Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE), a national network of funders supporting civic engagement, opens a new three-part series arguing that philanthropy across every sector, not just dedicated democracy funders, has a role to play in strengthening civic life. Written by Shannon Green, the piece contends that trust, belonging, and community participation are not a niche issue area but the foundation that makes progress possible on any cause a funder cares about, from health to education to housing. It points to health, humanities, and youth development funders already investing in connection and civic participation as evidence that this shift is already underway, and previews a forthcoming PACE guide distilling shared practices for grantmakers new to civic philanthropy. The series' central claim, that every funder can be a civic funder regardless of their primary mission, speaks directly to NCDD's mission of expanding who sees themselves as invested in the health of dialogue, deliberation, and democratic life.

The National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI) has elected three new members to its Board of Directors: digital strategist Kenny McGuane, Detroit CARES executive director Michael Steinback, and Timothy J. Shaffer, inaugural Stavros Niarchos Foundation Chair of Civil Discourse at the University of Delaware. Together they bring long-standing expertise in digital communications, community mentorship, and deliberative democracy scholarship to an organization built on helping communities talk, decide, and act together on shared challenges. Their appointments arrive as NIFI expands its K-12 resources and issue guides and launches its nationwide "What's Next, America?" initiative ahead of the country's 250th anniversary. The addition of a recognized deliberative democracy scholar alongside practitioners rooted in community organizing and digital outreach signals NIFI's intent to deepen both the rigor and reach of its public deliberation work. This leadership expansion reflects the broader dialogue and deliberation field's ongoing effort to connect scholarship, community practice, and public communication in service of a more participatory democracy.

Engaging Community: A Toolkit for Reciprocal Teaching and Learning Beyond the Campus, co-published by AAC&U and Campus Compact and authored by Nicholas V. Longo, Carmine Perrotti, and Matthew Roy, is a free, open-access resource designed to help educators build authentic, reciprocal partnerships between campuses and communities. Organized into six modules, the toolkit moves from storytelling and asset-based community mapping through critical reflection and partnership-building to a dedicated module on facilitating dialogue and bridging divides, pairing each with lesson plans, videos, readings, and interactive activities. Its practical tools, including case scenarios, curriculum design worksheets, and assessment instruments, give faculty and program leaders concrete starting points for translating reciprocity from concept into classroom and community practice. By centering shared learning and mutual accountability between institutions and the communities they partner with, the toolkit offers NCDD's network a rigorously developed resource for advancing dialogue, equity, and collaborative civic engagement within higher education.

Catalyst, an open-access journal hosted by Wake Forest University's Z. Smith Reynolds Library, is accepting submissions for its second issue, themed "Our Democratic Imagination," guest edited by Dr. Tim Eatman of Rutgers University–Newark. The call frames America's approaching 250th anniversary as an opening for both critical reckoning and visionary imagination, inviting work that connects community-engaged scholarship to deliberative dialogue, trauma-informed civic repair, and the affective dimensions of civic life such as hope and joy. The journal explicitly welcomes contributions from community practitioners and authors without traditional academic credentials, alongside scholarly work, and charges no submission or publication fees. Submissions are open now through December 31, with authors notified by February 28 and publication expected in summer. This call offers NCDD's network of practitioners and scholars a timely, accessible venue for contributing original thinking on dialogue, deliberation, and democratic renewal to a broader public conversation.

Better Together America (BTA), a national network supporting local "Civic Hubs" working to strengthen community collaboration, has released its Lessons Learned From the Field Report: Summer 2026, synthesizing insights gathered from Civic Hub Builders through interviews, learning cohorts, and structured feedback sessions since the network's 2024 founding. The report finds that Civic Hubs gain the most traction not through messaging about democracy or bridge-building, but through low-barrier, food-and-fun-centered activities that let neighbors experience collaboration firsthand before tackling harder civic work. It highlights practical levers for sustainability, including building a multi-person coordination team early, securing small catalytic funding to establish credibility, and maintaining strict nonpartisan neutrality even as political language becomes harder to navigate. The report's findings offer NCDD's network a data-grounded look at what actually sustains local dialogue and deliberation infrastructure, reinforcing the field's ongoing work to translate civic engagement theory into durable, community-owned practice.

The Kettering Foundation's Democracy and Community focus area hosted the 17th Summer Institute of Civic Studies (SICS) at its Dayton, Ohio campus from August 2 to 8, 2026, marking the program's first time convening in Ohio since its founding at Tufts University in 2009. Led by Kettering staff and Tisch College's Peter Levine, the weeklong institute grounded its seminars on civic studies theory in local Dayton examples, pairing participants with host families, cooperative businesses, and community practitioners actively engaged in civic action. The design intentionally paired academic reflection with direct exposure to local democratic practice, giving twenty participants from fields like journalism, higher education, and community development a shared framework for collective problem-solving. The institute closed with a joint session between participants and Dayton community partners focused on translating shared insights into concrete civic action. This model of pairing scholarly reflection with grounded, place-based practice reflects NCDD's broader commitment to building durable relationships and collaborative capacity across the dialogue and deliberation field.

​Terry Kyllo, executive director of Paths to Understanding and an NCDD member, has published The Society We Deserve: Rebuilding Trust, Belonging, and Our Life Together, distilling ten years of bridge-building practice into a single argument about American division. Kyllo contends that the country's crisis is not a failure of shared values but a failure of relationship between groups, each of which privately holds the same moral commitments while wrongly assuming the others have abandoned them, a dynamic he attributes to distance and algorithmic amplification rather than genuine disagreement. Drawing on more than ninety public gatherings and the Potluck Project toolkit now used by over 250 communities, the book offers a field-tested playbook centered on shared meals, shared service, and public celebration as the practical starting points for rebuilding trust between groups. His work offers NCDD's network a grounded, replicable model for how communities move from mutual suspicion to functioning civic life, reinforcing the field's core conviction that dialogue and deliberation begin with belonging.

​The Democracy Stories Lab, a new initiative from People Powered in partnership with the Democracy Narratives Alliance, is calling on creators worldwide to submit visual storytelling that reimagines what democracy could look and feel like in everyday life. The call invites short videos, illustrations, and graphics that move beyond policy talking points to explore voice, fairness, belonging, and what happens when communities hold real power over the decisions that shape their futures. Submissions must engage with the Democracy Narratives Alliance's research on how to talk about democracy, giving participants a practical framework for translating dialogue and deliberation principles into accessible, creative formats. Applications open July 14, 2026, with a submission deadline of September 14, 2026, and winners receiving cash awards plus amplification across both organizations' networks. The initiative reflects NCDD's mission of expanding who gets to shape conversations about democracy, extending the field's reach into creative and media spaces it rarely touches.

​Jason Vadnos, a Vanderbilt University student and contributor to the State of the Student Vote Substack, examines what existing research can tell us about the long-term impact of student voter engagement work in a May 2026 article. Drawing on decades of service-learning and civic engagement studies, Vadnos argues that high-quality, reflective civic work in college is consistently linked to later careers in public service, nonprofit leadership, and civic life, even though direct evidence specific to nonpartisan student voter mobilization remains thin. He points to a practical takeaway for practitioners now: programs that build in structured reflection, mentorship, and explicit connections to civic identity produce more durable outcomes than turnout numbers alone can show. His call to invest in better data collection on these programs speaks directly to NCDD's mission of strengthening the infrastructure and practice of dialogue, deliberation, and civic engagement across generations.

The Council on Foundations has launched the Community Foundations Working Across Differences Accelerator, a new grant opportunity designed to help U.S. community foundations deepen their capacity to bring people together across social and political divides. The program pairs direct funding, including a $20,000 planning grant and up to $45,000 in follow-on support, with expert coaching and a structured peer learning agenda, giving foundations both the resources and the skills to design local strategies for working across differences. Selected organizations commit staff time to a bimonthly peer learning circle and at least one additional capacity-building program, such as the Council's Bridging Differences Leadership Cohort. Applications are due September 4, 2026, and are open to U.S. community foundations, with preference given to Council members and organizations planning for long-term engagement. The accelerator reflects a growing recognition among funders that bridging divides requires sustained investment, positioning it as a valuable resource for NCDD's network of practitioners and philanthropic partners.