Sponsors and Supporters of NCDD 2008
NCDD thanks these organizations, groups and individuals for their generous support of the 2008 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation in Austin, Texas. We couldn’t do it without you!
NCDD 2008 Co-Sponsors
These groups contributed $2000 or more to help make NCDD 2008 a success.
Bluebonnet Hills Christian Church
Bluebonnet Hills Christian Church is a unique congregation of about 50-75 folks living in and around Austin. The Sunday morning services begin and end with Prayer and Song, but minister Landon Shultz has replaced the traditional Sermon Time with a more flexible Dialogue Time. During the Dialogue Time, they use questions intended to deepen understanding of issues related to the practice of their faith. Their goal is to empower people to live meaningful Christian lives in the world of the 21st Century. www.bluebonnethillscc.org
The Democracy Imperative
TDI is a national network of multidisciplinary scholars, campus leaders, and civic leaders in the fields of democratic dialogue, public deliberation, and democracy-building. Their mission is to strengthen public life and advance deliberative democracy in and through higher education. The resources TDI produces are open source, and membership in TDI is free. TDI is sponsored by the University of New Hampshire, and their membership is national. www.unh.edu/democracy/
The Forum Foundation
The Forum Foundation conducts futures research in the field of Administrative Theory and Many-to-Many Communication technology to discover those dynamics which tend to move organizations and institutions, universally, toward solving their problems and anticipating or adapting to changes in their internal or external environment. The foundation is primarily in a research mode and not a service delivery mode. It is interested in applying the Fast Forum® groupware technique using an “Opinionnaire®” and “Viewspaper®” to assist leaders to “talk” symbolically with constituents and for them to “talk” back. This assists in (1) diagnosing system problems as a first step in solving them, (2) learning through the dynamics of the Socratic Method by individuals and organizations participating, and (3) moving organizations and individuals participating toward organizational and societal peace. Some limited grants are available to support services to organizations interested in participating in the research. States, cities, schools, and organizations interested are invited to apply. www.forumfoundation.org
Global Facilitator Service Corps
GFSC is a network of volunteers who use facilitative methods to build resilient and self-reliant communities throughout the world. Tools and skills for improving communities already exist in every community. The GFSC model encourages the development of, and reliance on, these local resources as much as possible. We help local volunteer facilitators worldwide create processes that increase capacity, sustainability and participation in their communities, agencies and organizations. We train, mentor and coach an initial group of professionals, who then share the tools and techniques with an ever-expanding base of community members to increase the community’s resourcefulness to address their challenges (cascade model). www.globalfacilitators.org
Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy at Kansas State University
The Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy (ICDD) was formed in 2004 to promote citizen deliberation on tough political and social issues, resulting in increased citizen participation, reflection, communication, and respect. ICDD works to enhance democratization locally, nationally, and internationally through improved community deliberation, facilitation and evaluation practices, development of a certified facilitator training program, and interdisciplinary research on models of civic discourse. ICDD is a non-partisan agency bringing together a diverse group of scholars and practitioners to address the relationship between democracy and civic discourse. www.k-state.edu/icdd/
LBJ Presidential Library & Museum
The beautiful Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, located at the University of Texas in Austin, provides support for Texas Forums – an initiative that engages people in dialogue about issues that affect their lives. The Mission of the LBJ Library and Museum is threefold: to preserve and protect the historical materials in the collections of the Johnson Library and make them readily accessible; to increase public awareness of the American experience through relevant exhibitions and educational programs; and to advance the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum’s standing as a center for intellectual activity and community leadership while meeting the challenges of a changing world. The Library is situated on a 30-acre site on The University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas. www.lbjlib.utexas.edu
The Public Conversations Project
The Public Conversations Project (PCP) guides, trains, and inspires individuals, organizations, and communities to constructively address conflicts relating to values and worldviews. PCP’s central objective is to avoid repeating unproductive debates and to develop new modes of communicating that lead to mutual understanding, respect, and trust. This reduces the costly effects of conflict and creates new possibilities for change. PCP began in 1989 when a group of family therapists from the Family Institute of Cambridge started exploring whether their ways of working with personal conflicts could be fruitfully applied to public disputes. Part “think tank,” part service provider, and part training center, PCP houses a broad range of capacities under one roof. Their major services include convening, designing, and facilitating dialogues, meetings, and conferences; training, both packaged and customized; consulting to those who want to apply our methods and resources; and writing and speaking to a variety of professional and general audiences. www.publicconversations.org
Regis University’s Institute on the Common Good
ICG at Regis University serves the greater Denver community by promoting the common good and providing a safe and effective space for community dialogue, communal discernment, and public deliberation. Regis University sponsors a number of community outreach initiatives which provide a variety of ways to extend the Regis commitment of “men and women in service to others”. One of these community outreach initiatives is the Institute on the Common Good which was established in 1998. The Institute on the Common Good was created to provide opportunities for people in the community with diverse perspectives to engage one another around civic and social issues. www.icgregis.org
Bluebonnet Hills Christian Church
Bluebonnet Hills Christian Church is a unique congregation of about 50-75 folks living in and around Austin. The Sunday morning services begin and end with Prayer and Song, but minister Landon Shultz has replaced the traditional Sermon Time with a more flexible Dialogue Time. During the Dialogue Time, they use questions intended to deepen understanding of issues related to the practice of their faith. Their goal is to empower people to live meaningful Christian lives in the world of the 21st Century. www.bluebonnethillscc.org
The Democracy Imperative
TDI is a national network of multidisciplinary scholars, campus leaders, and civic leaders in the fields of democratic dialogue, public deliberation, and democracy-building. Their mission is to strengthen public life and advance deliberative democracy in and through higher education. The resources TDI produces are open source, and membership in TDI is free. TDI is sponsored by the University of New Hampshire, and their membership is national. www.unh.edu/democracy/
The Forum Foundation
The Forum Foundation conducts futures research in the field of Administrative Theory and Many-to-Many Communication technology to discover those dynamics which tend to move organizations and institutions, universally, toward solving their problems and anticipating or adapting to changes in their internal or external environment. The foundation is primarily in a research mode and not a service delivery mode. It is interested in applying the Fast Forum® groupware technique using an “Opinionnaire®” and “Viewspaper®” to assist leaders to “talk” symbolically with constituents and for them to “talk” back. This assists in (1) diagnosing system problems as a first step in solving them, (2) learning through the dynamics of the Socratic Method by individuals and organizations participating, and (3) moving organizations and individuals participating toward organizational and societal peace. Some limited grants are available to support services to organizations interested in participating in the research. States, cities, schools, and organizations interested are invited to apply. www.forumfoundation.org
Global Facilitator Service Corps
GFSC is a network of volunteers who use facilitative methods to build resilient and self-reliant communities throughout the world. Tools and skills for improving communities already exist in every community. The GFSC model encourages the development of, and reliance on, these local resources as much as possible. We help local volunteer facilitators worldwide create processes that increase capacity, sustainability and participation in their communities, agencies and organizations. We train, mentor and coach an initial group of professionals, who then share the tools and techniques with an ever-expanding base of community members to increase the community’s resourcefulness to address their challenges (cascade model). www.globalfacilitators.org
Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy at Kansas State University
The Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy (ICDD) was formed in 2004 to promote citizen deliberation on tough political and social issues, resulting in increased citizen participation, reflection, communication, and respect. ICDD works to enhance democratization locally, nationally, and internationally through improved community deliberation, facilitation and evaluation practices, development of a certified facilitator training program, and interdisciplinary research on models of civic discourse. ICDD is a non-partisan agency bringing together a diverse group of scholars and practitioners to address the relationship between democracy and civic discourse. www.k-state.edu/icdd/
LBJ Presidential Library & Museum
The beautiful Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, located at the University of Texas in Austin, provides support for Texas Forums – an initiative that engages people in dialogue about issues that affect their lives. The Mission of the LBJ Library and Museum is threefold: to preserve and protect the historical materials in the collections of the Johnson Library and make them readily accessible; to increase public awareness of the American experience through relevant exhibitions and educational programs; and to advance the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum’s standing as a center for intellectual activity and community leadership while meeting the challenges of a changing world. The Library is situated on a 30-acre site on The University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas. www.lbjlib.utexas.edu
The Public Conversations Project
The Public Conversations Project (PCP) guides, trains, and inspires individuals, organizations, and communities to constructively address conflicts relating to values and worldviews. PCP’s central objective is to avoid repeating unproductive debates and to develop new modes of communicating that lead to mutual understanding, respect, and trust. This reduces the costly effects of conflict and creates new possibilities for change. PCP began in 1989 when a group of family therapists from the Family Institute of Cambridge started exploring whether their ways of working with personal conflicts could be fruitfully applied to public disputes. Part “think tank,” part service provider, and part training center, PCP houses a broad range of capacities under one roof. Their major services include convening, designing, and facilitating dialogues, meetings, and conferences; training, both packaged and customized; consulting to those who want to apply our methods and resources; and writing and speaking to a variety of professional and general audiences. www.publicconversations.org
Regis University’s Institute on the Common Good
ICG at Regis University serves the greater Denver community by promoting the common good and providing a safe and effective space for community dialogue, communal discernment, and public deliberation. Regis University sponsors a number of community outreach initiatives which provide a variety of ways to extend the Regis commitment of “men and women in service to others”. One of these community outreach initiatives is the Institute on the Common Good which was established in 1998. The Institute on the Common Good was created to provide opportunities for people in the community with diverse perspectives to engage one another around civic and social issues. www.icgregis.org
Partners
These groups contributed $1000 to help make NCDD Austin a success.
Envision Central Texas
Envision Central Texas (ECT) is a non-profit organization composed of concerned citizens who share the common goal of addressing growth with sound planning that has the interests of the region’s existing and future citizens in mind. ECT engaged citizens in one of the largest conversations ever to occur in Texas about how to shape future growth, with thousands participating in focus groups, workshops, surveys and educational forums. This input formed the basis of the “Vision for Central Texas”. ECT continues to serve as a catalyst for regional collaboration and planning in support of the Vision and convenes ongoing dialogues about growth issues, such as transportation planning, environmental preservation and land use policy. www.envisioncentraltexas.org
Everyday Democracy
Everyday Democracy (formerly the Study Circles Resource Center) is a national organization that helps local communities find ways for all kinds of people to think, talk and work together to solve problems. They work with neighborhoods, cities and towns, regions, and states, helping them pay particular attention to how racism and ethnic differences affect the problems they address. Everyday Democracy was created as the Study Circles Resource Center in 1989 by The Paul J. Aicher Foundation, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. Since 1989, they have worked with more than 550 communities across the U.S. on many different public issues. www.everyday-democracy.org
Harold Saunders
Founder and president of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, Hal Saunders played a central role as a senior U.S. diplomat in the Arab-Israeli peace process after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Working with a team headed by Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter that mediated five agreements, 1974-79, he learned three lessons: (1) the power of a continuous political process to change the political environment; (2) the importance of the human dimension of conflict; and (3) the importance of the relationship between whole bodies politic—citizens outside government as well as those inside government. www.sustaineddialogue.org/iisd.htm
Social Media Club
Social Media Club is being organized for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media. This is the beginning of a global conversation about building an organization and a community where the many diverse groups of people who care about social media can come together to discover, connect, share, and learn. The idea for Social Media Club originated in the Fall of 2005 with the Web 2point1 BrainJam. This led us to create the non-profit BrainJams organization to promote the idea of unconferences and ad-hoc collaboration to a broader audience of non-geeks. Over the course of the last year, BrainJams has brought us together with people from all over the world. As a result of thousands of conversations since, we realized that the passion we have for Social Media was the real purpose of what we were doing and have now launched this site to begin the conversation about the future of Social Media. www.socialmediaclub.org
Envision Central Texas
Envision Central Texas (ECT) is a non-profit organization composed of concerned citizens who share the common goal of addressing growth with sound planning that has the interests of the region’s existing and future citizens in mind. ECT engaged citizens in one of the largest conversations ever to occur in Texas about how to shape future growth, with thousands participating in focus groups, workshops, surveys and educational forums. This input formed the basis of the “Vision for Central Texas”. ECT continues to serve as a catalyst for regional collaboration and planning in support of the Vision and convenes ongoing dialogues about growth issues, such as transportation planning, environmental preservation and land use policy. www.envisioncentraltexas.org
Everyday Democracy
Everyday Democracy (formerly the Study Circles Resource Center) is a national organization that helps local communities find ways for all kinds of people to think, talk and work together to solve problems. They work with neighborhoods, cities and towns, regions, and states, helping them pay particular attention to how racism and ethnic differences affect the problems they address. Everyday Democracy was created as the Study Circles Resource Center in 1989 by The Paul J. Aicher Foundation, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. Since 1989, they have worked with more than 550 communities across the U.S. on many different public issues. www.everyday-democracy.org
Harold Saunders
Founder and president of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, Hal Saunders played a central role as a senior U.S. diplomat in the Arab-Israeli peace process after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Working with a team headed by Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter that mediated five agreements, 1974-79, he learned three lessons: (1) the power of a continuous political process to change the political environment; (2) the importance of the human dimension of conflict; and (3) the importance of the relationship between whole bodies politic—citizens outside government as well as those inside government. www.sustaineddialogue.org/iisd.htm
Social Media Club
Social Media Club is being organized for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media. This is the beginning of a global conversation about building an organization and a community where the many diverse groups of people who care about social media can come together to discover, connect, share, and learn. The idea for Social Media Club originated in the Fall of 2005 with the Web 2point1 BrainJam. This led us to create the non-profit BrainJams organization to promote the idea of unconferences and ad-hoc collaboration to a broader audience of non-geeks. Over the course of the last year, BrainJams has brought us together with people from all over the world. As a result of thousands of conversations since, we realized that the passion we have for Social Media was the real purpose of what we were doing and have now launched this site to begin the conversation about the future of Social Media. www.socialmediaclub.org
Special Thanks
Pflugerville Council of Neighborhood Associations
A special thank you is in order to the Pflugerville Council of Neighborhood Associations (PICONA), and especially Clay Leben, for donating a sound system for use at the conference!
A special thank you is in order to the Pflugerville Council of Neighborhood Associations (PICONA), and especially Clay Leben, for donating a sound system for use at the conference!
Scholarship Contributors
Contributed $100 or more to the scholarship fund for NCDD 2008:
Contributed $50 to the scholarship fund for NCDD 2008:
Contributed $25 to the scholarship fund for NCDD 2008:
- Higgins School of Humanities, Clark University
- Richard Chasin, Senior Associate of the Public Conversations Project
- Laura Chasin, Board Chair of the Public Conversations Project
- Susan S. Clark, Director of Common Knowledge
- Doug Crocker
- Marla Crockett
- Pamela Hubbard, PMHubbard and Associates
- Les Ihara, Hawaii State Senator
- Gary Jelinek
- Diane Miller, Assistant Director of Envision Central Texas
- Landon Shultz, Minister of the Bluebonnet Hills Christian Church
- Office of the Dean of the College, Clark University
- Rosa Zubizarreta, Diapraxis
Contributed $50 to the scholarship fund for NCDD 2008:
- Duncan Autrey, Mediator
- Tim Bonnemann, Founder and CEO, Intellitics, Inc.
- Juli Fellows, Consultant, www.docfellows.com
- Leilani Henry, www.beingandliving.com
- Michele Holt-Shannon, University of New Hampshire
- Delia Horwitz, Owner of BRC
- Lucy Moore, Lucy Moore Associates, Inc.
- Susan Sachs, Principal of Starfire Consulting, Inc.
Contributed $25 to the scholarship fund for NCDD 2008:
- Robert Corman, President of Applied Concepts
- LaDonna Coy, Consultant with Omega Point International, Inc.
- Douglas Crocker, www.thataway.org/ncddnet/DCrocker/
- Larry Dressler, Founder of Blue Wing Consulting, LLC
- Sacha Ramirez Francis, Darke County League of Women Voters
- Wilma Hutcheson-Williams, Assistant Professor at Piedmont College, www.piedmont.edu
- Tom Murray, Perspegrity Solutions
- Tobin Quereau, Professor at Austin Community College
- John Stephens, UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government
- Amy Thompson, CAC Consulting
- Madeleine Van Hecke, Speaker/Author for Open Arms Seminars
- Pamela Zivari, Program Director for the Network for Peace through Dialogue