Announcing a Blockbuster March Confab!

We are pleased to announce an exciting March Confab call happening next week in coordination with Net Impact, National Issues Forums Institute, and the National Conversation Project! On the call, we will learn more about Net Impact’s youth engagement work, their collaboration with NIFI on a new National Debt issue guide, a paid opportunity to host forums with the guide, and how this all plays into the upcoming National Week of Conversation (NWOC). Join us for this dynamic call on Wednesday, March 13th from 3-4 pm Eastern, 12-1 pm Pacific.

This free one-hour webinar will be a great opportunity for anyone passionate about cultivating the next generation of leaders, those interested in learning how to apply for the microgrant, and/or hosting a conversation during NWOC. You won’t want to miss out on this discussion – register today!

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On this call, we will be joined by Net Impact’s Program Manager Christy Stanker who will share about Net Impact’s work to nurture youth into emerging leaders, their stand-out program Up to Us, and how to apply for the microgrant to host forums on the national debt.

The issue guide, A Nation in Debt: How Can We Pay the Bills? was published by the National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI) in partnership with Up to UsUp to Us, an initiative of Net Impact and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, is a rapidly growing, nonpartisan movement of young people who recognize that when it comes to securing their economic and fiscal future, they have no better advocates than themselves.

Amid high-profile debates over jobs and the economy, social mobility, healthcare, and tax reform, Up to Us is the only nationwide, campus-based campaign focused on building a sustainable economic and fiscal future for America’s next generation. Net Impact’s programs help new leaders broaden their thinking, build their networks, and scale their impact beyond just individual actions.

Net Impact is excited to offer a microgrant of $150 to moderators* who host a forum using the newly updated A Nation in Debt issue guide and NIFI’s Chief Administrative Officer Darla Minnich will join the call to share details on the offer. *Moderators must be affiliated with an accredited US-based college or university to be considered eligible for the microgrant.

This microgrant opportunity also coincides with the upcoming National Week of Conversation, happening April 5-13. Our co-hosts at the National Conversation Project, Jaclyn Inglis, Partnerships Director, and Pearce Godwin, Executive Director, will share more about this upcoming initiative to get people engaged in conversations and how you can get involved. We hope many of you will consider combining the microgrant opportunity and contributing to the National Week of Conversation!

Make sure you register today to secure your spot!

About Our Confab Co-Hosts

Net Impact is a nonprofit that inspires and equips emerging leaders to build a more just and sustainable world. Net Impact’s programs help new leaders broaden their thinking, build their networks, and scale their impact beyond just individual actions.

National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI), is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that serves to promote public deliberation about difficult public issues. Its activities include publishing the issue guides and other materials used by local forum groups, encouraging collaboration among forum sponsors, and sharing information about current activities in the network.

National Conversation Project is an overarching, collaborative platform that aggregates, aligns, and amplifies the efforts of more than 175 partners to mainstream conversations in which we #ListenFirst to understand. NCP promotes National Weeks of Conversation, #ListenFirst Fridays, and any conversation inviting people of all stripes to revitalize America together.

About NCDD’s Confab Calls

Confab bubble imageNCDD’s Confab Calls are opportunities for members (and potential members) of NCDD to talk with and hear from innovators in our field about the work they’re doing and to connect with fellow members around shared interests. Membership in NCDD is encouraged but not required for participation. Confabs are free and open to all. Register today if you’d like to join us!

Who Will You Invite? An Exploration of Stakeholder Selection in Dialogue and Deliberation

A NCDD Listserv synopsis of the conversation entitled: How to pick stakeholders for a stakeholder dialogue

Listserv Contributors: Tom Altee, Adrian Segar, Peter Jones, Marjo Curgus, Peggy Holmes, Chris Santos-Lang, Betsy Morris, Eric Simley, and Sally Theilacker

Synopsis by: Annie Rappeport, NCDD Intern

“The approach to stakeholder selection is the most critical step in the design of fair and inclusive dialogues that reflect a community’s contributions and perspectives” ~ Peter Jones, NCDD Member

In your dialogue and deliberation work do you find yourself struggling as much about who to invite to a dialogue as how to set the agenda? Are you wanting to include many but worried about sacrificing the needed intimacy of the conversation?  If so, you are not alone.

In September 2018, NCDD member Tom Altee began a conversation with an inquiry to the greater NCDD community about the different considerations for and ways to select community stakeholders gathering because they all care about a particular issue.  Although Tom Altee’s questions were for a specific project related to community transit and the varying interests of bicyclists, walkers, and drivers, the responses quickly broadened this important conversation about dialogue. Tackling who will be included in a dialogue has valuable impacts on what will be discussed as will the overall size of the group and any present uneven power dynamics.

Our NCDD community responded with resources and ideas aplenty. Here are some contributions we believe may serve others well as they craft an approach for their specific local needs and contexts.

  1. Peter Jones has dedicated much of his work and scholarship to the importance of stakeholder selection. He recommends a technique entitled “evolutionary stakeholder discovery” whereby there are multiple waves of invitation and a creation of optimal criteria that the participating stakeholders may represent. This is a time-consuming and worthwhile approach. Marjo Curgus also uses a specific technique that combines network analysis and stakeholder analysis to craft a preferred list of included stakeholders. Marjo notes the importance of conducting this process with a committee and to prioritize levels of influence.
  2. Peggy Holmes mentions different models including the diversity promoting “faultlines” conceptual framework from The Maynard Institute. A handy guide to the faultlines approach is provided on the Society for Professional Journalists website (2019). She also mentions the work of Sandra Janoff and Marv Weisbord as providing useful criteria considerations.
  3. Chris Santos-Lang illustrates impossibility of creating the perfect gathering of stakeholders and the significant issue in dialogue and deliberation work to include stakeholder representation when the needed stakeholder may be physically, mentally or technically (i.e. language barriers) unable to participate at the needed level themselves.
  4. Adrian Segar recommends the 2013 John Forester book Planning in the Face of Conflict. This book features a dozen profiles of planning practitioners that serve as exemplary cases of stakeholder selection for practical problem solving in communities.

What we can continue to take from this discussion overall is the importance of questioning how we invite and who we invite in community discussions. The tools and approaches vary, but many times our goals remain constant–to have high quality and effective dialogues that are so because they are diverse, inclusive, and a size that enables everyone to contribute.

We hope this discussion may continue! Please post your thoughts and ideas for stakeholder selection in your work.

Opportunity to Test Mismatch Spring 2019 Pilot, Grades 6-12

In case you missed it, NCDD member org Living Room Conversations and AllSides recently announced an opportunity to test out the Spring 2019 Pilot of Mismatch for grades 6-12! Mismatch is a platform that digitally connects classrooms with each other and facilitates structured conversation between students via video conferencing using Living Room Conversation topic guides. Last year, we featured Mismatch during one of our Tech Tuesday events and you can listen to the recording here! Read the details in the post below and find the original information on the LRC newsletter here.


Calling All Parents, Educators, and Students

We are excited to announce the Spring 2019 Pilot of Mismatch! And your (child’s) grade 6-12 classroom is invited to join!

AllSides for Schools is our joint project with the news site AllSides.comMismatch is a platform that pairs students from different schools around the U.S. and facilitates structured online video conversations between these students using Living Room Conversation topic Guides. You can learn more about Mismatch in the video you’ll find here.

Our goal is to make the Mismatch platform available for anyone interested in civil discussions with someone who thinks differently. We are looking forward to this and bet you are too!

How to join the Mismatch pilot? The AllSides for Schools team is currently looking for grade 6-12 educators in government, social studies, history, and related fields who would like to sign up their classrooms for our Spring 2019 Mismatch pilot. Joining the pilot entails these activities:

  • Completing a short pre-survey about your classroom
  • Providing feedback on our matching criteria, conversation guides, and web platform
  • Matching with another classroom and orchestrating realtime, F2F video conversations between students in your two classrooms (with our help)

92% of students surveyed after using Mismatch reported a positive shift in attitude after just one conversation, citing “great appreciation for the other perspective or other person.” 99% of students found the experience somewhat or extremely valuable.

Once the AllSides for Schools team receives your inquiry, you’ll be contacted for a 1:1 exploratory call to answer questions and describe the pilot program in more detail.  (Note: While every request to participate may not be able to be accommodated, due to matching constraints, the AllSides for Schools team will do its very best!)

Sign Up for FREE Here!

P.S. Do you know someone that would enjoy hearing from us? Please forward this email to friends and colleagues and encourage them to join our community.”

You can find the original version of this announcement on the Living Room Conversations newsletter at https://mailchi.mp/d44c68e7edd2/calling-all-parents-educators-and-students.

NCL Offers Free National Civic Review to NCDD Members!

As part of our new partnership with NCDD member org, The National Civic League, we are thrilled to announce that NCDD members will now have free access to the digital version of NCL’s National Civic Review! NCL is one of the longest running organizations in the dialogue, deliberation, and engagement world – celebrating their 125th year! This esteemed quarterly journal offers insights and examples on civic engagement and deliberative governance from around the country. We strongly encourage our members to check out this great resource and there is an open invite for NCDD members to contribute to the NCR! You can read about NCR in the post below and find it on NCL’s site here.


National Civic Review: Winter 2019 – 125th Anniversary Edition — Access Code: NCDD19

The focus of this edition is the capacity of communities to address difficult challenges by tapping the potential of an engaged public. Whether it is a “wicked problem” such as gentrification or an effort to improve local health outcomes, towns, cities and regions with ample “civic capital” find ways of bringing together diverse groups of associations and individuals in collaborative, community improvement initiatives.

To access this edition, go to the table of contents where you will be prompted to enter your unique access code: NCDD19

One of the Nation’s Oldest and Most Respected Journals of Civic Affairs
Its cases studies, reports, interviews and essays help communities learn about the latest developments in collaborative problem-solving, civic engagement, local government innovation and democratic governance. Some of the country’s leading doers and thinkers have contributed articles to this invaluable resource for elected officials, public managers, nonprofit leaders, grassroots activists, and public administration scholars seeking to make America’s communities more inclusive, participatory, innovative and successful.

Weekly Online Roundup Feat Bridge Alliance and More!

January is finishing strong with this fantastic line-up of D&D online events! NCDDer Chris Santos-Lang let us know about his upcoming webinar on making research transparent that we encourage you to check out. There is a Common Ground for Action deliberation series running for three consecutive Saturdays from NCDD member National Issues Forums Institute, and more exciting webinars from NCDD member orgs, MetroQuest, Bridge Alliance, and Living Room Conversations!

Do you have a webinar or other event coming up that you’d like to share with the NCDD network? Please let us know in the comments section below or by emailing me at keiva[at]ncdd[dot]org, because we’d love to add it to the list!


Online Roundup: NIFI, CSA’s Ethics Working Group, Living Room Conversations, MetroQuest, Bridge Alliance

National Issues Forums Institute – January & February CGA Forum Series Deep Deliberation: Coming to America: Who Should We Welcome? What Should We Do?

Three consecutive Saturdays in Jan & Feb
Saturday, Jan 26th, Feb 2nd, Feb 9th
2pm Pacific, 5pm Eastern

Please join us for a deep dive into immigration reform using Common Ground for Action (CGA) online deliberation platform.

This will be one online forum set across three consecutive Saturdays in January and February in order have a deeper deliberative experience. Starting at 5pm ET on Saturday January 26th, February 2nd and February 9th, we will take an in-depth look at Coming to America: Who Should We Welcome? What Should We Do? On Jan 26th, we’ll discuss our personal stake and Option 1: Welcome Immigrants, Be a Beacon of Freedom. On February 2nd, we’ll deliberate Option 2: Enforce the Law, Be Fair to Those Who Follow the Rules and Option 3: Slow Down and Rebuild Our Common Bonds. On February 9th, we’ll begin making sense of our common ground, talk next steps, and the value of deliberation in these types of conversations. Plan to participate in all three forums for a highly deliberative and deep look at this wicked issue.

If you’ve never participated in a CGA forum, please watch the “How To Participate” video before joining. You can find the video link here: https://vimeo.com/99290801

If you haven’t had a chance to review the issue guide, you can find a downloadable PDF copy at the NIF website.: https://www.nifi.org/es/issue-guide/coming-america

If you’d like to watch the starter video before registering, you can view it here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/comingtoamerica/256884446

REGISTER: www.nifi.org/en/events/jan-feb-cga-forum-series-deep-deliberation-coming-america-who-should-we-welcome-what-should

Ethics Working Group of the Citizen Science Association webinar – How to Make Your Research Transparent
* shared via NCDD member Chris Santos-Lang

Thursday, January 31st
9-10 am Pacific, 12-1 pm Eastern

A Webinar from CSA’s Ethics Working Group, presented by Chris Santos-Lang (Ethics Working Group Co-Chair)

This webinar is a practical how-to demonstrating some of the latest technologies developed to satisfy the transparency principles in the European Citizen Science Association’s Ten Principles of Citizen Science and the DIYbio Codes of Ethics. It will demonstrate two free solutions as examples: One is the Open Science Framework and the other is a homespun mixture of Google Drive, Google Docs, and FigShare. Both solutions leverage PubPeer, Creative Commons licenses, and research standards. This webinar also introduces the “APRICOT” mnemonic to map the range of transparency failures, and discusses the concerns that drive current negotiations between transparency and privacy.

About Chris: Chris Santos-Lang co-chairs the Ethics Working Group of the Citizen Science Association. He applies citizen science to ethics (e.g. studying moral psychology, machine ethics, and the sociology and political science of ethics).

If you experience any issues in registration, please email: info@citizenscience.org

REGISTER: https://citizenscience.member365.com/public/event/details/78a40bcdbcf4cbe1486b57996f0434fc336d9953/1

Living Room Conversations webinar – Guns & Responsibility

Tuesday, January 29th
12-1:30 pm Pacific, 3-4:30pm Eastern

Join us for a free online (using Zoom) Living Room Conversation on the topic of Guns & Responsibility Please see the conversation guide for this topic. Some of the questions explored include:

  • What role have guns played in your life?
  • Where did you learn about guns? And what did you learn?
  • Are gun/second amendment issues very important to you?

Is there anything you would change about current gun laws or regulation in your state or at the federal level?

You will need a device with a webcam to participate (preferably a computer or tablet rather than a cell phone).

Please only sign up for a place in this conversation if you are 100% certain that you can join – and thank you – we have many folks waiting to have Living Room Conversations and hope to have 100% attendance. If you need to cancel please return to Eventbrite to cancel your ticket so someone on the waitlist may attend.

A link to join the conversation and additional details will be sent to you by no later than the day before the conversation. The conversation host is Harold R.

REGISTER: www.livingroomconversations.org/event/online-living-room-conversation-guns-responsibility/

MetroQuest webinar – “Public Engagement at All Scales | CMAP’s Winning Recipe”

Wednesday, January 30th
11 am Pacific | 12 pm Mountain | 1 pm Central | 2 pm Eastern (1 hour)
Educational Credit Available (APA AICP CM)
Complimentary (FREE)

For the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, award-winning comprehensive plans involve public engagement at all scales, collaboration with 284 communities, and a Local Technical Assistance program that’s admired nationally. Join us January 30th to get inspired!

CMAP Deputy Executive Director of Planning Stephane Phifer, Associate Outreach Planner Katanya Raby, and Senior Planner Lindsay Bayley will take you inside their local approach to online engagement for OnTo2050 – their comprehensive regional plan to improve quality of life and economic prosperity for 8.5 million people.

Public feedback was essential to exploring alternative futures for innovative transportation, climate change, walkable communities, a transformed economy, and constrained resources. You’ll learn how CMAP used a multi-phased approach to online engagement for a variety of local plans, including the downtown Aurora Master Plan.

Attend this complimentary 1-hour webinar to explore effective ways to:

  • Engage inclusively to build inclusive plans
  • Uncover the ideas, hopes, and concerns of residents
  • Take a multi-phase approach to online engagement
  • Think both locally and regionally for collaborative planning

This webinar will include a live Q&A session to help you prepare for 2019. Bring your public engagement questions for Stephane, Katanya, Lindsay, and Dave Biggs, Chief Engagement Officer at MetroQuest.

REGISTER: http://go.metroquest.com/Public-Engagement-at-All-Scales-CMAPs-Winning-Recipe.html

Bridge Alliance webinar – BridgeUSA Peer Learning Session – Achieving Diversity: An Example *this webinar is for Bridge Alliance members only – learn more here

Wednesday, January 30th
12 pm Pacific, 3 pm Eastern

Manu Meel will discuss how the Bridge Alliance and its members can achieve greater diversity in the revitalization movement. Specifically, he will present on:

  1. BridgeUSA’s lack of diverse leadership.
  2. The importance of diversity.
  3. How BridgeUSA is prioritizing diversity within its organization.
  4. What lessons other Bridge Alliance organizations can draw from its example.

We are very excited to host this event for Bridge Alliance member organizations through Zoom Video Conference, and we hope you will be able to join us.

If you wish to attend this event, please RSVP by January 24th.

RSVP: www.bridgealliancefund.us/bridgeusa_peer_learning_session

Living Room Conversations webinar – Mental Health

Thursday, January 31st
1:30-3 pm Pacific, 4:30-6 pm Eastern

Join us for a free online (using Zoom) Living Room Conversation on the topic of Mental Health. Please see the conversation guide for this topic. Some of the questions explored include:

  • What experiences in your life, your work or your family inform your thinking about mental health?
  • Is mental health an important issue in your community, and if so, why?
  • In your experience, how are mental health issues affecting young people? (If you are a young person, how do mental health issues affect you and your peers?)

You will need a device with a webcam to participate (preferably a computer or tablet rather than a cell phone).

Please only sign up for a place in this conversation if you are 100% certain that you can join – and thank you – we have many folks waiting to have Living Room Conversations and hope to have 100% attendance. If you need to cancel please return to Eventbrite to cancel your ticket so someone on the waitlist may attend.

A link to join the conversation and additional details will be sent to you by no later than the day before the conversation. The conversation host is Lewis G.

REGISTER: www.livingroomconversations.org/event/online-living-room-conversation-mental-health-2/

Living Room Conversations webinar – Status & Privilege

Friday, February 1st
2-3:30 pm Pacific, 5-6:30 pm Eastern

Join us for a free online (using Zoom) Living Room Conversation on the topic of Status & Privilege. Please see the conversation guide for this topic. Some of the questions explored include:

  • What status do you enjoy? Education, wealth, gender, race, etc?
  • What are the privileges of your status?
  • What do you value and how is that connected to your status or privilege?

You will need a device with a webcam to participate (preferably a computer or tablet rather than a cell phone).

Please only sign up for a place in this conversation if you are 100% certain that you can join – and thank you – we have many folks waiting to have Living Room Conversations and hope to have 100% attendance. If you need to cancel please return to Eventbrite to cancel your ticket so someone on the waitlist may attend.

A link to join the conversation and additional details will be sent to you by no later than the day before the conversation. The conversation host is Shay M.

REGISTER: www.livingroomconversations.org/event/online-living-room-conversation-status-privilege-3/

EvDem Announces Leadership in Democracy Awardee

In case you missed it, NCDD member org, Everyday Democracy announced the winner of the second annual Paul and Joyce Aicher Leadership in Democracy Award! Please join us in congratulating Beth Broadway of InterFaith Works of Central New York for her work in Syracuse over the last 40 years, and runner-up, Mayme Webb Bledsoe of the Duke Durham Neighborhood Partnership in North Carolina. We encourage you to read the announcement below or on Everyday Democracy’s blog here.


Syracuse New York’s Beth Broadway Wins 2018 Paul Aicher Leadership in Democracy Award

EvDem LogoBeth Broadway of InterFaith Works of Central New York is Announced the Winner of the Paul and Joyce Aicher Leadership in Democracy Award

For more than 25 years, Everyday Democracy has worked with communities across the country to foster a healthy and vibrant democracy – characterized by strong relationships across divides, leadership development, including the voices of all people, and understanding and addressing structural racism.

Beth A. Broadway was recognized for her more than 40 years as a force for justice, raising voice to issues of oppression, and advancing racial and social equity through the process of dialogue and action. Her racial equity work has directly impacted thousands of individuals and families and has markedly improved Syracuse and surrounding communities.

“Throughout her career, Beth has championed democracy and bridge building across divides of ethnicity, race, faith and socioeconomic background.” said Beth’s nominator, Shiu-Kai Chin, PhD, Prof., Syracuse University College of Engineering & Computer Science and Chair of the Board of InterFaith Works. “She has created space for the voices of those who often go unheard, and nurtured leadership skills in those who are frequently marginalized. At 11, she watched her mother stand firm in front of angry neighbors trying to prevent African American children from getting off their school bus at her newly desegregated school. Beth’s mother stepped between the mob and children to escort them into the building. Her mother’s courage is the touchstone for Beth’s work in civil rights and human service.”

Beth first served as a social worker for Head Start in Chicago. Working with single moms and pre-school children, she provided leadership training and a forum for mothers to learn to advocate for themselves and their children. To this day, Beth credits those moms with teaching her about helping people find their voice.

Beth has been one of the design thinkers and implementers of two city-wide democracy building initiatives, each of which has continued for more than 23 years. The two initiatives are The Leadership Classroom that trains grassroots leaders to view the world through a lens of equity and power, and Tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Today, a neighborhood planning model that assembles grassroots groups, social service agencies, businesses and governmental departments in Syracuse to identify critical needs and develop annual and long-range plans for the city’s neighborhoods.

After serving as a consultant and board member for six years, Beth became director of the Community-Wide Dialogue to End Racism in 2001 which is now the Ahmad and Elizabeth El-Hindi Center for Dialogue. The Center focuses on ending racism, improving police-community relations and interfaith understanding. After participating in Everyday Democracy’s Communities Creating Racial Equity learning community, Beth adapted the dialogue work to take action on a specific need facing Syracuse: a city school district whose staff members are largely white and suburban teaching students that are largely of color. That work has contributed to increasing diversity of teaching staff in Syracuse and a commitment to continuing the work of creating equitable education opportunities for students of color. The Community-Wide Dialogue is one of the longest continually running programs of its type in the nation, having directly engaged over 12,000 people to date. It actively serves as model for communities across the country.

In 2010, she assumed the role of President/CEO of the entire agency, which, in addition to the above, settles refugees and is a welcoming center for immigrants and New Americans to the Central New York region. The agency also promotes interfaith understanding, provides chaplaincy services to people who are incarcerated and institutionalized, and serves frail elderly to affirm their dignity and break through the isolation and loneliness that often accompanies aging.
“Beth has raised the profile and practice of Dialogue to Change in Syracuse and across the country, and has held up a consistent vision of democratic participation connected to equitable change,” said Everyday Democracy’s Executive Director Martha McCoy. “ Beth models what it means to be a white ally – a leader who is committed to racial justice and to democratic dialogue and engagement. She demonstrates how to build inclusive spaces for people to start where they are and deepen their understanding of racial justice.”

“It is an honor to be selected by one’s peers for recognition, especially peers like those at Everyday Democracy, who have helped our nation develop the tools of dialogue and a racial equity lens that will keep our democracy strong. This award means a great deal to me, but is really a testament to the many hard working people, both staff and volunteers, that make InterFaith Works the caring, compassionate, and forward thinking agency that it is. The gift that accompanies this award will be added to our newly founded endowment that will assure that this work will go on for many years to come.”

This year, the Committee also recognized a Runner Up, Mayme Webb Bledsoe of the Duke Durham Neighborhood Partnership in North Carolina. They also recognized these strong finalists for the award: Campus Compact of Oregon; Marcia DuFore of the North Central Regional Mental Health Board in Connecticut; and the Michigan Community Scholars Program. Honorable Mentions went to: InterAction Initiative (Taeyin ChoGlueck and Deandra Cadet), Mishawaka, Indiana; and Deeqo Jibril, Roxbury, Massachusetts. Recognition of Promising Practices went to: The Connecticut Youth Forum, Hartford, Connecticut; Equity Arcata, Arcata, California; The Multicultural Resource Center, Ithaca NY; and Tracey Robertson, FitOshKosh, Oshkosh, Wisconsin.


Paul J. Aicher and his wife Joyce were known for their generosity and creative genius. A discussion course at Penn State helped Paul find his own voice in civic life early on, and sparked his lifelong interest in helping others find theirs. Paul founded the Topsfield Foundation and the Study Circles Resource Center, now called Everyday Democracy, in 1989.  The organization has now worked with more than 600 communities throughout the country, helping bring together diverse people to understand and make progress on difficult issues, incorporating lessons learned into discussion guides and other resources, and offering training and resources to help develop the field and practice of deliberative democracy.

You can find the original version of this announcement on Everyday Democracy’s site at www.everyday-democracy.org/news/syracuse-new-yorks-beth-broadway-wins-2018-paul-aicher-leadership-democracy-award.

Featured D&D Story: KRIA The Icelandic Constitution Archives

Today we’d like to feature a great example of dialogue and deliberation in action, KRIA The Icelandic Constitution Archives. This mini case study was submitted by Eileen Jerrett via NCDD’s Dialogue Storytelling Tool. Do you have a dialogue story that our network could learn from? Add your dialogue story today!


ShareYourStory-sidebarimageTitle of Project:
KRIA The Icelandic Constitution Archives

Description:
At the end of September, Build Up joined constitutional and legal scholars, government ministers, and democratic activists from around the world at the conference on Democratic Constitutional Design (DCD) at the University of Iceland hosted by EDDA Research Center in Reykjavik. We presented a tool, in partnership with the Center for Democratic Constitutional Design (CDCD) and the University of Washington, to support the continued process of constitutional reform in Iceland.

Iceland may seem like a strange destination, possibly far from the characteristics we’ve come to expect for peacebuilding processes. Build Up staff collectively have decades of experience supporting efforts by peacebuilders all around the world, but mostly in non-Western and global South conflict contexts. We don’t think Iceland sees itself as a conflict or post-conflict country — but as we learned more about Iceland’s citizen-driven constitutional reform process, we recognized that what Icelanders are doing around their constitution process is relevant to all of us.

We came to know this process in 2014 at our first Build Peace conference at MIT in Boston, where Eileen Jerrett presented her documentary Blueberry Soup, a beautiful film that introduced all of us to Iceland’s remarkable constitutional reform process.

Being able to amplify and broaden participation in peacebuilding processes, which often times including constitution making, is critical. Build Up feels there is a lot to learn from the organic process that Icelanders have gone through and continue to pursue in the aftermath of their 2008 economic crash.

The entire history of this process, including crowd-sourced inputs from common citizens and the innovative process employed by its authors… are in danger of being lost.

We are profoundly moved by Icelanders efforts to re-imagine their constitution, by truly making it a people driven social contract. Too often, the legalistic and technical complexities of a modern constitution makes it inaccessible to the people it’s intended to protect; it’s not a government’s document, it’s a people’s document. At the DCD conference, there were some wonderfully provocative discussions on a variety of forms of engaging and convening people, both online and offline — whether through new forms of digitally connected conversations and crowd-sourcing, or mini-publics and deliberative processes.

At this point, the core drafting process of the proposed Icelandic constitution is complete. The Icelandic people approved the draft Constitution in a non-binding referendum in 2012, but a filibuster by the opposition party prevented it from being voted on by the Parliament in that year and it has been stalled ever since. There are a number of political parties that remain committed to the passage of draft Constitution, however, and citizen’s groups have worked hard to keep the issue of citizen-centered constitutional reform on the national agenda.

What’s at risk in this process is more than just the success or failure of a unique and forward-thinking citizen-driven constitution. Writing a constitution is a society’s statement of values and purpose. Imagine it as the core social and legal contract that holds a nation together. This would be the backbone of stewardship of public resources, spaces, rights, and laws, should the constitution, or even parts of it, be enacted.

Yet, the new draft of the Icelandic constitution faces other dire problems through this stagnation. Over a decade’s worth of documentation critical to the reform process, including interviews, drafting notes, analysis, films, photos, and other electronic and physical evidence remains scattered across the island on the computers and in the homes of many who participated. The entire history of this process, including crowd-sourced inputs from common citizens and the innovative process employed by its authors in drafting the reformed constitution are not easily accessible to Icelanders, and are in danger of being lost. The memory of the process, of what mattered to Icelanders in their difficult four-year struggle after the 2008 economic crisis, is in danger of fading away.

Given the resistance by some of the political elite to put that people-driven constitutional reform process behind them, losing this history could ultimately close the door on a process that still shows signs of life.

In collaboration with the Icelandic Constitutional Society, the CDCD, and the University of Washington, Build Up envisioned a portal to access an archive of the history. A well designed and well presented interactive analysis of events important to the constitutional process could help Icelanders stay connected to its relevance.

Through an ongoing process of input from Icelandic stakeholders, Build Up worked closely with Eileen Jerrett (CDCD) and Cricket Keating (University of Washington) to develop a portal prototype— a proof-of-concept that gives us an idea of what’s possible when it comes to preserving the history and telling the story of an active constitutional reform process.

Our initial presentation of the tool was met with overwhelming positivity. There is clearly a strong desire for this kind of resource, not only by those central to the Icelandic process but many conference participants from around the world were equally excited about having access to this important process and its history.

Build Up will continue to support this important process. Following the conference, we are now working with CDCD and the Icelandic Constitution Society to bring more Icelanders on board. While thousands of documents and electronic files have been collected, there are likely thousands more uncollected across the island. Icelanders will also need to play a central role in determining the proper framing for the resources as they’re presented through the portal, ensuring the material is relevant and usable. Ideally, this portal not only preserves the history, but also catalyzes new energy among those Icelanders who were central to the effort, as well as a new generation of reformers who were too young to participate in a process that started over a decade ago.

What Icelanders are doing around their constitutional process is relevant to all of us.

While we see many learning opportunities beyond Iceland in making this process accessible, we also appreciate that its universal lessons must first and foremost be focused inward on a process of change within the country. Build Up is excited to play a small but, we believe, important role in supporting Icelanders efforts to present and preserve their recent history while continuing to reform their constitution for a more just and equitable future.

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

  • Essential Partners dialogue
  • Technology of Participation approaches
  • Deliberative Polling
  • Council / Circle process

What was your role in the project?
Creative Director

What issues did the project primarily address?
Human rights

Where to learn more about the project:
www.medium.com/@howtobuildup/we-the-people-of-iceland-ab29e6e670bc

We Are All Catalysts: Part Two – How We Can Amplify and Broaden Dialogue and Deliberation Work

In part one of We Are All Catalysts, the focus was on examples of groups in dialogue in deliberation who showcase how our powerful inner sparks can be used to transform conversations and communities. In part two, we want to follow up and have all of you help guide our continued conversations!

“It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.” ~ Yogi Berra

We live in a world of noise. Many of us lament at the current environment of ideological polarization that hinders respectful and productive conversation. We have the power to break through this noise and create spaces for listening and thoughtful dialogue. It can seem daunting in the current ways of the world, but the tools are accessible and the need critical.

The space for listening and dialogue was successfully achieved at the biennial NCDD conference in November. Wonderful themes emerged that are well worth continued attention. We must work in the spirit of this year’s conference theme and gain momentum by connecting while home in our respective areas. One way we at NCDD hope to support is through helping to launch monthly phone conversations among a small group of committed members, to continue some of these discussions into the spring. If you would like to lead a group on a particular topic of interest to you, please let us know via the comment tool below or by emailing us!

Some themes to consider from the conference sessions that may inspire ideas for the forthcoming conversation topics include:

  • How can we design our D&D work to be more proactive and recurring? Too often, our programs are reactive and follow a “one and done” model.  The conference session led by Todd Davies and Michael Freedman in November asked us to consider improving our efforts through intentional design in D&D work focusing on long-term community relationships across many constituencies. Through building trust and transparency, the ongoing meetings could take the form of citizen juries, participatory budgeting, town halls among other formats.
  • How might the Bohm Dialogue technique be utilized in different settings? The Bohm technique removes cross talk while adding reflective pauses after each speaker contributes. The approach is meant to encourage collective community processing of local and global crisis that impact many, if not all, humans and the planet. This comes through suspension of judgement, listening at three levels, assumption identification, inquiry and reflection.
  • In what ways may arts (visual, musical, movement) enhance D&D work? Expression can take many forms and can be a great way to make D&D both more inclusive and more engaging. From visual arts to music and movement, varying the tools for expression can help the dialogue branch out into more creative and freeing spaces and spaces that can transcend barriers created by language.
  • What are successful ways to have more ideologically inclusive based participation in dialogues? Continued exploration on how to engage across the entire spectrum of ideological beliefs and political affinities. What forms this takes will vary depending upon local contexts.

The above are just a few suggestions to get everyone thinking. Please feel free to take a look at the Open Space session notes from the conference at this link for further inspiration, and/or comment below with your own ideas for which topics you would like to see a committed group dive into this spring!

AllSides Updates: New Students Website & Is Civility Bogus?

In an era when the mainstream media is hyperpolarized, it is vital to our societal and democratic well-being to have access to news sources with more balanced viewpoints. AllSides provides news sources from across the center-left-right spectrum and works to improve civil discourse, and they just announced exciting news and posted a great article exploring civility!

The new website, AllSides for Schools, offers resources for students to improve their media literacy, build empathy, and have tools for engaging in civil discourse – read more about it in the post below! Listen to the archive of our TechTuesday here featuring AllSides’ student-focused programming, Mismatch. 

They also shared the article, Is Civility a Bogus Concept After All?, which explores the challenging arguments around civility on if it’s possible and how it can be best utilized. You can read the article below and find the original on AllSides site here.


Brand New AllSides for Schools Website!

America, we need to talk. Our democracy is increasingly media-driven and polarized. How can we prepare young people?

We’re so excited to announce the launch of our brand-new AllSides for Schools website, featuring updated tools and resources to help students gain the media literacy and critical thinking skills they need to improve our democracy long-term.

We worked hard to launch our new Schools site, and we can’t wait for you to see it.

Featuring a clean new design, AllSides for Schools features nearly a dozen resources to make media literacy fun and engaging. Students can take AllSides’ bias quiz to find out where they fall on the Left-Center-Right political spectrum, then browse our Balanced Dictionary to see how people across the political spectrum define, think and feel differently about the same term or issue.

Plus, our Mismatch program and Civil Conversation Guides ensure students get the guidance they need to build relationships with people who are different from them. And it works — a whopping 92% of students who tried our Mismatch program said they better understood another person or perspective after just one conversation.

Through a revealing look at today’s news media and memorable experiences of respectful dialogue, AllSides for Schools equips students to navigate the complexities of modern media, social networks (on and offline), and personal relationships.

Join the 12,000 teachers and students in 47 states who are already using our tools every week. We hope you’ll enjoy them as much as we enjoyed making them.

You can check out the new Allsides for Schools website at www.allsidesforschools.org

Is Civility a Bogus Concept After All?

By Julie Mastrine

We built AllSides in part because we believe in the power of civility and civil discourse. AllSides helps people build relationships with those who are different from them, which we believe will ultimately improve our democracy.

But, could we be wrong? What if civility is actually a sham?

A TED Talk by political theorist Teresa Bejan raises this very question. Bejan studied and wrote a book about civility — particularly, religious tolerance in early modern England and America — because at the time, she thought that civility was, as she puts it, “bullsh*t.”

Yet how wrong she was.

After concluding her studies, Bejan learned “the virtue that makes un-murderous coexistence possible [in society] is the virtue of civility,” as she states in her TED Talk. “Civility makes our disagreements tolerable so that we can share a life together, even if we don’t share a faith — religious, political or otherwise.”

Still, she says, when most people talk about civility today, they are talking about something different than this. While civility is the virtue that “makes it possible to tolerate disagreement,” she says, “talking about civility [today] seems to be a strategy of disengagement — its like threatening to take your ball and go home when the game isn’t going your way.”

Often, she says, today’s “civility talk” is used as a way to “silence, suppress and exclude” those people we disagree with. (It’s a concept AllSides refers to as “tyranny of civility.”)

“Civility talk” or “tyranny of civility” gives people the feeling of the moral high ground while also allowing them to paint those they disagree with as offensive, or uncivil.

“Some people use “civility” when they want to communicate that certain views or people are beyond the pale, but they want to save themselves the trouble of actually making an argument,” Bejan says.

This is why some people (like Bejan in the past) roll their eyes at the call for civility.

“It seems like “civility talk” saves us the trouble of actually speaking to each other, allows us to talk past each other, signal our superior virtue, and let the audience know which side we’re on,” she says. In this way, “civility talk” can actually deepen divisions.

Instead of civility talk, Bejan argues we need what she calls “mere civility.” This type of civility is not the same thing as being respectful, because “we need civility precisely when we’re dealing with people we find it the most impossible to respect.” And it’s not the same as being nice, either — “because being nice means not telling people what you really think about them or their views.”

Mere civility means “speaking your mind, but to your opponent’s’ face, not behind her back…Being merely civil means pulling out punches but not landing them all at once.”

The point of civility, she says, is to allow us to “have fundamental disagreements without denying or destroying the possibility of a common life tomorrow with the people we think are standing in our way today.”

In this way, civility is closely related to courage.

“Mere civility is having the courage to make yourself disagreeable and to stay that way, but to do that while staying in the room and present to your opponents,” Bejan says. “If you’re talking about civility as a way to avoid an argument, as a way to isolate yourself in the more agreeable company of the like-minded who already agree with you, if you find yourself never actually speaking to anyone who fundamentally disagrees with you, you’re doing civility wrong.”

You can listen to Bejan’s TED Talk in full below.

You can read the original version of article on the Allsides Perspectives blog at www.allsides.com/blog/civility-bogus-concept-after-all.

New Resource & Webinar on Combating Bias in Schools

Addressing incidents of bias when they come up can be challenging, especially when they happen in schools. NCDD member org, Public Agenda, just released their new guide, “Addressing Incidents of Bias in Schools” to support having these conversations (which can be downloaded for free on their site here). There will also be a free webinar on addressing bias in schools this coming Wednesday, December 5th from 3-4pm Eastern, 12-1 Pacific – which you can register for here. You can read this announcement below and find the original version on Public Agenda’s site here.


Ways to Combat Bias in Schools: A New Resource

There’s a growing concern about discrimination and hate crimes taking place across the country. While incidents of bias can occur anywhere, it’s especially troubling when it happens in our schools. Discussing race and discrimination can be difficult for the most seasoned of professionals, however, that discomfort should not prevent important conversations from taking place.

Join Matt Leighninger and Nicole Cabral of Public Agenda for a one-hour webinar where attendees will be armed with the tips and strategies they need to facilitate safe, illuminating and productive conversations on incidents of bias. Matt and Nicole will pull from the newly-released discussion guide, “Addressing Incidents of Bias in Schools: A guide for preventing and reacting to discrimination affecting students” to provide a framework for this virtual conversation that will include advice on how to use the guide in classrooms, staff meetings, afterschool programs, and schoolwide events.

Date: Wednesday, Dec. 5 – 3:00 pm ET

Guest Speaker: Nicole Cabral, associate director of public engagement, Public Agenda
Moderator: Matt Leighninger, vice president of public engagement, Public Agenda

To register for this free webinar and to receive updates leading up to the event, please  is serving only as the host for this presentation. The content was created by the sponsor. The opinions expressed in this webinar are those of the sponsor and do not reflect the opinion of or constitute an endorsement by Editorial Projects in Education or any of its publications.

Closed-captioning is available for this event. On the date of the event, you can log in as early as 15 minutes before the start of the webinar. Open the “Closed-Captioning” link from the “resource list” (located at the bottom of the console) to access Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART). A transcript will also be available for download from the resource list within three business days after the event.

You can find the original version of this announcement on Public Agenda’s site at www.publicagenda.org/pages/ways-to-combat-bias-in-schools-a-new-resource.