Essential Conversations – Weekly Practice for Leaders

Essential Conversations is celebrating one year! Essential Conversations was created by the Center for Purposeful Leadership as a response to the disruption felt worldwide with the events of 2020, in the hopes of engaging and activating leaders.  If you haven’t checked it out yet, Essential Conversations is a weekly event with the purpose of hosting provocative and evocative conversations, interactive breakouts, and community conversations  to equip you with strategies, inspiration and ideas to create change and innovation needed for  coherence, resilience and positive impact.  Anyone looking to create a positive impact in their family, community or organizational circles are welcomed to these 1.5 hour conversations.

Additional details on upcoming sessions and to register read below or navigate to the original post here.


What are the Essential Conversations?

Every Monday, we convene a conversation with either a Conversation Starter or community conversation addressing these questions:

  • What is a positive response in times of extreme disruption?
  • As one who steps forward to help, how are you sustained and renewed?

The Design: Each 1.5-hour convergence follows the structure of the 9-Steps Convening Wheel.

  • Create the Container together
  • Hear All the Voices
  • Hear an Essential Conversation from a Conversation Starter
  • Take that conversation into Creation via a Wisdom Circle (breakout group)
  • Have Community Circle
  • Close with a Commitment to [Positive] Action.

Who attends: Anyone who wants to step forward to make a positive impact in your family, community or organization.
Cost: Free/no charge. Contributions to support this initiative are welcome.

The Essential Conversations provide tools and practices to help you move from Fragile to Agile and from Reaction to Response

Purpose: Our weekly program of provocative and evocative conversations, interactive breakouts, and community conversations will inspire you and equip you with strategies, inspiration and ideas to create change and innovation needed to being coherence, resilience and positive impact.

We launched in March 2020 to activate leaders in response to the massive disruption we and the world were experiencing.

In community, with shared depth and intimacy, we discover resilience, love, and focus to stay present to what is needed each week. Through collaborative reflection, discover collaborative action towards positive impact.

Begin your week, in a community of support and collaboration, by setting your intention to have a positive impact and bring people together for the highest possible outcome of whatever you are engaged in.

EVENT DETAILS & REGISTRATION

Find the original version of this event on the Center for Purposeful Leadership’s site at: www.centerforpurposefulleadership.com/essential-conversations

Join the Premiere of The Reunited States Film on Feb 11th!

Happening this Thursday, February 11th is the launch event for the film, The Reunited States. This film is inspired by its’ namesake book, The Reunited States, authored by Mark Gerzon, president of Mediators Foundation, an NCDD member org. The Reunited States is a powerful and urgent documentary that follows the unsung heroes on the difficult journey of bridging our political and racial divides. The film, like the book, urges us to consider that everyone has a role to play in reuniting the country. To attend the Red and Blue Carpet premiere event of the The Reunited States film sign up here!

The premier will feature special guests, Van Jones and Megan McCain, the cast of the film, as well as remarkable activists (and actors) from around the country participating through the evening. It will be a powerful and timely conversation about political dialogue in our highly polarized country. Admission to this event is free and open to the public. For more information on the event, read below and find the original announcement here.


The Reunited States: The Red and Blue Carpet Premiere

Click on the link to watch a trailer of this anticipated film or here to sign up for the premiere. The stream begins February 11, 2021 5:00 PM PST. Please note that you may enter the livestream and chat at anytime once you register on the Eventive site.

After the February 11th premier livestream, the content can be viewed anytime until July 5th at 7:00 pm. The Reunited States is available for pre-order on iTunes and releases nationwide February 9th on Amazon, iTunes, and On Demand.

You can find the original version of this invitation on the Reunited States tv site at www.reunitedstates.tv.

Student Support with Dialogue in Time of National Crisis

Students spend most of their days in school. Naturally, when national events occur, this extends the teachers regular duties to the role of  “first responders”. This publication from Essential Partners was adapted for the classroom from their Reflective Structured Dialogue, and is offered as a tool for teachers to create a space of self- reflection, deep listening and open sharing in the classroom.  The prompts and guidelines to consider, proactively invite the students to process crisis in a healthy way.

Read about the structure and prompts offered below or find the original post here.


Holding Space in a Moment of Crisis

Along with their parents, teachers are often the “first responders” for students when a major national crisis takes place. It can be difficult or impossible to have a normal class in the wake of a traumatic or disruptive event.

Creating a space of self-reflection, deep listening, and open sharing in the classroom can proactively invite students to process and discuss crises in healthy ways. What could be a moment of trauma and division can become, instead, an opportunity for connection, empowerment, and mutual support.

Adapted for the classroom from EP’s Reflective Structured Dialogue approach, the tools below can be used to create a dialogic space in your classroom after a disruptive event.

Be transparent. Name the event, outline the process.

Whether it’s an event in the national news or a challenging paragraph in a text you are reading together, transparently name the disruption that you know the class is feeling. This offers permission for students to

acknowledge and begin to process their emotions. It may also relieve tension about whether you’ll pretend that nothing is amiss.

Depending on the circumstance, you might also acknowledge your own emotional response too, even if you don’t go into details about what those emotions are.

Many people dive into work or school to avoid the difficult feelings that a crisis can raise. Being transparent and naming the disruption hits the pause button on business-as-usual. It signals that this is going to be a different kind of space, at least for now.

You can further the work of creating a new kind of space by letting the class know the process of this structured, reflective exercise. You can use this time to preview what the students will be asked to do. This could be a general outline or include some specific examples. The purpose here is to provide some clarity, certainty, and security.

Give direction and time for reflection.

Reflection without purpose and direction can veer into a blank staring and long silences. An anchor for reflection provides focus.

Below are two sets of anchors that you can use to guide the students’ reflections. The first is a set of questions that can be used as either journal prompts or as the questions for a timed and structured go-around:

  • How have you been impacted by what happened? What feels most at stake? What would you like others to understand about what matters most to you about this event?
  • Where do you feel stuck or what dilemma does this moment bring up for you? What does this dilemma tell you about what you think is important or a value that you hold?

The second anchor is more abstract. Display a set of images for the students to look at (printed out or shared in a digital folder). Ask the students to respond to one of these question prompts:

  • Find an image that reflects how you are feeling right now after what happened.
  • Find an image that represents an alternative vision you have for what could be possible.

Reflection is also a process that can take time. Some students will have something to share immediately, but others might need a few minutes to collect their thoughts and explore their own feelings. Be sure to provide quiet time for individual reflection and for students to make notes before inviting them to share.

Structure the group sharing.

If you have time for the students to share some of their reflections, a structure can maintain the space you have worked to create. It underscores that this isn’t a usual class, and limits the dynamics of debate and argument. Some recommended structures are:

  • Allowing students are able to pass if they don’t feel ready or comfortable sharing
  • Making sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to share/speak (especially if you plan to have a less structured conversation afterwards)
  • Pausing briefly to let the group hear and process what someone has said before moving on to the next speaker
  • Letting students know the order they will be invited to share (especially online) by announcing a rolling “batting order”—first Jim, then Cassie, then Alejandra—which encourages students to be prepared to speak when it’s their turn

Set aside time to close in an intentional way.

As we encourage students to develop social-emotional skills, we also teach them how to bring closure to these difficult moments in order to re-enter day-to-day activities.

It can be tempting to follow the flow of a discussion at the expense of watching the clock—only to have the bell ring and class abruptly end. That can be disorienting for students, and hard for them to transition. Allow time at the end of your class or exercise for a closing activity. This should invite students to process and synthesize what they’ve heard from others and discovered about themselves. Here are several examples of closing prompts:

  • Thinking about what’s been said here today, what is one hope you have for us as a nation going into this new year
  • Write down on a post-it note (to post on the wall of the room) one theme from what you’ve heard shared here today that you want the community to remember.
  • Share one thing that you’ve heard shared here today that you want to take with you into this week.
  • Reflecting on everything you’ve thought about, shared about and heard today, what is one word or phrase that describes what you want to remember moving forward.

Creating a dialogic space for students to reflect and share lets them reconnect with their internal strengths and resources in crisis moments—skills that will serve them throughout their lives. It helps them make meaning from difficult and disruptive events. And it encourages reflection on the way students want to engage with the world around them.

As always, we are here to support you. If you need more help holding difficult classroom discussions, please reach out.

You can find the original version on The Essential Partners’ site at www.whatisessential.org/holding-space-moment-crisis

 

JAMS and NACFM Offer Grants to Community Mediators!

The JAMS Foundation and NCDD’s partner the National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM) are accepting submissions for their 2021-2023 Community Mediation Mini- Grant Program. This opportunity is extended to those interested in offering a new or enhanced process to how their organization currently serves their communities, with a focus on healing an ongoing or long standing community divide towards a path of re-connection.

The Program is designed to encourage creativity and variation based on research. Service strategies will be developed through the implementation of the “Listening for Action” Leadership Process and strengthened by at least one policy or procedure change developed and locally implemented over a two-year period. Program recipients will work together throughout the grant period anchored in the Learning Community. The Learning Community is a structured and collaborative peer working group facilitated by NAFCM.  Written materials developed through these grants will be shared with community mediation centers and mediators across the continent and even internationally to support the mediation community.

Five organizations will be awarded yearly $12,000 grants for the 2021-2023 cycle. Applications must be submitted electronically by 11:59 p.m., local time of applicant on March 15, 2021 to admin@nafcm.org.Read more information on this exciting program below or find the original posting here.


NAFCM/JAMS Foundation Mini-Grant Bidders Conference

The JAMS Foundation and National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM) are pleased to announce the 2021-2023 funding track of the Community Mediation Mini-Grant Program (“Program”).

Strengthening Community Connections: This is an opportunity to assist one or more of the communities you serve by helping this community to develop a long-term process focused on healing their current or long-standing community divide. The proposed project should expand how your organization currently serves your communities (through mediation, restorative justice practices, conflict coaching, conflict management training or dialogue processes), by offering a new or enhanced process to help people, institutions, and the community as a whole on their path toward re-connection.

Systemic changes developed as part of this process should be able to be replicated by community mediation centers as a path for sustainability and growth for the field of community mediation, as well as to inform the development of training, evidence-based strategies, policy, and research at the national level as well.

The Program is designed to encourage creativity and variation based on research. Service strategies will be developed through the implementation of the “Listening for Action” Leadership Process and strengthened by at least one policy or procedure change developed and locally implemented over a two-year period. Program recipients will work together throughout the grant period anchored in the Learning Community. The Learning Community is a structured and collaborative peer working group facilitated by NAFCM. This structure serves as an incubator for innovation by aiding in the development of “good practices.” Written materials developed through these grants will be shared with community mediation centers and mediators across the continent. By distributing these materials, sharing programmatic resources, providing training, and developing national partnerships, NAFCM supports the replication of these service models and ensures the Program’s impact on an international level.

The Learning Community will meet twice a month for the first five months, and monthly thereafter using a specified on-line meeting platform. This community will follow the “Listening for Action” structured guidance offered by NAFCM that is intended to strengthen the unique work of each project as well as create an executive learning environment that allows the members to grow both individually and professionally.

2021 Solicitation of Interest (SI) Overview

The 2021 Program selection process has two distinct phases.

Phase 1 begins with the release of this 2021 Solicitation of Interest (SI) protocol. This phase is open to any organization which works to incorporate the 9 NAFCM Hallmarks of Community Mediation and believes that this funding and technical assistance support opportunity is a good fit for the needs of their work and those with whom they work.

A community mediation center is an entity that works to achieve the following nine hallmarks of a community mediation center:

  1. A private non-profit or public agency or program thereof, with mediators, staff and governing/advisory board representative of the diversity of the community served.
  2. The use of trained community volunteers as providers of mediation services; the practice of mediation is open to all persons.
  3. Providing direct access to the public through self-referral and striving to reduce barriers to service including physical, linguistic, cultural, programmatic and economic.
  4. Providing service to clients regardless of their ability to pay.
  5. Providing service and hiring without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, age, disabilities, national origin, marital status, personal appearance, gender orientation, family responsibilities, matriculation, political affiliation, source of income.
    Providing a forum for dispute resolution at the earliest stage of conflict.
    Providing an alternative to the judicial system at any stage of a conflict.
  6. Initiating, facilitating and educating for collaborative community relationships to effect positive systemic change.
  7. Engaging in public awareness and educational activities about the values and practices of mediation.

Phase 2 begins in April 2021 and is open only to those who submitted a response to the SI during the prior phase and have been invited to submit a full proposal.

This 2021 Program is for those Community Mediation Centers wishing to embed the core values identified by community mediators and recorded in the 2019 State of Community Mediation Report: Fairness, Peacemaking and Violence Prevention.

Funding Project Process Step 1 – Open to all now until March 15th, 2021

  • Interested organizations are required to submit a 1-3-page response to the Solicitation of Interest (SI) (using the guidelines on the following page) to NAFCM no later than 11:59 PM local time of the organization’s legal/main location, March 15, 2021 to siminigrant2020@gmail.com
  • An informational conference call will be held on Monday February 8, 2021- 4:30 PM Eastern Time. There is a limited number of spaces for this teleconference and you must be registered no later Friday February 5, 2021. To obtain the link for the conference please send a notice of interest to NAFCM at siminigrant2020@gmail.com

Funding Project Process Step 2 – By invitation only

  • The NAFCM Grant review committee will notify applicants if they have been selected to develop a full proposal by April 1st, 2021. For selected applicants a review webinar will be offered on Tuesday April 16, 2021 at 12:00 PM Eastern Time. The link for attendance will be sent to those applicants who are invited to submit a full proposal.
  • Full proposals (with a required application protocol provided upon notification) will be due to the NAFCM Grant review committee no later than 11:59 PM local time of the organization’s legal/main location on Monday, June 15th, 2021.
  • Notifications of the final decision will be made by August 31st, 2021.

Please address questions about grant program to D.G. Mawn, President, NAFCM, at siminigrant2020@gmail.com.

You can find the original version on the National Association for Community Mediation at www.nafcm.org/news/546106/NAFCMJAMS-Foundation-Mini-Grant-Bidders-Conference.htm.

Post Election Community Conversation Reveals Concerns

Days following the election, an online community conversation hosted and facilitated by NCDD member org The Interactivity Foundation, together with IONA Senior Services took place. During this convening,  exploratory questions about our society and the prospect for forming a more perfect union were asked. The outcome is compiled in this article as a list of concerns in various sectors: the elections and health of our democracy, polarization and the role of the media.We look forward to Interactivity Foundations’ decision to further follow this topic in 2021 as part of their #WeavingCommunity Initiative.

Below you  will find the entire resume of key points and for the original post here.


Toward a More Perfect Union? A Community Conversation about the 2020 Election

Toward a More Perfect Union? Exploring the 2020 US Elections
What did the 2020 US elections mean to you? What did they say to you about our prospects for forming a more perfect union? What lessons might we draw for reweaving our society after the elections, revitalizing our democracy, and moving toward a more perfect union?
These were the key questions we explored in a November 5, 2020 online community conversation, convened and facilitated by the Interactivity Foundation in partnership with IONA Senior Services. This was an exploratory discussion, one where participants were asked not only to bring forward their own perspectives, but also to help each other delve into divergent perspectives in a spirit of generosity. You’ll find a summary of some of the key points below. In light of the rich material we discussed, the Interactivity Foundation may move forward with this topic as a new online community conversation series in the new year (watch this space). This Community Conversation was part of the #WeavingCommunity initiativeWhat concerns rose to the surface surrounding the election and about our prospects for forming a more perfect union?

Concerns about elections and the health of our democracy

  • Voter suppression is going on in our country
  • Our electoral process is dysfunctional
  • The election process revealed how weak and fragile our democratic system is
  • The election mechanics actually worked
  • It’s a victory that there was no violence at the polls
  • Locally lots of apparent voter engagement—with lots of participation via early voting
  • It’s an illusion that our democracy is working
  • We have structural problems in our system that weaken our representative democracy
  • We always say, “it’s the most important election” or “democracy hangs in the balance,” but are those just exaggerations?
  • We have governmental leadership with no moral compass—as long as they win, they can do whatever they want—and our democracy can’t survive more of that
  • Another real threat to democracy: politicizing the federal civil service, turning government agencies to partisan purposes
  • People in government should be public servants, not pursuing their own gain

Concerns about polarization

  • We are divided more than ever, with high degrees of polarization and antipathy toward one another
  • The division has become more extreme in the last few years
  • We live in bubbles and don’t understand people outside of our bubble
  • This high degree of polarization threatens our ability to self-govern
  • We have always been polarized, so it’s not worse than before
  • We have powerful myths of a national unity that never existed and we use this to cover up our history of exploitation
  • We mostly ignore divisions because they often only impacted others (if we’re protected by our race or class, we can ignore the history of oppression of targeted groups within our country)
  • We have to remember that America was built on exploiting others
  • If you don’t live in middle class white America, you are more at risk and don’t want to reach out to those who want to keep you down, especially if you’ve been a victim of a hate crime
  • If a major political party has become a party of white nationalism, how can you ask people to come together with them or split the difference by compromise?
  • We have divisions, but most people are reasonable and just trying to get on with their lives
  • Lately it has become riskier to have political discussions across partisan divides—it used to be fun, but now you risk losing relationships if you discuss politics
  • Our divisions are so strong, it is hard to believe we can come together as one nation
  • Our divisions are so fraught, they can’t even have discussions about the election in school
  • We are a country divided on values
  • Our divisions have religious roots, part of the evangelical right taking over the Republican party
  • Religion can also be a source of values that can unite us and help us to bridge divides
  • There’s a strong political movement to disregard facts, evidence, or science, which makes governance lose touch with reality
  • You can’t come together with people who are being dishonest or hateful
  • We have urban-rural divides
  • In urban areas, people often have more experience with diversity and are more accepting of differences
  • Trump and Trumpism seem like both cause and effect—a symptom of a widespread illness in our body politic
  • Some people are behaving like spoiled children

Concerns about the role of media

  • We live in different media bubbles, so we don’t know how others see the world
  • Media shapes reality—we can’t understand the reality perceived by those in the other camp
  • One branch of media presents an “alternate reality” that is not clearly connected to ascertainable facts, which makes it difficult, or nearly impossible, to reason with its devotees
  • One political party regularly attacks the news media and other evidence-based approaches, like science
  • We need to be wary of the outsized role that social media plays in our public discourse
  • Popular media are driven by controversy and sensationalism rather than focusing on what’s essential
  • The news media focuses more on entertainment than on genuinely informing the public
  • We live in a celebrity culture, where everybody wants a chance to be a celebrity, to be popular

How might we move toward a more perfect union?

  • We need democratic reform to make policy responsive and accountable to the broad public will
  • If government responds to the public will and does good things to improve people’s lives, then polarization will lessen and people will have greater trust in government
  • The election of a new government is a start—but we need to update our constitution to bolster our democracy and make it more representative of the popular will
  • We need leadership from the top to advocate unity with our political opponents
  • We should celebrate genuine public servants—those truly acting in the public interest (not their private interests)
  • We need to restore or embody greater civility at all levels of governance and society
  • We need to find opportunities for conversation with people from the other side (it’s not important to agree, but to talk with people with whom we disagree)
  • We need to teach the value of having discussions across our divides
  • We need to learn how to listen first to each other—not to talk first, but to listen first to others
  • We need to get past labels and attend to the substance of what people are saying
  • We need to strive to find the good in what opponents say or do
  • We need to recognize the universal needs that we share: we are all equally human
  • We need to find shared values to connect across differences
  • It’s not a matter of having the right facts, it’s about finding shared values to connect better with others
  • It’s best to avoid direct confrontation on hot issues—seek conversations about values
  • We need to be honest with one another and truthful in our words and actions—we can’t just rely on happy talk and fake politeness
  • We need to recognize that people on the other side are not all the same and are not all so hostile
  • We should educate our children for a civic spirit that is bigger than our divisions, whether this starts in our families, in community organizations, or within schools
  • We should raise the next generation to be more open to diversity—including diversity of viewpoints
  • We need education to help make us antiracist
  • We need to flip the media from entertainment to education
  • We need education for media literacy
  • We should change our media diet—to expose ourselves to different sides
  • We need to reform or disband social media, because it just aggravates divisions and spreads disinformation
  • What if we come together as one—to fight fascism?
  • Time can heal us

You can find the original version on The Interactivity Foundation site at www.interactivityfoundation.org/toward-a-more-perfect-union-a-community-conversation-about-the-2020-election/.

Register for the Virtual Annual Civic Institute on August 21st

This announcement comes to us from our friends at the David Matthews Center for Civic Life. ICYMI on Friday, August 21st, the Matthews Center will be hosting their annual Civic Institute with this year’s theme, Common Bonds: Collective Purpose and Civic Resilience in Uncertain Times.  The event this year will be entirely online and open to folks outside the state, as well as free-of-charge! Make sure you see Dr. David Mathews, President and C.E.O. of the Kettering Foundation, give the keynote address sharing from his experiences at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, during a past global epidemic. Read more in the article below and find the original posting here.


Common Bonds: Collective Purpose and Civic Resilience in Uncertain Times

The Mathews Center will host its annual Civic Institute on August 21st, 2020. The event will be held entirely online. The theme of this year’s event is Common Bonds: Collective Purpose and Civic Resilience in Uncertain Times.

Dr. David Mathews, President and C.E.O. of the Kettering Foundation, will deliver a (pre-recorded) keynote address drawing on his experiences at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare—where he served as Secretary during the Swine Flu outbreak of 1976.

Our first digital-only Civic Institute will explore strategies deployed by individuals and communities as they respond and adapt to the challenges posed by a global epidemic. Community leaders across Alabama will showcase the innovative ways in which they have resisted social isolation by forging new connections with their fellow citizens and by exploring alternative perspectives uncovered through local historical research. This three-hour event (9:00am – 12:00pm CST) will be packed with the same quality thoughtful discussions and meaningful connections that you have come to expect from us each year.

  • 9:00 am – Opening Remarks by Cristin Brawner
  • 9:05 am – Pre-Recorded Keynote by Dr. David Mathews
  • 10:00 am – Short Talks with Panelists
    • Terrance Smith, Director of the Mayor’s Innovation Team in Mobile will discuss how his city is adapting to the challenges posed by the pandemic.
    • Margaret Morton of SAFE Sylacauga will discuss a new community resilience initiative with Laura Strickland (Director of the Sylacauga Chamber of Commerce) and Brigadier General Robert Holmes (retired).
    • Dr. John Giggie of the University of Alabama’s Summersell Center and students from Tuscaloosa’s Central High School will discuss The History of Us, a year-long course created to help students explore the African American history of their own community. Dr. Giggie co-taught the course with his graduate teaching assistant, Ms. Margaret Lawson, who will join the panel alongside students from the course.
  • 11:15 am – Breakout Discussions: Rebuilding, Recovering, and Reimagining Our Future
  • 11:50 am – Closing Remarks

Because the event will be offered entirely online this year, registration will be free of charge! If you are able, we ask that you consider making a donation to the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Fund here. One-hundred percent of your donation goes directly to support the JOIP internship program, which provides immersive civic learning opportunities for college students to research deliberative practices and asset-based approaches for working with Alabamians in community-based projects. Those who donate $25 or more will receive a DMC care package full of our latest resources and a special gift!

Register Now

You can find the original version of this event on the David Matthews Center for Civic Life site at  www.mathewscenter.org/common-bonds/.

NIFI Updates Issue Guide on Immigration

NCDD member org, the National Issues Forums Institute released their new updated issue guide, Immigration: What Should We Welcome? What Should We Do? In this short updated guide, you can find helpful information and three approaches to assist conversations on this topic that affects almost every single person in America. Read the new announcement below or find the original on NIFI’s here


New Issue Guide – Immigration: Who Should We Welcome, What Should We Do?

This issue is part of the Hidden Common Ground initiative, and sets of free materials are available for conveners and moderators. Scroll down for the Immigration issue guide and other related materials. Need help with your order? Contact customer service.

The immigration issue affects virtually every American, directly or indirectly, often in deeply personal ways. This guide is designed to help people deliberate together about how we should approach the issue. The three options presented here reflect different ways of understanding what is at stake and force us to think about what matters most to us when we face difficult problems that involve all of us and that do not have perfect solutions.

The US government essentially shut down immigration, at least temporarily, during the coronavirus pandemic. But as our country begins to reopen, difficult questions remain:

  • Should we strictly enforce the law and deport people who are
  • here without permission, or would deporting millions of people outweigh their crime?
  • Should we welcome more newcomers to build a more vibrant and diverse society, or does this pose too great a threat to national unity?
  • Should we accept more of the millions of refugees and asylum seekers fleeing gang violence and war, or should we avoid the risk of taking in people whose backgrounds may not have been fully checked?
  • Should our priority be to help immigrants assimilate into our distinctively American way of life and insist they learn English, or should we instead celebrate a growing mosaic of different peoples?

The concerns that underlie this issue are not confined to party affiliation, nor are they captured by labels such as “conservative” or “liberal.”

The research involved in developing the guide included interviews and conversations with Americans from all walks of life, as well as surveys of nonpartisan public-opinion research, subject-matter scans, and reviews of initial drafts by people with direct experience with the subject

You can find the original version of this announcement on the National Issues Forum site at www.nifi.org/en/issue-guide/immigration.

Check Out the April Tech Tuesday with EnCiv!

Last week, we held the April Tech Tuesday featuring EnCiv and the Undebate platform! We were joined by 40 participants as Will Ferguson, David Fridley, and Adolf Gundersen of EnCiv walked us through their Undebate platform, and the newer Unrountable they are developing. If you weren’t able to make the call, this post includes all of the key link and information – check it out!

EnCiv automates proven human-interaction methods to scale productive democratic discourse. The Undebate is being made available to voters across the country this election season by EnCiv partner Ballotpedia under the label “Candidate Conversations.” In this Tech Tuesday event, EnCiv shared with us an example of how Undebate was used for the San Francisco District Attorney race, which can be viewed at this link.

They also introduced us to the Unroundtable, a platform to allow people to share their thoughts or stories about a topic or issue through brief video responses. You can check out the example they shared with us of an Unroundtable on “What is Democracy?” at this link.

THANK YOU to Will, David, Adolf, and everyone who joined this call! We recorded the whole presentation if you were unable to join us, which you can access here. We had several excellent questions offered in the chat, which you can find the transcript of here.

Tech_Tuesday_Badge

Tech Tuesdays are a series of learning events from NCDD focused on technology for engagement. .To learn more about NCDD’s Tech Tuesday series and hear recordings of past calls, please visit www.ncdd.org/tech-tuesdays. If you have an idea for a future Tech Tuesday event, please email keiva[at]ncdd[dot]org with your great ideas!

Finally, we love holding these events and we want to continue to elevate the work of our field with Confab Calls and Tech Tuesdays. It is through your generous contributions to NCDD that we can keep doing this work! That’s why we want to encourage you to support NCDD by making a donation or becoming an NCDD member today (you can also renew your membership by clicking here). Thank you!

Practical Academics shares: Online Meeting Best Practices

NCDD Member Michael Freedman of Practical Academics shared the following blog post with us. In the post, Michael shares best practices for your online meetings – a timely topic for this moment! We encourage you to check out the article below, or over at the Practical Academics site here.


Online Meeting Best Practices

The advantages of online meetings are to save travel time, convenience, and flexibility while retaining or augmenting the benefits of group interactivity. For interactivity, we need engagement; for engagement, we need encouragement and trust.  A one-way webinar is not a lot better than a video or a one-to-many lecture. Here are some points to consider in developing and running an interactive online meeting.

Development

Leverage time together for interactivity and sophisticated communications. Ask your participants to prepare in advance. Be clear on what this means: what they should come equipped with, and what should they be prepared to do.

Minimize large group time, maximize small group time. Large group time is for opening comments and announcements, setting the tone and agenda, for sharing results of small group efforts, wrap-up, and follow-up. Replace lectures and one-to-many instruction and guidance with pre-work sent in advance.

Group management. Small group models suggest optimum group sizes are 5-9.  If this is a short ad hoc session, try less, perhaps 3-5. Use break-out sessions or hold multiple meetings if that’s what it takes.

Present structured activities and conversations with targeted outcomes; and be flexible if those outcomes evolve as this is the point of having people work things over: to develop the thinking.

Provide timeframes for working sessions with the Goldilocks model: not too short and not too long. Provide enough time for all to participate, along with a deadline to drive action. Most of the small group working sessions will have specific tasks that can be addressed in five – twenty minutes.  If the working session agenda is long, use multiple working sessions.

Have an end game.  What are you seeking to accomplish, and what will you do with the results?

If you have unstructured conversations, then make that distinction and ask folks to come with some thoughts on the topic to be discussed.

Have two leaders: One focuses on content delivery (short and succinct) and the other on the chat and looking at participants to get an idea of their engagement. This person then “presents” next. One can play the role of synthesizing with help from the group.

Consider a group participation agreement, formal or informal, depending on the group.

Include an opening round-robin so that everyone has a chance to say something – this will “break the ice,’ and set the tone for full participation.  Make sure opening is on topic and relevant, not a timewaster.

Plan carefully to avoid time-zone and cultural snafus.

Use easy-to-use technology and make sure you know how to use it. Offer to train participants in advance.

Operations

Be consistent with your start time protocol and start on time. Consider an “unofficial” start time where folks can get set up and say hello.  But start on time.

As the leader, show up early and kick off the conversations. Get people comfortable and participating. Try the “one-word” exercise: share a word that reflects how you are and what’s going on.

Keep a roster of participants and take notes on crucial contributions, factoids, and follow-ups.

Put on a show – prepare a solid opening, make it positive and constructive, if not joyful. Make time for people to add their ideas and modify the agenda.

Don’t overuse technology. Tools should serve their purpose without getting in the way.  A show of hands might be better than an online poll.

Seek buy-in where possible. Buy-in engenders commitment and commitment fosters participation.

Allow some personal clearing and ideation; these are trust-building and tone-setting activities.

The downside of virtual conferencing is the limited ability to read non-verbal cues. Encourage all to use video so that expressions are readable, and to counteract the narrow “bandwidth,” slightly exaggerate your expressions and tone.

Wrap up

Follow-up. Distribute the results of the meeting with any action items and clear responsibilities as soon as possible following the end of the session.

Keep the momentum going.

Thanks to the members of the Right Company for their contributions.

Recording Available for Cultivating Community Capacity!

On April 24th, NCDD hosted a special event from NCDD sponsoring member Susan Stuart Clark of Common Knowledge, titled Cultivating Community Capacity with Four “Deep Wisdom” Practices. The event, attended by more than 60 participants, was the start of a series of activities and collection of resources at sense-us.org, a new pro bono project for Common Knowledge and allies in the arts, healing and community transformation.

Susan shared with us the four practices identified by cross-cultural pioneer Angeles Arrien, which we can use to help deepen our individual and collective capacity for discovering the deeper wisdom in and between us.  Susan outlines the interpretation of these four practices and their importance to us and our work designing and facilitate community engagement during and after this pandemic in this wonderful piece

Drawn from ancient and indigenous wisdom, these practices invite us to bring our whole selves – heart, body and mind –  to our work as cultivators of community, dialogue stewards and/or peace builders. During this time of physical isolation, let’s embrace the ways we can bring closeness to one another through sharing our truest selves with each other. Let’s see how we can expand our capacity to understand the patterns and structures that brought us to this current moment and choose more inclusive and collaborative ways to co-create our future.

The event was purposefully held on Arbor Day to acknowledge how trees can teach us a lot about nurturing individual and collective resilience.  After an overview of the four practices, break out groups compared their experiences and what is inspiring their work. Participants had the opportunity to connect more deeply with one another, sharing how the practices resonate for them, as well as how they relate to their work in and with communities.The full group reflection served as a wonderful stepping off point for future discussions.

Julie Gieseke created a wonderful visual map during the event which can be viewed below. The full session can be watched at this link, and the chat transcript can be found here. If you’d like to contribute resources and participate in future discussions, visit www.sense-us.org.