The Interactivity Foundation, a national civic organization dedicated to strengthening everyday democracy through structured community discussion, has launched a nationwide Discussion Club initiative and is accepting host applications through July 12, 2026. The program connects six to twelve consistent community members in monthly in-person conversations on topics ranging from mental health and loneliness to immigration and civic life, with hosts receiving facilitation training, community resources, and a $1,000 stipend to support participation. By combining accessible structure, practical facilitation tools, and a national host network, the initiative offers a replicable model for building social trust and dialogue capacity at the grassroots level. This work aligns directly with NCDD's mission to deepen civic engagement and expand the reach of dialogue and deliberation practice across American communities.

Across the country, neighbors, colleagues, and friends are hungry for meaningful conversation — the kind that builds genuine connection rather than reinforcing division. The Interactivity Foundation, a national organization whose mission is to bring people together in discussions that expand imagination, build social trust, and strengthen the everyday skills of democracy, is launching a nationwide network of community discussion clubs and is actively seeking hosts to lead them. With a host application deadline of Sunday, July 12, 2026, this is a time-sensitive opportunity for dialogue practitioners, community organizers, educators, and civic leaders ready to bring structured conversation into their neighborhoods and networks.

Modeled loosely on the book club format but centered entirely on conversation, IF Discussion Clubs bring together six to twelve consistent members once a month to explore topics that matter to their communities — from mental health and loneliness to immigration, food, masculinity, and death and dying. The Interactivity Foundation provides facilitation guides and conversation cards to help groups get started; hosts supply the community. Clubs must be in-person and U.S.-based, and hosts commit to organizing monthly discussions for approximately one year. To support that commitment, each host receives a $1,000 stipend to use for food, transportation, childcare, or whatever best supports their club's participation. Hosts also receive basic facilitation training and become part of a growing national network of discussion leaders working toward a shared goal: rebuilding social connection through sustained, structured dialogue.

​For NCDD members, this initiative represents something worth paying attention to — not just as a recruitment opportunity, but as a model. The Interactivity Foundation's approach reflects a core belief in the field: that dialogue skills are democratic skills, and that the most durable civic infrastructure is built at the community level, one conversation at a time. Whether you are a seasoned facilitator looking to seed new discussion spaces or a community member ready to host for the first time, the Discussion Club program offers a structured, supported entry point. Upcoming info webinars are scheduled for June 18, July 24, and August 20, 2026, and Collaborative Discussion Coach Trainings are available in July and August for those seeking deeper facilitation development. Apply, register, or learn more at https://interactivityfoundation.substack.com/p/what-if-we-created-discussion-clubs.

The National Civic League's 2026 All-America City Award Event, taking place June 26–28 at the Grand Hyatt Denver, brings together twenty finalist communities to present their civic health and trust-building efforts under the theme "America at 250: Strengthening Civic Health and Building Trust." The event features jury presentations by finalist communities, keynote addresses from philanthropy, government, and nonprofit leaders, peer learning workshops, and a new It's Your America Workshop designed to deepen civic practice. Individual registration is open at $150 per person, providing full access to all programming, receptions, and the awards ceremony. This event offers NCDD members and civic practitioners a timely opportunity to witness and connect with community-level democratic engagement at a pivotal moment in American civic life.

As the United States marks 250 years of democratic experiment, questions about civic health, public trust, and community resilience have never felt more pressing — or more relevant to the dialogue and deliberation field. The National Civic League, one of the oldest civic reform organizations in the country, is bringing these questions to the forefront at its 2026 All-America City Award Event, taking place June 26–28 at the Grand Hyatt Denver in Colorado. This year's theme — "America at 250: Strengthening Civic Health and Building Trust" — centers the kind of community-level democratic engagement that NCDD members work to support every day.

The 2026 event brings together twenty finalist communities, each presenting their efforts to strengthen civic health and build public trust to a distinguished jury of civic leaders, practitioners, youth representatives, and cross-sector experts. Beyond the award competition itself, the program includes workshops, panel discussions, and peer learning sessions led by national thought leaders. Keynote speakers from the philanthropy, government, and nonprofit sectors will address civic health, democratic participation, and grassroots organizing. New this year is the It's Your America Workshop, alongside a Civic Action Fair and Cultural Entertainment Showcase. Individual registration is available at $150 per person and includes full access to all programming, receptions, and the awards ceremony.

The All-America City Award has recognized communities for more than seven decades for doing exactly what NCDD's network champions: mobilizing residents, crossing divides, and building the civic infrastructure that makes democratic life possible at the local level. For practitioners working in community dialogue, civic engagement, or collaborative action, this event offers an opportunity to observe how communities across the country are putting those values into practice — and to connect with national leaders grappling with the same challenges. With the June 26 opening just weeks away, now is the time to register. Individual registration and full event details are available at https://tinyurl.com/bddfmyk6

Essential Partners, a Cambridge-based nonprofit and leading voice in dialogue and conflict transformation, is offering Constructive Communication in the Classroom and School, a June 30, 2026, online workshop designed to help educators build practical skills for navigating division and polarization in educational settings. Facilitated by Dr. Jill DeTemple and Dr. Noemi Vega Quiñones of Southern Methodist University, the workshop grounds participants in a constructive communication framework emphasizing dialogic listening, inquiry, and reflective speaking across difference. Educators leave equipped with a ready-to-deploy ten-lesson curriculum and a professional development certificate, making the training immediately actionable in classroom and school community contexts. This offering exemplifies the kind of practitioner-focused, equity-minded dialogue work that NCDD's network champions as essential to democratic education and civic health.

Students and educators across the country are navigating classrooms increasingly shaped by political division, interpersonal conflict, and social polarization. Essential Partners — a Cambridge-based nonprofit with decades of experience in dialogue facilitation and conflict transformation — is offering a timely opportunity for educators ready to meet that challenge. On June 30, 2026, Essential Partners will host Constructive Communication in the Classroom and School, a three-hour online workshop designed to equip educators with practical tools for fostering healthier, more constructive conversations in educational settings.

The workshop centers on a research-informed framework for communication across differences, grounding participants in both theory and practice. Facilitated by Essential Partners Associates, Dr. Jill DeTemple, Professor of Religious Studies and Anthropology at Southern Methodist University, and Dr. Noemi Vega Quiñones, a scholar of Religious Ethics also at SMU, the session offers hands-on training in dialogic listening, reflective inquiry, and constructive speaking. These are not abstract concepts — participants leave with a ten-lesson curriculum ready for immediate classroom deployment, along with a professional development certificate applicable toward continuing education credits. Partial and full scholarships are available for educators with financial need or strong potential for community-level impact.

​The classroom is one of the most consequential sites of democratic formation. How young people learn to navigate disagreement, engage across difference, and hold complexity shapes not only school culture but the broader civic fabric. Essential Partners has long understood this, and this workshop reflects their commitment to building dialogue capacity where it is most urgently needed. For NCDD members working in education, youth engagement, or practitioner training, this event represents both a professional development opportunity and a demonstration of what dialogue-centered pedagogy looks like in practice. Registration is open now at $75, with scholarships available. To register or learn more, visit https://whatisessential.org/events/2026/06/constructive-communication-classroom-and-school-june-2026.

The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation offers a foundational introduction to the two core practices at the heart of its network's work: dialogue and deliberation. The post explains dialogue as a process for building genuine understanding across differences — not winning arguments, but hearing experiences — and deliberation as the structured examination of options and trade-offs that allows communities to make better decisions together. Drawing on the insight that moving from talk to decision requires trust as a foundation, the piece makes the case that these processes are most powerful in sequence and most necessary now, when polarization and distrust are eroding the civic spaces where communities once worked through hard things together. This explainer serves NCDD's mission by equipping new and returning visitors with a clear, accessible entry point into the dialogue and deliberation field and the network that supports it.

If you've landed on the NCDD website and found yourself wondering what exactly "dialogue and deliberation" means — and why an entire network of practitioners is dedicated to it — you're in the right place. This is a quick introduction to two of the most powerful tools communities have for working through the issues that matter most.

NCDD member Frances Moore Lappé once asked a question that cuts to the heart of why this work exists: "Why are we as societies creating a world that we as individuals abhor?" Most of us, regardless of political affiliation or background, share more common ground than our public conversations would suggest. So why do so many important decisions get made through power and conflict rather than through genuine understanding and collaboration? Dialogue and deliberation exist to answer that question — and to do something about it.

Dialogue is a process that brings people together, usually in small groups, to share their perspectives and lived experiences on issues that are too often debated, avoided, or simply talked past. It is not about winning an argument or reaching a predetermined conclusion. It is about understanding — really understanding — what an issue means in someone else's life, and allowing that understanding to change how you see the problem.
When dialogue works, it dispels stereotypes, builds trust, and opens people to perspectives genuinely different from their own. It creates the conditions in which something new becomes possible: not just a compromise between fixed positions, but a shared sense of what is actually at stake and why it matters.

Deliberation picks up where dialogue leaves off. If dialogue asks "how has this issue affected your life?", deliberation asks "what should we do about it?" It is a structured process of weighing options, examining trade-offs, and making better decisions together — the kind of decisions that stick, because the people affected by them had a genuine hand in shaping them.
As Kettering Foundation President David Mathews has noted, deliberation isn't just discussion for its own sake. It is how communities make the decisions that allow them to act together — facing the real costs and consequences of difficult choices rather than deferring to whoever holds the most power.

Dialogue and deliberation are most powerful when they work in sequence. The trust and mutual understanding built through dialogue create the foundation for more effective deliberation. People who have genuinely heard each other's stories are better equipped to weigh options together and commit to shared action. Moving from talk to decision without that foundation tends to produce outcomes that feel imposed rather than owned.
Both processes share a core commitment: that every voice deserves to be heard, that inclusion strengthens rather than complicates decision-making, and that communities are capable of solving their own problems when given the right conditions and support.

​Dialogue and deliberation are not new ideas. Communities have always needed ways to talk through hard things together. But in a moment defined by polarization, distrust, and the collapse of shared civic spaces, the skills and structures that make genuine public conversation possible have never been more urgently needed.
NCDD exists to support the practitioners, organizations, and communities doing this work — and to grow a field that believes democratic life is worth building, carefully and together.
If you're new here, welcome. And if you're ready to go deeper, our resources section is a good place to start.

Harmony Labs, a media research organization, has released a series of findings from its multi-year partnership with Democracy 2076, examining how entertainment media shapes Americans' beliefs about government and democratic participation. Drawing on behavioral data from more than 300,000 opt-in panelists and content analysis of thousands of streaming programs, the research finds that 58% of scripted streaming content Americans watch daily is government-relevant — and that stories set in schools, workplaces, and community organizations can be as civically formative as those set in government itself. The lab has also released the Democracy Audience Map, a free values-based segmentation tool identifying eight distinct ways Americans relate to democratic institutions, offering civic communicators and practitioners a data-grounded framework for audience strategy. This research enriches NCDD's mission by equipping dialogue and deliberation practitioners with evidence-based insights about the media landscape in which civic engagement — and disengagement — is being shaped.

At a time when nearly 40% of Americans say they're actively avoiding political news and civic knowledge remains low, understanding how democratic values actually reach people has never been more urgent. Harmony Labs, a New York-based media research organization, has spent the past two years investigating exactly that question — and their findings carry significant implications for anyone working to strengthen civic culture. In partnership with Democracy 2076, Harmony Labs has produced a series of research reports examining how entertainment media shapes public beliefs about government, and the results challenge some fundamental assumptions about where civic engagement begins. 

The core finding of the research is striking: on any given day, 58% of the scripted streaming that people watch is government-relevant. To surface this, Harmony Labs analyzed the media behavior of more than 300,000 people across broadcast television, streaming, desktop, mobile, and tablet platforms — tracking not what people say they watch, but what they actually watch, minute by minute. Over the last two years, Democracy 2076 and Harmony Labs have partnered to study how entertainment media shape people's beliefs about government. Their research reveals that stories that shape people's beliefs about democracy don't need to be set in government — they just need a system, with rules, incentives, hierarchies, consequences, and a hero who attempts to change how that system works. Those systems can be schools, newsrooms, community organizations, workplaces, or sports teams — basically anywhere decisions get made and shape outcomes. For civic practitioners, this reframes the entire terrain of democratic culture-building. 

Harmony Labs has also developed the Democracy Audience Map, a free tool built on values-based audience segmentation derived from Shalom Schwartz's cross-cultural theory of human values, integrating the media behavior of 300,000+ people in the U.S. across broadcast television, streaming, desktop, mobile, and tablet. The map identifies eight distinct audience segments — or "wedges" — representing different ways Americans relate to democracy and its institutions, offering practitioners a research-grounded framework for understanding who they are trying to reach and how. For NCDD members working in civic communication, narrative strategy, or public engagement, this body of research opens a productive question: if democratic values are already being shaped by the stories people consume every day, what role can intentional dialogue and deliberation play in that larger ecosystem? Explore the Democracy Audience Map and the full research at https://harmonylabs.org.

UConn's Democracy and Dialogues Initiative, co-directed by History Professor Brendan Kane and Nana Amos of the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, hosted a four-hour student retreat in March 2026 that equipped campus leaders with practical tools for facilitating constructive dialogue across difference. Drawing on frameworks developed in partnership with Essential Partners and Everyday Democracy, the program grounds participants in the neuroscience of conflict response and trains them to move from defensive reaction toward reflective, curiosity-driven communication. The retreat's peer facilitation model — combining structured listening exercises, role plays, and real-time practice — offers a replicable approach for higher education institutions seeking to build dialogue capacity among student leaders. This work directly advances NCDD's mission by embedding dialogue and deliberation skills into campus culture at a moment when civic communication competencies are urgently needed.

As political polarization intensifies on college campuses and beyond, one UConn initiative is demonstrating what it looks like to build genuine dialogue capacity among student leaders. On March 27, 2026, students from across the University of Connecticut gathered at Storrs for "Let's Talk: Navigating Hard Conversations on Campus," a four-hour retreat co-sponsored by UConn Hillel, the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, and the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate. The event was facilitated by faculty affiliated with UConn's Democracy and Dialogues Initiative — a program that has spent nearly a decade developing replicable models for constructive communication across differences in university and community settings.

​What distinguished the retreat was its commitment to embodied, skills-based learning rather than passive instruction. Participants explored the neurobiological roots of defensive communication — why the brain defaults to fight, flight, freeze, or fawn when a perspective is challenged — and practiced moving toward constructive response through structured listening, reflection, and inquiry exercises. Facilitated by Nana Amos, Director of Community Outreach and Engagement at the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute and co-director of the Democracy and Dialogues Initiative, the session walked participants through the distinctions between debate, deliberation, and dialogue, then put those distinctions to work through peer-facilitated role plays and full-spectrum listening exercises. Participants left with a certificate of completion and, more importantly, with transferable facilitation skills applicable to classrooms, student organizations, and community settings.

​The Democracy and Dialogues Initiative, co-directed by History Professor Brendan Kane and grounded in the work of Essential Partners and Everyday Democracy, represents a promising model for how public universities can fulfill their civic mission in an era of division. By training student leaders as dialogue facilitators and partnering with human rights, interfaith, and community organizations, UConn is demonstrating that dialogue is not a soft add-on to campus life — it is a core democratic competency. For NCDD members working in higher education, youth engagement, or practitioner development, this retreat offers a replicable framework and a compelling proof of concept. To learn more about the Democracy and Dialogues Initiative and its approach to civil dialogue on campus, visit the full story at https://today.uconn.edu/2026/04/retreat-aims-at-fostering-civil-dialogue-in-an-era-of-polarization.

Essential Partners is hosting an online Dialogue Experience on June 16, 2026, offering a complete three-hour introduction to its Reflective Structured Dialogue methodology through a live, facilitated dialogue on the topic of America@250, led by EP-trained facilitator Meg Griffiths. RSD is Essential Partners' signature framework for building relationships and healthier communication dynamics across big differences in identity, values, and perspective — and this event is designed to be experienced rather than observed, giving participants a direct encounter with the structures and facilitation approach that make it effective. Participants will leave with a grounded understanding of RSD's theory and practice and a clearer sense of how it might apply to their own communities and work. For NCDD members seeking to deepen their facilitation toolkit or explore a proven methodology for dialogue across difference, this event offers an accessible and high-value opportunity to engage firsthand with one of the field's most respected approaches.

​Essential Partners is offering a rare opportunity to experience its Reflective Structured Dialogue (RSD) methodology directly — not through a lecture or a demonstration, but through a live, facilitated dialogue with other participants. The online Dialogue Experience takes place Tuesday, June 16, 2026, beginning at 12 PM PDT, and runs approximately three hours. This month's dialogue topic is America@250, making the timing particularly resonant as the country marks the 250th anniversary of its founding and wrestles publicly with what democratic life means and who it includes. The event is facilitated by EP-trained facilitator Meg Griffiths and is designed to give participants a complete RSD experience from the inside — not just an explanation of how it works, but a firsthand encounter with what it feels like to be held by the structure.

RSD is Essential Partners' signature, highly adaptable framework for helping people build relationships across differences — including in settings marked by deep polarization around identity, values, and perspective. Unlike more general dialogue formats, RSD uses specific structures and facilitation approaches designed to shift communication dynamics, strengthen relationships, and cultivate a sense of belonging even among people who disagree significantly. The June 16 Dialogue Experience is structured around four objectives: experiencing the power of RSD directly; understanding the theory behind the practice; reflecting on the impact of the facilitation structures; and beginning to imagine how RSD might be applied in participants' own work and communities. Participants should come prepared to engage genuinely — this is a live dialogue, not a passive observation. Registration is $28.52, and all registrations are final, reflecting the level of design and planning each session requires.

​For NCDD members who have read about RSD, recommended it to others, or wondered whether it might serve their own community or organizational contexts, this event is the most direct available answer to that question. Essential Partners has spent decades refining a methodology that holds structured space for genuine encounter across difference — and the best way to understand what that means in practice is to experience it. The America@250 dialogue topic also situates the experience within the urgent civic conversation the NCDD network is already engaged in: what kind of democracy do we want, and who gets to help shape it? Seats are limited by the nature of the format. NCDD members are encouraged to register soon at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dialogue-experience-registration-1985514174344?aff=erellivmlt

​The Minnesota Council on Foundations has launched the Minnesota Civic Resilience Fund, a one-time pooled grantmaking initiative distributing $300,000 in $25,000 grants to approximately twelve Minnesota-based 501(c)(3) nonprofits conducting nonpartisan voter engagement, civic education, and community organizing work ahead of the 2026 election. The fund prioritizes strategies that build civic capacity, expand voter participation, counter disinformation, and actively defend voting rights — with particular emphasis on historically underrepresented communities and broad geographic reach across the state. Applications are open through June 22, 2026, with funding decisions expected in early July. For NCDD members and partners working in Minnesota's civic ecosystem, this fund offers both immediate resources and a model of coordinated philanthropic investment in the relational and structural foundations that make democratic participation possible.

The Minnesota Council on Foundations (MCF) has established the Minnesota Civic Resilience Fund, a one-time pooled grantmaking initiative offering $300,000 in total funding to nonprofit organizations working to strengthen civic participation, voter engagement, and community confidence across the state. Housed at MCF, the fund will award approximately twelve grants of $25,000 each to 501(c)(3) organizations — including fiscally sponsored groups and coalitions — conducting nonpartisan voter and civic education, engagement, and organizing work in Minnesota communities. Applications opened May 20, 2026, and close June 22, with funding decisions expected in early July. The fund reflects a clear-eyed acknowledgment that while Minnesotans continue to demonstrate strong civic commitment, communities across the state are navigating real and mounting challenges to civic participation, accurate election information, and voting rights — challenges that require coordinated philanthropic investment to address.

The Minnesota Civic Resilience Fund is designed to support a broad range of nonpartisan civic work, organized around three strategic priorities: building civic capacity and expanding voter engagement ahead of the 2026 election; promoting high voter turnout through accurate, accessible information; and actively defending the right to vote through election preparedness and protection efforts. Eligible activities include community organizing and leadership development, voter education and protection programs, legal and policy advocacy defending democratic rights, and efforts to counter disinformation and strengthen access to trusted civic information. The fund explicitly prioritizes reach and impact in historically underrepresented communities and across diverse geographic contexts within Minnesota. Grantees will participate in a 2027 learning convening to share experiences and identify opportunities for improvement — a design element that reflects a commitment to field learning, not just grantmaking.
​
​While the Minnesota Civic Resilience Fund is geographically focused on Minnesota-based organizations, it represents a model and a moment worth noting for the NCDD network more broadly. The fund's explicit attention to civic confidence — not just voter turnout, but people's sense that their participation matters and is protected — connects directly to the work of dialogue and deliberation practitioners who understand that civic engagement requires both structural access and relational trust. For Minnesota-based NCDD members and their partners, this is a time-sensitive and well-resourced opportunity. The application deadline is June 22, 2026, and the full application is available through the MCF grant portal. Questions about eligibility can be directed to May Yang, Director of Democracy Programs, at myang@mcf.org. Full details are available at https://mcf.org/minnesota-civic-resilience-fund-grant-application

The Center for Inclusive Democracy (CID), founded and directed by Mindy Romero, Ph.D., will launch as an independent national organization on July 1, 2026, transitioning away from its previous university affiliations to operate with greater focus and decisiveness at a moment when the integrity of nonpartisan democracy research requires institutional independence. With Sierra Health Foundation serving as its new fiscal sponsor, CID will continue producing rigorous, data-driven research on voter participation, electoral access, and civic engagement while expanding into new educational outreach programs, customized community data tools, and deeper direct engagement with community partners across the country. The organization's sixteen-year track record — informing the work of election officials, policymakers, and civic organizations at the state and national level — has earned it broad recognition as a trusted, nonpartisan resource in the democracy field. CID's commitment to closing the gap between democratic ideals and lived civic experience aligns directly with NCDD's mission to strengthen inclusive participation and ensure that dialogue and deliberation are accessible to all communities.

The Center for Inclusive Democracy (CID), one of the country's most respected sources of nonpartisan research on voter participation and civic engagement, will become an independent national organization as of July 1, 2026 — concluding a sixteen-year institutional journey that included affiliations at UC Davis and, most recently, the University of Southern California. Founded and directed by Mindy Romero, Ph.D., CID has built a national reputation for rigorous, data-driven research that examines who participates in American democracy, who does not, and why — producing findings that have shaped the work of election officials, policymakers, community organizers, and scholars across the country. The transition to independence is explicitly framed as a response to the current moment: as academic institutions face mounting external pressures, CID's leadership determined that protecting the integrity, focus, and mission of its nonpartisan work required the ability to act with greater decisiveness and without institutional constraint. Sierra Health Foundation, a California-based private philanthropy focused on health, racial equity, and racial justice, will serve as CID's fiscal sponsor in its new chapter.

​CID's core mission — advancing inclusive democracy through rigorous research, trusted data, and meaningful engagement — remains unchanged. What independence enables is expansion: deeper educational outreach to get research into the hands of communities and practitioners, new tools that empower individuals to participate in civic discourse, customized data support for community partners, and a more proactive role in identifying emerging trends in the democracy field before they become crises. CID has already demonstrated what this kind of work can produce over sixteen years: its research on electoral access, voting behavior, and civic participation has been relied upon by U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance, the League of Women Voters of California, Colorado's Division of Elections, and a wide network of community-based democracy organizations. The breadth and credibility of those endorsements reflect an organization that has earned trust across sectors and perspectives — a rare achievement in today's civic landscape.

For NCDD members, CID's independence is significant for reasons that go beyond organizational structure. CID's research consistently surfaces the gap between democratic ideals and democratic practice — documenting the participation barriers that make genuine dialogue and deliberation impossible for communities that are structurally excluded from civic life. Closing that gap requires exactly the kind of trusted, community-connected, data-grounded work that CID does. As the organization launches its new era with expanded educational outreach, direct community engagement, and new partnerships to be announced on July 1, NCDD members working in civic engagement, equity, and democracy practice are encouraged to follow CID's work and explore opportunities for collaboration. Full details about the transition and CID's plans for its new chapter are available at https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Exciting-News--CID-Becoming-an-Independent-Organization-.html?soid=1107417106344&aid=4-ux4uBXmG0

​Voting should be easy, and cheating should be hard. The Trustworthy Elections initiative is a community-based effort to strengthen public trust in elections by helping people learn how elections work, engage across differences, and build relationships within and across communities. We are inviting local leaders—including civic leaders, librarians, faith leaders, facilitators, educators, election officials, and engaged community members—to help shape and support this work in ways that fit their communities. Join us for an informational call on Thursday, June 4, at 9:00 am Pacific / 12:00 pm Eastern to learn more about the initiative and opportunities to get involved - register here! The initiative is being convened by Living Room Conversations, Interfaith America, NCDD, AllSides, and Civity, alongside a growing network of civic leaders. Read more in the blog post below.

​Voting should be easy, and cheating should be hard. 

It might sound simple, but at a time when many Americans have questions about elections and the democratic process, this principle is powerful: voting should be easy.

It might sound simple, but in a time where many Americans are questioning the democratic process, the idea that voting should be easy is a powerful one. A growing coalition of civic leaders, facilitators, educators, faith communities, and democracy practitioners has come together to form the Trustworthy Elections initiative in defense of/in promotion of this ideal. 

The Trustworthy Elections initiative is a community-based effort designed to strengthen public trust in elections by creating opportunities for people to learn how elections actually work, engage across differences, and build relationships within and across communities.

This initiative is rooted in the belief that local trust can help rebuild national trust. That trust begins in communities where relationships, civic pride, and understanding are built person-to-person.

Read the two-pager: Linked here

The Trustworthy Elections initiative is designed as a two-phase effort that begins locally and expands nationally. The vision is both practical and ambitious: if diverse communities can model meaningful, trustworthy engagement around elections, their stories can inspire others nationwide.

Phase 1: Build Understanding and Trust in Your Community

Trust starts close to home. Before people can have confidence in our elections nationally, they need opportunities to understand how elections work in their own communities and build relationships with the people around them.

Communities are invited to host local gatherings that bring together residents, election officials, faith leaders, librarians, civic organizations, educators, and other community members to learn, ask questions, and engage in meaningful conversation.

Local activities may include:

• Learning about local election processes, safeguards, and voting procedures
• Meeting with election officials and community leaders
• Hosting community conversations about elections and civic trust
• Participating in trainings that strengthen communication and bridge differences
• Opportunities to engage across political and ideological differences
• Building relationships through shared civic engagement and community service

The goal is simple: create opportunities for people to better understand both the election process and one another.

Phase 2: Connect Communities Across the Country

After building understanding and relationships locally, communities will have opportunities to connect with participants from other regions and states through facilitated national conversations.

These conversations will create space for people to share what they have learned, explore common concerns, and discover areas of agreement across geographic, political, and cultural differences.

Participants may:

• Join small-group conversations with people from other communities
• Share local experiences and lessons learned
• Explore how trust is built in different places
• Identify common themes and areas of agreement
• Contribute insights that help tell a broader story about public trust in elections

By combining local learning with national relationship-building, the initiative seeks to strengthen confidence in elections while creating new connections across communities.

We are currently inviting local leaders, both formal and informal, to help shape and support this work in ways that fit their communities.

You do not need to have all the answers or be an expert in elections to participate.

We are looking for:

• Community organizers
• Civic and nonprofit leaders
• Facilitators and mediators
• Faith leaders
• Librarians and educators
• Local government officials
• People passionate about healthy democracy and civic trust

There are many ways to engage:

• Host a local conversation
• Partner with election officials
• Help organize outreach
• Support facilitation efforts
• Join national cross-community conversations as the initiative expands (Phase 2)
• Simply stay informed as the initiative develops

We will be hosting an upcoming informational call for those interested in learning more about the initiative, hearing from organizers, and exploring ways to get involved.

Informational Call:

• Date: Thursday, June 4th
• Time: 9 am Pacific, 12 pm Eastern
• Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Vt1SAHWORlSFfgXOa0ZNMA  

The call will include:

• An overview of the initiative
• Early examples and pilot efforts
• Available resources and support
• Q&A and discussion with organizers and interested local leaders

If you are interested in serving as a local leader, whether hosting one conversation or helping organize a broader community effort, we invite you to sign up here:

Local Leader Sign-Up Form: https://forms.gle/1R2eDFZoWdo2hT868 

The form includes questions about your community, level of interest, potential support needs, and the kinds of activities you may want to help lead.

​This initiative recognizes that trust is not built through slogans or soundbites. It is built through transparency, relationships, shared learning, and meaningful engagement.

By creating spaces where people can better understand election processes and one another, communities can strengthen democratic participation, build civic trust, and contribute to a healthier democracy.

We hope you’ll join us!

​The Trustworthy Elections initiative is being convened by Living Room Conversations, Interfaith America, Civity, the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), AllSides, and a growing network of local and national leaders committed to strengthening trust in elections and one another.