Category Archives: upcoming events

CM Call on Rural Design, August 20th

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CM_logo-200pxWe are pleased to invite NCDD members once again to join our partners at CommunityMatters for the next installation in their capacity-building call series, which is jointly hosted by the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design. This month’s call is titled “How Design Sparks Rural Development”, and it will be taking place next Wednesday, August 20th from 4-5pm Eastern Time.

The folks at CM describe the upcoming call this way:

Urban, not rural, places are usually thought of as hubs of creativity and innovation, but this month’s CommunityMatters® and Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design™ webinar turns that notion on its head.

Emily Pilloton of Project H and Mark Rembert and Taylor Stuckert of Energize Clinton County, Ohio use the principles of good design to improve rural places, often in unexpected ways. Join us for an hour-long webinar highlighting community design that kick starts rural development. You’ll learn smart ways to introduce decision makers to design principles and find appropriate roles for “experts” and outsiders in resident-led design projects.

Register today by clicking here, and we hope to hear you on the call!

Before the call, we encourage you to check out the accompanying piece on the CM blog by Caitlyn Horose, which is cross posted below. You can find the original piece here.

Good Design Sparks Rural Community Development

Instead of focusing on developing products and services, now more than ever, architects, industrial designers, graphic artists, landscape architects, and other creative professionals are turning their attention to community development—working to solve bigger and messier problems. Just look at Human Centered Design from IDEO.org, a method for using good design to help people living in extreme poverty around the world. Association for Community Design, has supported community-based design and planning for more than three decades. Public Interest Design chronicles the growth of the community design movement in a cool infographic.

While this trend toward good design is exciting, it’s harder to find in rural community development. Many small towns aren’t bursting at the seams with graphic designers or architects.

Creative professionals are trained with an eye toward innovative and context-sensitive solutions to complex challenges. Without designers at our disposal we may fail to see all the great options for growing a village center, establishing welcoming public spaces or revitalizing downtown.

How might we encourage a greater emphasis on design in rural community development? Here are a few ideas from the forefront of rural design:

1. Introduce Elected Officials to the Principles of Good Design

Design Cents teaches public officials and community partners how to promote and implement good design to improve the quality of life in their communities. The workshop is offered by the Carl Small Town Center at Mississippi State University in Oktibbeha County (pop. 47,671).

2. Attract Creative People

Frontier Fellowship is a four-week program for creative professionals run by Epicenter in Green River, Utah (pop. 953). Fellows split their time between working on personal projects and contributing to a community improvement project.

3. Offer Pro Bono Design Services

By providing design services in the community decision-making process, Energize Clinton County in Wilmington, Ohio (pop. 12,448) aids conversations about local development proposals. Past projects include plans for a micro-brewery to catalyze business growth, design support for redeveloping historic buildings, and informational visualizations in community plan documents.

4. Design AND Build

Auburn University’s Rural Studio in Newbern, Alabama (pop. 181) emphasizes hands-on education. That’s why they didn’t stop at the blueprints when they designed a well-built, affordable housing alternative to the mobile home. The Rural Studio program designed and built 12 versions of the 20K House and is now exploring reproducing and designing on a large scale.

5. Community Education Through Design

Combining storytelling and story gathering with graphic narratives, the Beehive Collective in Machias, Maine (pop. 2,353) creates illustrations that are used for education—and conversation—starters around complex community issues.

While not a rural example (this one comes from New York City), we can’t resist mentioning the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s Envisioning Development toolkits. Using objects and plain language, participants learn about planning issues like affordable housing and zoning.

6. Balance Local Knowledge and Professional Expertise

The Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design™ (CIRD) offers annual competitive funding to as many as four small towns or rural communities to host community design workshops. The workshops bring together local leaders and national experts to develop actionable solutions to pressing design challenges.

CIRD has convened more than 70 workshops in all regions of the country. Follow the CIRD blog to keep up on the 2014 workshop communities.

7. Engage Youth in Community Design

When Project H founders Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller wanted to bring design to a rural town, they started in an unlikely place: the poorest county in North Carolina. Bertie County had no licensed architect and more than one unfortunate statistic—24 percent of residents dropped out of high school and 65 percent of youth were unemployed.

Using education as a vehicle, the Project H team incorporated good design in improvements to the school computer lab and playground. The team’s next step was to rethink shop class, teaching design with construction and fabrication skills focused on building a farmers’ market. Project H then facilitated a summer youth employment program, paying students to build the 2,000-square-foot building, making the market a reality.

Watch the video below to hear Emily talk about the project, then head to the Project H website for a toolbox to bring design thinking into any classroom.

On Wednesday, August 20, Emily Pilloton of Project H and Mark Rembert and Taylor Stuckert of Energize Clinton County join CommunityMatters® and the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design™ for an hour-long webinar on design in rural community development. They’ll highlight additional examples of how community design has catalyzed rural economies, with thoughts about introducing decision makers to design principles and the role of experts and outsiders in community-led design projects. Space is limited, so register early!

So many ways to use technology, so many ways to learn at NCDD 2014

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Past conference attendees* have approached technology for public engagement, dialogue, and deliberation in so many different ways:

  • Kira is hands-on and pragmatic, interested only in tools that fit into her work, today.
  • Bob’s a skeptic, so it’s tough to convince him that online technology can play a role in his work.
  • Ashante seeks technology that’ll make her dream process a reality.
  • Andrés has just scratched the surface, unsure where to begin.

LaptopsAnd they’ve all found sessions to expand their vision and knowledge at past NCDD conferences.

For all of his skepticism, Bob remembers Steven Clift’s presentation at NCDD’s 2012 conference in Seattle fondly. Clift’s 15 years of experience with email- and web-based community forums, particularly in immigrant and low income communities, and the way Clift’s work has been put to use in communities across the globe, resonated with him. Indeed, Bob surprised friends by asking Clift to help redesign an upcoming neighborhood summit using email to make it more inclusive. And he loves to tell the story of how some of his most important learning was about the value of going door to door and posting sign-up sheets at street fairs.

Few recall that Ashante’s fervor was sparked by her NCDD’s regional conference in Austin, in 2010. There, she first learned of the ways Manor, Texas used the web to harvest ideas from all residents. She realized that if a town of just 5000 residents could do this, her opportunities were far larger than she had thought. And Manor’s emphasis on low-cost technologies gave her hope that she could begin her efforts years sooner than she had planned.

That same year, at the regional conference in Boston, Kira encountered the University of New Hampshire’s efforts to facilitate discussions of state-sanctioned gambling in eleven communities. UNH had used an online forum to broaden the reach of the discussion, and she saw the potential for this approach to bring rural communities into a process she was managing in the Northwest.

LocalistoShowcaseAndrés has been energized by the more informal sessions. Face to face discussions during the technology showcase in Seattle gave him a real understanding of Mindmixer and how it compared to other web-based idea generation tools. And he dates his decision to start a blog on deliberation and outreach to old friends and new colleagues who walked him through their experiences with WordPress, Twitter, and Flickr at NCDD’s 2008 conference in Austin (and the pizza that night was delicious, too).

Of course, Andrés, Bob, Kira, and Ashante have helped one another and other attendees as well. Kira’s practical tricks for integrating technology into process work thawed Bob’s icy skepticism, and her results made him a bit envious. Bob paid that favor forward by participating vigorously in Ashante’s visioning workshop: his thoughtful cautions made Ashante set the bar for the quality of online interaction even higher. At that same workshop, Ashante’s enthusiasm fired Andrés up to explore how new social media tools could address the challenges he was facing. In turn, Andrés’ gentle but persistent questions made Kira realize that she’d have to spend more time to verify that the privacy of her participants was protected.

This interactive, top down, bottoms-up, and inside out enthusiasm is a hallmark of NCDD conferences.

So, whether you have an interest in technology for dialogue and deliberation or still need to be convinced, extensive experience or very little, you’ll find lots of opportunities to broaden your perspectives and lots of practitioners and technologists eager to learn from your experience, your insights, and your questions.

So please check out the conference schedule (Oct 17-19, 2014 in Reston, VA) for sessions suited to your own inner Kira, Andrés, Bob, and Ashante (sessions will be added within the next week!), register, and plan to share your wisdom and experience with 400 old and new friends and colleagues this October.

- Written by NCDD 2014 planning team member Chris Berendes of Netalyst, Inc.

*We confess that these four characters are fictional, but, as demonstrated by the links, the conference sessions that informed and inspired them are entirely real.

Visual Mapping Process Leading into NCDD 2014

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NCDD is in the midst of an exciting mapping process leading up to our national conference in the DC area this October. We’re conducting this initial mapping project–and a more in depth mapping process we hope to launch at the conference–in collaboration with the Kettering Foundation.

Cool mapping image f

Cool mapping image from www.mindmapart.com.

There is a vast field of organizations, communities and networks whose work centers around collaborative group practices. This work goes by many different names (dialogue and deliberation, deliberative democracy, whole systems change, collective intelligence, collaborative problem solving, etc.), and NCDD was formed to bridge these and other streams of practice to help us learn from, be inspired by, and work with each other.

People use collaborative group practices to reach numerous ends:  planning stronger communities, influencing policy, addressing long-standing conflict, inspiring people to work together to solve collective problems, increasing awareness of the nuances of public issues, and helping people connect with each other across political and social divides.

The purpose of this initial mapping project is to help people working in this broad field of practice – especially those who attend the 2014 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation – get a better picture of the points of connection, the overlaps, and the possibilities for collaboration between the myriad networks and organizations that are innovating in this field.

The first stage of this mapping project is a very visual one, and was born out of a brainstorming conversation I had with Rosa Zubizarreta. We will begin by interviewing ten highly collaborative organizations that work in different spheres of this work. Kathryn Thomson of LeadershipMind Consulting will conduct the interviews, which will be recorded.

Graphic recorders will use the content generated from interviews with these key organizations and networks to create visually compelling maps of their respective “ecosystems” so that NCDD conference participants may see both the larger, interconnected system and their own points of intersection within that system. (We’re still looking for graphic recorders to partner with, so let us know if you’re interested! We’d love to work with 10 graphic recorders, so we can display a wide range of styles at the conference.)

Graphic mural created by Avril Orloff at the 2008 NCDD conference.

These maps will be on display during the opening plenary of our 2014 national conference, which will bring together about 400 of the most active and influential people in our field.

In the interviews, Kathryn and our graphic recorders will dig into the networks of connections, partnerships, overlaps, and points of possible collaboration among some of the key organizations and communities of practice whose work centers around collaborative group practices.

Kathryn is conducting interviews this month with the following organizations:

  1. Animating Democracy
  2. Art of Hosting
  3. CommunityMatters Partnership
  4. Deliberative Democracy Consortium
  5. Everyday Democracy
  6. Institute for Sustained Dialogue
  7. National Issues Forums Institute
  8. The World Café community
  9. The emerging transpartisan group led by Mark Gerzon
  10. And several other membership organizations NCDD works with, like ICA, IAF and IAP2

We chose to interview these particular organizations and networks not only because we consider them to be highly collaborative, but because they represent a variety of sectors within our broad community. Obviously, there are many other highly collaborative groups in our field that we could have selected.

It is our hope that by seeing some of these ecosystems mapped out and reflected back to the NCDD community, and subsequently creating new maps at the conference, attendees will consider how they might make further, deeper connections that will result in increased capacity for all of us in this field. My recent article in the Journal for Public Deliberation points to a growing desire among many organizations to combine forces, resources and expertise to make a greater impact, and mapping the field will help enable this.

NCDD2014_blog_post_badgeCreating these visual maps is the first step of a larger process. At the October conference, we will announce a more inclusive effort to map the NCDD network using online mapping tools.

Mapping the network is one step toward inviting more people into the kind of leadership that will enable us collectively to grow a more robust, resilient and sustainable network – and recognizing some of the organizations in our field that already embody that kind of leadership.

Let us know your thoughts on this project. And if you are interested in helping advise NCDD on the second phase of our mapping process and have some knowledge about different approaches to digital mapping, please email me at sandy@ncdd.org to let me know!

Peek Into NCDD’s Past Conferences

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Here at NCDD, we are in full-on conference planning mode, working closely with our incredible planning team to organize what we hope will be our best conference yet. (Learn more about NCDD 2014 here.)

One of my roles is to design the guidebooks, and I thought this would be a good time to share the guides from the previous conferences. If you’re thinking about joining us in October, these will give you a sense of the kinds of great programming, workshops, speakers, and networking we have in store for you!

2012 Guidebook — Seattle, WA

“The NCDD conference in Seattle was an extremely useful chance to meet others in the D&D field. Everybody makes the time to go, so everybody you could need to meet is there. I don’t know of another opportunity like it.”
– Amy Lee, Kettering Foundation

Learn more about the Seattle event • Download the 2012 Guidebook

2010 Resource Guide — Regional Events

“It was inspiring to connect with so many people working to bring authentic public engagement to the world through state of the art deliberative processes. I was heartened to see so many civic leaders and schools of public policy there, as well all of the grassroots, networked groups who are changing the face of democracy even as I write. Well done all!”
– Kathryn Thomson, PublicForums

Learn more about the Regional Events • Download the Resource Guide on Public Engagement

2008 Guidebook — Austin, TX

“I’m still coming back to earth after the amazing NCDD conference! It was packed so full of wonderful information, ideas, resources and people that I came away utterly inspired and energized. My heartiest congratulations to your team for pulling it off. What a monumental effort – and what tremendous results! Thank you for every minute.”
– Avril Orloff, Project Manager for Canada’s Philia Dialogue on Caring Citizenship

Learn more about the Austin event • Download the 2008 Guidebook

2006 Guidebook — San Francisco, CA

“I had an exceptional experience at the conference, learned so much, and made many good connections. As was true the first time around, you and all the teams did a remarkable job at collaboratively building an event that did a lot of things for a lot of people. As the organizer, I’m sure you didn’t get to see but a tiny fraction of all the good things, but rest assured there were many at every turn.”
– Pam Korza, Animating Democracy, Americans for the Arts

Learn more about the San Francisco event • Download the 2006 Guidebook

2004 Guidebook — Denver, CO

“I just wanted to let you know what an amazing conference it was in Denver. It deepened my understanding of D&D and I met many wonderful people. I believe events like this help strengthen and grow, not only the D&D community, but the work of conflict resolution and democracy world-wide. It was the best organized conference I have ever attended. You and those that helped you did an amazing job.”
– Stephan Gilchrist, Portland State University

Learn more about the Denver event • Download the 2004 Guidebook

2002 Guidebook — Washington, DC

The first National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation was a revelation to many attendees. It was a highly participatory, high-energy event which brought dialogue and deliberation practitioners, scholars and activists together across models, topics, regions, applications and philosophies. We prepared quite an extensive 3-ring binder for all attendees, full of lists of resources, a glossary, and full participant bios. Though more roughly designed than our latest conference guidebooks, people still talk about “the binder,” the contents of which formed the basis of what eventually grew into our extensive Resource Center.

Learn more about the DC event • Download the 2002 Conference Report

Another good way to get a sense of what NCDD 2014 will be like is to check out the videos from the last conference!

Local Governments Adopting Online Engagement: An NCDD Tech Tuesday discussion on the state of the field

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Join us for our next NCDD Tech Tuesday, on August 26th from 1-2pm Eastern / 10-11am Pacific, with:

  • Della RuckerTech_Tuesday_Badge, Managing Editor of EngagingCities (focusing on the intersection between internet technologies and community engagement), and Chief Instigator at Wise Economy
  • Susan Stuart Clark, Director, Common Knowledge, NCDD board member and consultant to local governments

An increasing number of local governments are adding different forms of online engagement to their public participation activities. There is a proliferation of tools being offered by different vendors, each trying to establish a unique positioning. Join Della Rucker and Susan Stuart Clark as they review examples of how local governments are using online engagement, the state of the industry, key factors to consider in planning and implementing online engagement – and how online engagement can be used to complement and enhance in-person dialogue.

The session has been designed to allow for plenty of time for Q&A and group discussion. We are especially interested in NCDD member experiences with online engagement and local government.  Click here to register.

Want to do some reading ahead of time?

By the way, you do not have to be a dues-paying member of NCDD to participate in our FREE Tech Tuesday learning events — though we greatly appreciate the support! You can join NCDD here or upgrade to a supporting membership here.

“Civility in Action” Dialogue Series Launches in AZ

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Our friends with the Institute for Civil Dialogue, an NCDD organizational member, will be hosting a series of public dialogues across Arizona on hot button issues this Fall that are aimed at fostering more civility. We are excited to see how the series goes, and we encourage you to learn more in ICD’s press release below or at www.civil-dialogue.com.

“Civility in Action” events start September 9

CAREFREE, Ariz., (July 30, 2014) – Valley citizens will have a new opportunity to discuss hot topics with cool heads this fall. The Institute for Civil Dialogue, in association with the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University, will present a five-part series of free public dialogues focused on provocative issues that emerge during election season. The five-part series, called Civility in Action, will be presented at various venues throughout the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, September-November, 2014.

“As political campaigns heat up, candidates will give us their opinions on the most important issues of our times, and media pundits will give their opinions on the candidates. Civility in Action events will give citizens a chance to voice their own opinions through our unique Civil Dialogue format,” said John Genette, president of the Institute. “The Civility in Action series is not a political rally, it’s for the whole community. It’s designed to foster civility, which is sorely lacking in today’s public conversations. All points of view will be welcome and respected.”

The events are free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. Each event will cover two topics, determined from election coverage and announced in advance. Events will be held in various venues throughout the Valley:

  • Sept. 9, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m., The Empty Space, Arizona State Univ., 970 E. University, Tempe
  • Oct. 1, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m., Grace Lutheran Church, 1124 N. 3rd St., Phoenix 85004
  • Oct. 29, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m., Willo Room, Phoenix College, 1202 W Thomas Rd., Phoenix
  • Nov. 4, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., Room FSH102, Scottsdale Community College, 9000 E. Chaparral Rd., Scottsdale
  • Nov. 11, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m., Dayspring United Methodist Church, 1365 E Elliot Rd., Tempe

Civility in Action events will employ a unique facilitated format, Civil Dialogue®, which was created by Genette and two members of the Hugh Downs School faculty, Jennifer Linde and Clark Olson. The trio serve as founding directors of the new Institute. “In a Civil Dialogue, we draw a distinction between ‘disagreement,’ which is healthy for democracy, and ‘demonizing,’ which alienates us from one another,” said Linde. “Civil Dialogue is the alternative to the traditional win-lose debate format,” adds Olson. “There is no attempt to change minds or reach consensus, the purpose is to help people of different political stripes, including those who may be neutral or undecided, to interact on hot topics with cool heads. It’s an eye-opening experience.”

For directions to Civility in Action events and more information about Civil Dialogue, visit the Institute’s website at www.civil-dialogue.com.

Fall Public Participation Trainings from LET

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There are some great trainings being offered this Fall by the League of Extraordinary Trainers, an NCDD org member and sponsor of the 2014 NCDD conference. We want to make sure NCDDers know not only that these great IAP2 certificate trainings are happening, but there is a discount on registration for NCDD members! Make sure to take a look at LET’s announcement about the trainings below or to find their full training schedule here.

LeagueOfExtraordinaryTrainers-logoIAP2’s Certificate Program has been revitalized to incorporate more international perspectives and to address and incorporate many thoughts and ideas provided as feedback from more than 6,000 participants who have taken the program since 2000. The updated curriculum, newly named Foundations in Public Participation, launched July 1, 2014. The Planning for Effective Public Participation course has been extended to three days, incorporating communications planning into the Planning course. An increased focus on deliberative dialogue, plus the addition of web-based and social media engagement tools were added.

Public anger is an increasing fact of society. Growing global citizen outrage causes government gridlock, lawsuits, stopped projects, election losses, loss of time, money, and destroyed credibility. Emotion, Outrage and Public Participation is a two-day workshop that builds on IAP2’s global best practices in public involvement and the work of Dr. Peter Sandman, a foremost researcher and expert in public outrage and risk communication. This course will help you move people from rage to reason and engage stakeholders in building consensus for better decisions.

If you work for or are involved in public participation and community engagement outreach projects in: government – municipalities, state and federal agencies; corporations; utilities; environmental agencies; community organizations; universities; advocacy and lobbying these courses can broaden your toolkit and bring greater creativity to your approach. The hands-on design of these courses and the expertise of the IAP2 Licensed Trainers ensure that you’ll be receiving the best public participation and community engagement training available globally.

LET Event Dates, Locations, Brochures and On-Line Registration are always available at to view www.extraordinarytrainers.com/schedules.

Certificate Program – Foundations In Public Participation (2 courses) –

Planning – (Mon-Wed, 3 days) Techniques – (Thu-Fri, 2 days)

  • Fort Worth, Texas – September 8-12
  • Chicago, Illinois – October 27-31

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

  • Las Vegas, Nevada – October 6-7
  • Austin, Texas – October 16-17
  • Chicago, Illinois – December 4-5

LET offers Early Bird Registration Discounts. Dues-paying NCDD members receive a discounted rate on all trainings. Email us directly to receive a Promo Code for the NCDD member discount: info@extraordinarytrainers.com.

NCDD 2014 – Meet the Team!

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Just a sampling of the many great people involved in this year's event!

Just a sampling of the many great people involved in this year’s event!

Hands down the best part of planning and running our National Conferences on Dialogue & Deliberation is working with the people, both staff and volunteers, who come together to make these events amazing.  This year’s conference in the Washington, D.C. area is no different, with almost 50 members of our community offering their precious time and knowledge to make sure we bring you the best event we possibly can.

NCDD2014_blog_post_badgeWe have a page dedicated to this fantastic team, and the photo above only shows a sampling. Sandy Heierbacher is the conference director again this year and Courtney Breese is back as our unflappable and ultra-capable conference manager. These two work together to keep all kinds of plates balanced in the air.

Marla Crockett is heading up the local team this year, facilitating a great group of DC area volunteers who are handling local outreach, field trips, and arts at the conference. And Polly Riddims is back once again to manage logistics for the conference — something she has done beautifully since the first NCDD conference in 2002. Roshan Bliss is coordinating our on-site volunteers again this year, and is also serving as our youth outreach coordinator. Many others are coordinating different aspects of the conference planning, so do check out the team page.

I also want to look back at past events and thank again those who helped us get to where we are today.  We still have our planning team list from NCDD Seattle on the site.  It’s so great to see so many friends returning for our current event.  I wish I could share the list of volunteers and advisers from our 2010 regional events but there were just so many of them and, since they were working independently much of the time, no master list was collected.  But you know who you are!  Thanks for the crazy times!

As with our Seattle event, NCDD 2008 Austin’s planning team is still online, but for our 2006 San Francisco, 2004 Denver and 2002 Washington DC events you’ll need to dig into the guidebooks or reports from those conferences for the list.

To everybody — past and present — to those who joined us for just one event, and those who’ve worked with us over the years, and, yes, even those crazy enough to stick with us from the very beginning…

Thank You!

Audio of our July Confab call on “event closings”

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Confab bubble imageYesterday, 50 NCDDers joined us for our July 2014 Confab call on “Event Closings” featuring four all-star practitioners: Lisa Heft, Adrian Segar, Tim Merry and Susanna Haas Lyons.

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On this Confab, we tackled a very practical challenge that many of you face, and that NCDD itself faces every time we plan a national conference: how to plan and execute effective closings at participatory events. All four of our featured guests have extensive experience closing large-scale events using approaches such as Open Space, World Cafe, Conferences That Work, Art of Hosting and 21st Century Town Meetings.

NCDD’s director, Sandy Heierbacher, reflected on some of the ways we’ve closed past NCDD conferences, and outlined a few of the challenges we’ve faced — like dealing with people filtering out to catch flights, not wanting to over-structure the closing but needing to accomplish various goals, expecting too much of participants after the event, and more.

Though the hour went very quickly, our presenters and participants dug in further on the companion Hackpad page. At www.tinyurl.com/confab7-14, you’ll find a rich conversation on what you need to take into consideration when closing participatory events and conferences (as well as many great ideas, best practices, and resources)! We recommend you taking a look, and adding your own insights over the next few days.

Learn more about NCDD’s Confab Calls and other events (including our upcoming National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation this October in the DC area) in our Events Section.

And just for fun, here’s the photo journal that was shown during our closing session at the 2008 NCDD conference in Austin!

CM Conference Call on Grassroots Grants, July 31

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CM_logo-200pxIt’s time again for another capacity-building conference call from our organizational partners at CommunityMatters, which is coming up this Thursday, July 31st from 4-5pm EST.

The topic of this latest call is “Grassroots Grants“, and CM will be partnering with Janis Foster Richardson, the Executive Director of Grassroots Grantmakers, to host it. They introduce the call’s topic like this:

Is your community a place for possibilities? Can residents bring their ideas to life, take risks, make connections and ply their creative skills? Grassroots grantmaking focuses on helping organizations turn possibilities into realities.

Through small grants, residents move from dreaming to doing and become critical change makers in their community.

Janis Foster Richardson, executive director of Grassroots Grantmakers, joins CommunityMatters on Thursday, July 31 for an hour-long webinar on how local governments, nonprofits, foundations and other community groups are supporting everyday people in making positive change through small grant programs.

Register today by clicking here, and we hope to hear you on the call!

Before the call, we encourage you to check out the accompanying piece on the CM blog by Caitlyn Horose, which is cross posted below. You can find the original piece here.

Investing in “What Ifs” With Grassroots Grants

No matter how rich or poor, every community has a wealth of ideas, often nascent, for making things better. What if we timed the traffic lights differently? What if we added more trashcans, or lights or widened our sidewalks? What if we turned that blank wall or fence into something more beautiful?

Despite the multitude of improvement ideas, people rarely act on them. Residents may feel limited by time, money, or uncertainty about whether formal permits are required. Grassroots grantmaking is the business of investing in “what ifs” and crazy ideas.

Grassroots grants focus on what people can do better together rather than what agencies or institutions can do for them; help people move from dreaming to doing; and invest in people and associations as critical change-makers in a community.

Municipalities, nonprofits, and community foundations are supporting and stimulating citizen-driven efforts through these small grants.

Here are two organizations doing this work:

The Vancouver Community Foundation’s Neighborhood Small Grants program in Canada supports diverse projects like “Host a Hope” murals to increase community connectedness, a mobile Truck Farm to promote local produce and a digital storytelling project for youth called Callingwood Snapshots. Efforts funded by the initiative encourage neighborhood connections and engagement. Learn more. View the video:

Neighborhood Connections, a 10 year old community building and small grants program of the Cleveland Community Foundation has provided resources for nearly 2,000 projects—public murals, after school programs and even a marching band. All funding decisions are made by a resident grantmaking committee. Watch the video below to learn more.

While many grassroots grant programs are affiliated with community foundations and other funding entities, local governments and nonprofits are also establishing them.

After completing the Golden Vision 2030 and Community Heart & Soul™ planning process, city employees and elected officials in Golden, Colorado wanted residents to take action. Golden created the i-Golden Neighborhood Grants program, offering small grants for resident-led projects that support community values. Through i-Golden grants, the city supports many local efforts including beautification, block parties, and pedestrian safety improvements.

The North Fork Valley Heart & Soul Project in Western Colorado featured a mini-grant program to involve residents in their new community vision. Ten thousand dollars was split between seven winners. Projects included the installation of a community bulletin board, creation of a seed library, and a community kitchen feasibility study.

The Youth Leadership and Philanthropy Initiative of Perry County, Kentucky engages youth through community service, leadership development and small grants. The program helps stem outmigration by teaching the value of investment in the local community. In its first year, the initiative awarded four $500 grants raised from individual donations and fundraising events.

Grassroots Grantmakers is a network of many different types of organizations that share a commitment to the values and principles of asset-based community development and a belief in the power of everyone to be contributing, active citizens and changemakers.

On Thursday, July 31, Janis Foster Richardson, executive director of Grassroots Grantmakers, will join CommunityMatters to share how local governments, nonprofits, foundations and other community groups are supporting positive change through small grant programs.

Register now.