts around a specific theme such as education, environment, or racial justice (e.g., “Share a story about something you have experienced that gave you insight into the state of education in this country”):

  • Share a story you think the next President absolutely needs to hear.
  • Share a story about something you have experienced that gave you insight into the state of our union.
  • Share a story about a moment you felt true belonging – or the opposite – in this country.

When you sign up to host a story circle – whether it’s a few folks in your own kitchen or a dozen simultaneous circles in a high school gym – you’ll get a free Toolkit that explains absolutely everything you need to know to organize, promote, and pull off your event, plus online training and technical assistance. Sign up below.

When PSOTU 2016 launches on January 23rd, the story portal will go live. Scribes from each event (and individuals anywhere) will be able to easily upload stories to a website where they can be browsed and shared. (You’ll find more than 500 stories at the PSOTU 2015 story portal.) Members of the USDAC National Cabinet will once again offer their own commentary too.

As the culminating event, a diverse group of poets will be invited to collaboratively create the 2016 Poetic Address to the Nation, which will be performed and livecast in February. (Watch and read the 2015 Poetic Address to the Nation.)

Sign Up to Host a Story Circle

Any individual or organization can sign up to host a People’s State of the Union event by following these three simple steps.

STEP 1: SIGN UP & DOWNLOAD THE TOOLKIT

The free PSOTU Toolkit offers you everything you need to organize, promote, and pull off your #PSOTU2016 event. Once you sign up for the toolkit, we’ll email more information about online story circle trainings.

STEP 2: JOIN THE COMMUNITY ON CTZN

Join the community of story circle hosts. We’ll use CTZN to upload stories and images to the PSOTU website. Just click the button, select Join, and create your account.  All information is available in the toolkit.

STEP 3: PUT YOUR EVENT ON THE MAP

Once you know the time/date/place of your event, be sure to add it to the National Action map! You can also use this feature to invite people to your event and to collect RSVPs. Be sure to use the same email address for STEP 2 and STEP 3 so that stories shared at your event can be tagged to your location on the map!

Do you work with a larger organization, coalition, or network that might be interested in inviting your constituents to host their own People’s State of the Union events, reflecting on the state of our union through a particular lens? We can support you! Drop us a line to explore partnership: hello@usdac.us.

You can find the original version of this announcement from the US Department of Arts & Culture at www.usdac.us/psotu.

Sign Up for Next D&D Climate Action Network Calls Today!

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As we shared last month here on the blog, NCDD is supporting an important new initiative called the D&D Climate Action Network (D&D CAN) that is being led by NCDD supporting member Linda Ellinor of the Dialogue Group. The Network’s purpose is to build a networked community of practice that connects members, fosters learning from each other, and stimulates collaboration. Ultimately, the goal is to build a community of practice that fosters mutual learning, sharing, and inspires collaboration around the complexities of climate change, and in light of last week’s historic Paris climate deal and all the work ahead that it entails, the D&D CAN initiative couldn’t come at a more relevant time.

We highly encourage our NCDD members to get involved in D&D CAN, and one of the best ways to to do that is to join their monthly networking and discussion conference calls. The calls are focused on a different climate-and-dialogue topic every month, but spots are limited to 20 as of now, so make sure you sign up ASAP!

This month’s call is topic is “Talking about Climate Change”, and will be taking place tomorrow, December 15th from 5-7pm Eastern / 2-4pm Pacific. Here are a few words the Linda used to describe the call:

Let’s discover how we can bring our dialogue and conversational skills to meet climate change. As many of us know, climate change is one of the hardest topics to bring up in everyday conversation for a variety of reasons. Please come prepared to offer experiences that have helped you be successful in facilitating conversations about climate change.

The only requirement for joining is a desire to use conversational leadership or participatory processes in climate-change related work.  Our main goal is to help all of us work more strategically in transforming our world to greater resiliency.

Space on the call is going fast, so make sure you register online today by clicking here.

D&D CAN has also announced the next two calls for January and February 2016, so save the dates:

  • January topic: “What are we learning about large-scale civic engagement from the Paris Climate Talks?”
    Date: January 19, 2016, 2-4pm Pacific Time / 5-7pm Eastern
  • February topic: “What are we learning about working with faith-based communities?”
    Date: February 16, 2016, 2-4pm Pacific Time / 5-7pm Eastern

In case you need help signing up, here are the directions for registering for the calls:

Once you create your own password, please fill out the profile. If you have already joined, you can find the profile questions by going to “my page” and clicking on “options” at the top right of the page and then clicking on “edit my profile”.

If you have already joined our Ning group, please register for Tuesday’s call by going to the Ning site and clicking on the “Register here” link at the top left of the home page.

We can only take the first 20 people who sign up, so please do so ASAP, if you are interested in participating. If you have to cancel for any reason, please contact Linda Ellinor at lellinor25@gmail.com.

We encourage you to learn more about the D&D Climate Action Network by visiting http://ddclimateactionnetwork.ning.com. You can also learn more from our first announcement about the network at www.ncdd.org/19299.

Listen to Common Ground for Action Tech Tuesday Call & Join NIFI’s #CGAFriday Series on the Economy

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Earlier this week, NCDD hosted another installment of our Tech Tuesday call series, this time focused on the Common Ground for Action (CGA) online deliberative tool from Kettering Foundation and Conteneo. Over 50 participants joined us for the call, which featured NCDD members Amy Lee and Laura Richardson taking us on an in-depth tour of this awesome online tool.

NIFI-CGA_Branded_LogoThe call was a great chance to learn more about how to use CGA for our own purposes and hear about opportunities to get further training with the tool, and we had a very informative discussion after the initial presentation. If you missed out on the call, don’t worry, we recorded the presentation and discussion, which you can see and hear by clicking here. Thanks again to Amy, Laura, and everyone who participated!

Looking for a chance to try out Common Ground for Action yourself? Then we highly encourage you to participate in the #CGAFridays series this month when NIFI will be hosting three opportunities for you to try both their CGA tool and their new issue guide about economic security and inequality, Making Ends Meet: How Do We Spread Prosperity and Improve Opportunity? Insights from these deliberative forums will be used in the Kettering Foundation’s reporting to federal policymakers throughout 2016.

If you’d like to participate in any of these forums, all you need to do is click the link below to register. Then, the day before the forum you’ve signed up for, you’ll receive an email with a unique URL. To join the forum, simply click that link no more than 10 minutes before the forum start time. The dates of the CGA Friday series and links to register are here:

These forums are open to the public, so feel free to share and to spread the word on social media using the hashtags #CGAFridays and #MEM+CGA. If you have any questions, email cga@nifi.org.

To find out more about CGA, visit www.nifi.org/en/common-ground-action.

To sign up to get trained as a moderator, visit www.nifi.org/en/groups/new-moderator-form
or www.everyvoiceengaged.org.

To learn more about NCDD’s Tech Tuesday series and hear recordings of past calls, please visit www.ncdd.org/events/tech-tuesdays.

Join Tech Tuesday Call on Common Ground for Action, 12/1

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As we recently announced, we are inviting you to register to join us this Tuesday, December 1st from 2-3pm Eastern/11am-12pm Pacific for our next Tech Tuesday call. This time, the call will feature a demonstration of Common Ground for Action (CGA), Tech_Tuesday_Badgea new online platform designed to create deliberative public forums online that allow participants to examine options for dealing with the problem, weigh tradeoffs, and find common ground.

CGA was developed in collaboration by the Kettering Foundation and Conteneo, so we’re pleased to be joined by Kettering’s Amy Lee and Conteneo’s Luke Homann – both NCDD members – to tell us more about their tool. Amy and Luke will walk us through the CGA’s features and functions and tell us more about the partnership that developed it. And you won’t want to miss the chance to hear about upcoming chances to use the tool yourself and to learn how you or your organization can utilize this FREE tool!

Don’t let the turkey haze or Black Friday rush make you forget – register today and make sure you don’t miss this great Tech Tuesday call! We can’t wait to have you all join us!