In today’s world, democratic values face challenges from rising polarization and declining trust in institutions. At a time when public discourse often feels fragmented, dialogue and deliberation have become essential tools for building trust, bridging divides, and fostering community resilience. Democracy, at its core, rests on the principle that all voices deserve to be heard, regardless of political stance. By cultivating spaces where diverse perspectives can coexist and be respected, dialogue and deliberation ensure that policies are inclusive, reflecting a broad spectrum of experiences and values. Read more in the blog post below.​

Here's an important announcement from John Spady of the National Dialogue Network project...

Hello friends,

I have important results to share with everyone!

The National Dialogue Network (NDN) conducted a survey in April 2013. A total of 415 people participated (including both self-selected and random panel responses). Each participant ranked their top five choices from a provided list of twenty-two issue titles to identify the top issue for our inaugural 2013 national conversations that will take place in communities across the U.S. in September. The top ranked issue title selected was “Poverty/Wealth in America.”

The NDN is a volunteer working group that received a Catalyst Award from the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) to model a social and technical infrastructure to support “a national conversation on a common issue of importance in communities across the county.” The NDN working group and advisors confirmed the 2013 topic in early May. Broad public participation is requested to help NDN prepare nonpartisan core materials and a national survey that will be available to all this September.

To prepare for this, the public is again invited to help “frame and focus” the national conversation further by answering a quick survey on specific aspects of “Poverty/Wealth in America.” What should concern our communities as we struggle together under challenging economic circumstances?

Submissions received by June 30 will be reviewed by the NDN volunteer working group in a publicly transparent process to identify and prepare core materials and resources that touch on regional, urban, and rural concerns and questions. These materials will be used online and also offered to local hosts across the country to conduct their own conversations beginning Monday, September 2, 2013 until mid October (date still to be determined).

To submit one or more ideas to help frame and focus the national conversation on the topic of “Poverty/Wealth in America,” visit this link: http://tinyurl.com/NDN-Cycle2-2013

The formal PDF report from our NDN working group with summary, graphs, and rankings is available through this link: http://surveygizmolibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/library/95644/2013Cycle1report.pdf.

To stay up to date on this topic, please subscribe to our NDN listserv that is hosted for us by NCDD:
http://tinyurl.com/ndn-listserv

And if you have any comments or other feedback then please leave us a message below. Thank you!

Voice messages for the NDN can be left on their info line: 800-369-2342; Email can be sent to [email protected]. Local collaborating organizers are being sought for a September rollout.

We’re excited to announce the winners of the NCDD Catalyst Awards — two $10,000 prizes for team projects run by NCDD members in the areas of Civic Infrastructure and Political Bridge Building.

The award winner in the Civic Infrastructure category is:
A Collaborative Plan for a National Dialogue Network Infrastructure (main contact: John Spady)

&

The award winner in the Political Bridge Building category is:
Real Dialogues: D&D Reality Show (main contact: Tim Bonnemann)

-

NCDD intends to support the winning teams in whatever ways we are able to, and we will certainly keep the NCDD community updated on the teams’ progress and opportunities to get involved down the road.

We used a combination of activities (our Seattle conference, the CivicEvolution platform, the NCDD blog and listservs, and more) to encourage our members to form teams to address challenges facing our field that are too complex to solve on their own.  Voting was open to all members for a ten-day period that came to a close last night at midnight Pacific.  See this document (PDF) for the full voting results.

A special, heartfelt thank you to the donors who made these awards possible. The Civic Infrastructure award is funded by generous contributions from members of the NCDD Board of Directors and the Bridge Building award is funded by a donor advised fund called the Harrison Giveaway Fund.

We are also greatly indebted to NCDD supporting member Brian Sullivan, who donated the use of his CivicEvolution platform and many hours of his time to the Catalyst Awards process.

Thank you also to all six of our finalist teams. Speaking on behalf of the volunteers, donors, and NCDD Board members who made this awards process possible, we are all extremely grateful for — and inspired by — your creativity, innovation, and commitment to finding new ways to work together to move our field forward.  We hope those of you who didn’t win will move forward with your projects, and invite you to keep the NCDD community informed and involved along the way.

Feel free to comment below and let us know what you thought of the Catalyst Awards process.  This experiment was new for NCDD, and we would love your feedback and suggestions for improvement!

This post is from John Spady, who has been working for months on a project to develop a National Dialogue Network infrastructure. He would like to see many NCDD members sign on to show their support.  The easiest way to do this is to add a comment to this blog post (with your name, organization, email and what role you could see yourself eventually playing in this project).  You can also check out his CivicEvolution page and his Hackpad document.

Dear NCDD Community:

Nine months ago, back in April 2011, I posted to the NCDD Idea Incubator here about how might we go about developing a collaborative and decentralized national dialogue network infrastructure in the US. Then, at our recent NCDD national conference in Seattle, Tom Atlee and I hosted a session with the title "Co-Creating a Diverse and Coherent National Infrastructure for Powerful Conversations about Public Issues" where we addressed the questions, "What possibilities can we create together for infrastructure that promotes high quality public conversation about public issues?" and "How can we instill such conversations into American society to empower the public's voice and wisdom?"

Since then, the Catalyst Award proposal for "A Collaborative Plan for a National Dialogue Network Infrastructure" has garnered sixteen endorsements plus its first four "working group" and its first three "advisory committee" members. I am grateful for the level of interest and support that has been shown so far. To add your own endorsement and/or other insights on the proposal, please visit its official page on the Civic Evolution website at http://ncdd.civicevolution.org/proposal/10096.

I have also posted a slightly more detailed public draft document about the proposal that includes the goals, design principles, and values I would like to see in a national dialogue network. I invite our NCDD community to review, comment, and make any direct edit suggestions at this link: https://hackpad.com/National-Dialogue-Network-draft-plan-x5MZhwscm4W

And finally (and most importantly) please add a comment below if you would like to play ANY kind of role in this particular project going forward. This is absolutely a collaborative project and will showcase the many different methodologies in our field for wise and meaningful conversations. If you are interested in being involved in this effort at any level, please add your name, organization, email address, and what role you could see yourself playing via the comment field below.  I'll  be asked to list all NCDD members who have shown interest in the project when I submit our final proposal for the Catalyst Awards this weekend.

To help stay in touch about this developing project, I have created the following resources that you are invited to use:

1. A new [NATIONAL-DIALOGUE] listserv that is hosted on the NCDD site:
http://lists.thataway.org/scripts/wa-THATAWAY.exe?A0=NATIONAL-DIALOGUE

2. A new Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/NatDialogue

3. And a new Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/NatDialogue

Thank you!