NCDD Member, Lori Britt, was featured on Brand Story a podcast celebrating the stories of real people who are making an impact on brands, business, and the world around them. Each episode features guests from a variety of backgrounds who bring their own unique perspectives to the conversation.

Brand Story is created and produced by Gravity Group and is hosted by Gravity Group President, Steve Gilman.

Lori Britt is the President of the Board of Directors of NCDD along with a Professor of Communication and Co-Director of  at James Madison University. As a long-time communication instructor, Lori has taught various courses on group and organizational communication with a focus on community dialogue and deliberation. She is also Co-Director of JMU’s Institute for Constructive Advocacy and Dialogue (ICAD). This episode discusses the importance of intentional conversations with the host, Steve Gilman. Britt's episode is titled Dialogue & Deliberation. ​

From the episode description: 
There’s a difference between communicating with someone and having an intentional conversation. Understanding the way you talk and how that impacts the way you think is important in helping to break down barriers and engage in civic conversations with others. It’s the heart of what Lori teaches and models for others — figuring out the why.

It’s become even more important now to be able to engage with others of differing opinions without breaking down. Dialogue and deliberation are processes that can help us all understand our own way of thinking and identify the constraints we may not know exist. As Lori would say, it’s simple but complex work.

In this episode, Lori challenges us to identify our personal schema and how our thinking has been conditioned. She identifies common challenges that are apparent in conversations and walks us through ways to expand our way of thinking. Whether you’re speaking to an individual or working as a group, her insights will prove valuable in helping shape your next conversation.

20 years ago this month, NCDD was founded 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. Without you, our journey would never have been possible. Thank you for nurturing us and helping us grow into a network of innovators who bring people together across divides to discuss, decide, and take action together effectively on today’s toughest issues.

​We continue to exist to support the growing “dialogue and deliberation community” — a broadly-defined diverse community of practice 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. Our dialogue and deliberation practices have matured over those 20 years. We look forward to building upon those foundations. As part of this effort the NCDD board of directors has taken time to refine NCDD’s mission and values to recommit ourselves to our purpose:

Executive Director, Courtney Breese was recently featured on the Co-creating Peace Podcast, hosted by NCDD Member Kathleen Oweegon. The Co-creating Peace episode "Let's Talk About It" (episode 66) is part of a series about conscious communication and conflict transformation.  From the episode description:

The difficulties we have with one another are very often the result of lack of insight and understanding. In the absence of information we make assumptions about one another – assumptions that often lead to conflict.

There is a cure for this phenomenon, and that is dialogue – sitting down with one another to have conversations that help us to learn about one another at deeper levels. When we put aside our assumptions, our biases, and the fears on which those are often based, and enter into dialogue with not only a willingness, but a desire, to learn about others and the way they experience and see the world, and then deliberate together to arrive at paths forward that can better meet the needs of all, we begin to build bridges of peace which can one day span the world.

NCDD is excited to announce our continued partnership with the American Library Association to support library workers through the Libraries Transforming Communities project. This latest effort will provide small and rural libraries with grants to facilitate community conversations which will identify services or facility improvements the library can take on to better address accessibility needs in their communities. 

NCDD will support grantees by providing materials and guidance for facilitating accessible community conversations. Over the next three years of this initiative, NCDD will provide coaching to libraries and support to the project. NCDD will be reaching out to our network to help support this effort with co-creation of facilitation materials which identify best practices and models for accessible conversations. 

Starting this November, ALA will begin accepting applications for the grants, which will be distributed in several rounds over the next three years. Grants will range from $10,000 to $20,000. Libraries will identify the audience they are hoping to reach (e.g., homebound seniors, children with autism, Deaf community members) and facilitate a community conversation with the impacted populations.  Grantees will then use the funds to create services or improve their facilities based on the needs identified by their audience.

Please share this opportunity with your local library! Have you designed and/or facilitated accessible conversations? Let NCDD know about it! Email courtney@ncdd.org to share your experience and explore whether you might be able to help support the libraries in this next endeavor.

This initiative is funded through a private grant to ALA. Review the recent ALA press release here. 

​The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) staff and Board of Directors send you our wishes for a safe and happy holiday season. 

As we wrap up 2021, it’s safe to say the year was another challenging one for engagement practitioners, forcing us to continue to think outside the box and look for new ways of bringing people together in community. That’s led to many continued innovations that will carry us forward into 2022, which is already looking to be a year of hybrid engagement (again). NCDD will continue to be a space for this community as you navigate the work to be done. It is also a space for connection, and NCDD will start the year off with some new offerings to help create more of that space. 

As we look back on the year that was 2021, NCDD continued to carry out our mission to bring together and support people, organizations, and resources in ways that expand the power of discussion to benefit society, with a few accomplishments we are particularly proud of:

• Our first Summer Learning Springboard took place in July 2021, bringing together more than 125 people over the course of a week in various workshops, training, and networking events. We plan to host another Springboard in 2022!
• We continued our long-standing partnership with the American Library Association and in 2021 offered facilitation training and coaching to small and rural libraries who were planning to engage their communities in conversation for the first time. This built upon the previously developed facilitation e-course and guide which are available to all.
• We launched a new www.ncdd.org with a new fresh look and the same resources and information you’ve come to expect from NCDD. 

As you consider final gifts for the year, we ask you to consider NCDD. Your gifts go directly to support NCDD staff in continuing to offer programming, keeping the website up to date, and exploring new collaborations to support the dialogue & deliberation community.