What We're All About
The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) is a network of innovators who bring people together across divides to discuss, decide, and take action together effectively on today’s toughest issues. NCDD serves as a gathering place, a resource center, a news source, and a facilitative leader for this vital community of practice.
Dialogue and deliberation are innovative processes that help people come together across differences to tackle our most challenging problems. In a time when we are increasingly told how divided we are in so many ways in our nation and in our world, teaching, spreading, and supporting the skills of dialogue and deliberation are vital.
The NCDD website is a clearinghouse for literally thousands of resources and best practices, and our highly participatory national and regional conferences have brought together more nearly 3,000 practitioners, community leaders, public administrators, researchers, activists, teachers and students since 2002. We keep in touch monthly with 28,000 people involved in public engagement and conflict resolution work.
Above all, NCDD provides opportunities for members of the broadly-defined dialogue and deliberation (“D&D”) community to share knowledge, inspire one another, build collaborative relationships, and have a greater collective impact.
Below you’ll find our contact info, mission, details about our membership, and more. You can also read the full story of NCDD’s beginnings and learn about the NCDD team. And, of course, if this resonates with you, please consider becoming a member or making a donation to NCDD!
Why did the Coalition form?
NCDD exists to support the growing “dialogue and deliberation community” — a broadly-defined community of practice involving practitioners, scholars, activists, public officials, nonprofit leaders, process geeks, students, and others who engage and mobilize people to come together and strengthen understanding of each other and issues in ways that supports community-building and collaborative problem-solving.
NCDD was formed in 2002 in response to a clear need for an infrastructure for learning and collaboration among those who approach D&D from a variety of disciplines, including public policy, social work, communication, education, social justice, social activism, and organizational development. The Coalition was a result of the first National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, held near Washington, DC in October 2002.
NCDD is an educational organization and a Community of Practice. Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain or topic area. In other words, communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.
Our members make up the core of our community of practice. As of January 2021, the Coalition’s membership has grown to include 700 organizations and individuals. Our website visitors, social media group members, conference attendees, and over 28,000 newsletter subscribers are also part of this ever-growing community of practice.
NCDD was formed in 2002 in response to a clear need for an infrastructure for learning and collaboration among those who approach D&D from a variety of disciplines, including public policy, social work, communication, education, social justice, social activism, and organizational development. The Coalition was a result of the first National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, held near Washington, DC in October 2002.
NCDD is an educational organization and a Community of Practice. Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain or topic area. In other words, communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.
Our members make up the core of our community of practice. As of January 2021, the Coalition’s membership has grown to include 700 organizations and individuals. Our website visitors, social media group members, conference attendees, and over 28,000 newsletter subscribers are also part of this ever-growing community of practice.
What does the Coalition do?
Most of NCDD’s work falls under four broad categories:
1. Maintaining a resource and news clearinghouse
NCDD keeps thousands updated on the latest news and resources in dialogue & deliberation.
- Sort through discussion guides, methods, evaluation tools, articles, books, videos, etc. in our Resource Center.
- Check out posts about funding and job opportunities, events and trainings, new articles and tools, etc. in the NCDD Community News blog (one of the longest-running blogs in our field).
2. Developing new resources to educate the public and the D&D community about dialogue & deliberation work
NCDD develops resources that represent the D&D community broadly, and are great tools for educating those new to dialogue and deliberation processes.
- Download NCDD’s Resource Guide on Public Engagement, which showcases NCDD’s most popular tools (like the Core Principles for Public Engagement and the Engagement Streams Framework), and recognizes and directs you to a lot of the great work that has been done by others in our field.
- Use our Quick Reference Glossary for definitions to over 100 terms related to public engagement and conflict resolution.
- Don’t miss NCDD’s Engagement Streams Framework, a series of 2 charts that help you navigate the range of D&D approaches and make design choices appropriate for your situation.
- Look over the collaboratively-created and widely-endorsed Core Principles for Public Engagement (a project led by NCDD, IAP2 and the Co-Intelligence Institute).
- And visit our Beginner’s Guide for other NCDD resources that help people understand what dialogue and deliberation are and how to get started.
3. Fostering a vibrant community of practice
NCDD fosters an active Coalition and community of organizations and individuals involved in dialogue, deliberation and other innovative group processes that help people tackle complex issues.
- Become a member! NCDD offers various options for individuals and organizations, including a pay-what-you-can option. Members are eligible for all the discounts listed here.
- Become a sponsor! Organizations can opt to become a Sponsor and have raised visibility on the NCDD website as well as membership benefits for five people. Sponsorship starts at $1,000 and helps support NCDD’s network and operations.
- Connect with more than 700 members in our online member map and directory.
- Subscribe to our popular NCDD Discussion list (one of the most valued resources in our community), our Newbies list, our Making-a-Living list (for job hunters) or our regional lists for the DC metro area, Northern California, Boston, Cascadia, Greater Chicago, Colorado, Central Texas, New England, and Virginia (more info on our listervs).
4. Serving as a facilitative leader and convenor in our community
NCDD provides unique opportunities for members to gather, share knowledge and build relationships in order to strengthen our individual and collective work.
- Learn about NCDD’s various events, including our national and regional conferences. NCDD’s high-energy biennial events bring together practitioners, scholars, public leaders, trainers, artists, activists and students from across this critically important field. Nearly 3,000 people, from 20 countries, have attended NCDD national conferences and regional events.
- Join our groups on Facebook and LinkedIn, and follow us on Twitter. Be sure to also “like” our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ncddpage, where we’re following over 60 of our members’ blogs on dialogue, deliberation and public engagement.
- Take part in NCDD webinars, programs, and networking events.
- And subscribe to our various listservs (mentioned above) to network with NCDDers who share your interests or live in your region.
NCDD’s mission, vision and values
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NCDD creates community for those committed to shared exploration of dialogue and deliberation as a means to improve lives, enhance public and organizational life, and strengthen democracy.
We model and champion what our members seek to shape in the world - demonstrating what’s possible when we come together in ways that commit to honoring voices, experiences, and perspectives. We support and learn from the work of our members to help people come together with purpose, across divides and differences, to uncover ways forward to impact lives positively, improve communities, and transform challenges into possibilities. Our community embraces and practices the values and principles of: Collaboration Our organization fosters and foregrounds a collaborative approach to inquiry, practice, engagement, and the governance of our organization. Inclusivity We value the contributions of every individual, and we value our diversity as a source of strength. We challenge ourselves to responsibly consider how our organization, our programs, and our resources reflect our shared humanity. Continuous Learning We constantly curate and create information and knowledge about new programs, ideas, methods, and scholarship. The resources on our website and the people involved in our network continue to multiply. |
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