We are excited to announce new job and internship opportunities with NCDD friends! The Participatory Budgeting Project is hiring for a full-time Advocacy Manager, and the Bridge Alliance has several Spring 2023 Internship openings. Read the position highlights and find the links in the post below. Let us know if your organization is hiring by emailing positions to NCDD Comms Coordinator, Keiva Hummel, at keiva@ncdd.org; or sending to our Making-A-Living jobs listserv. Good luck to all applicants!

Register to join the upcoming ​Empathy Café on conflict transformation, mediation, peacebuilding, and security, this coming Saturday, January 14th from 1-3pm Eastern, 10am-12pm Pacific. Co-hosted by Conflict Transformation, Peacebuilding and Security (CoPeSe); Center for Building a Culture of Empathy; Peace Alliance; Listen First Project; and NCDD. Learn more below and sign up to join the conversation at the registration form linked here.

Empathy Café: Share mediation and peacebuilding challenges you are working on.

A series of Empathy Cafes for individuals, bridge-building community, and peacemaking organizations seeking to heal a divided world through the power of mutual listening, mediation, empathy and dialogue. Register to join this participatory and experiential Empathy Café to dialogue about: "Sharing conflicts, mediations and peacebuilding challenges you are working on. Or talk about whatever is alive for you." We will divide into small groups of 4 to 6 and use the Empathy Circle process for the dialogue. 

As we pass the second year marker of the January 6th United States Capitol attack and with the recent multi-round challenges to selecting the current U.S. House Speaker, how do we continue to move forward as a nation in pursuit of strengthening our democracy?

This piece written by NCDDer Dr. Neil Wollman offers tangible options to addressing the polarization and threats to our democracy. We invite you to read the article below and let us know your thoughts in the comments section. 

What to do about polarization, violence, and threats to democracy?
Written by: Dr. Neil Wollman

​In the face of growing polarization, strife, threats and actual violence, and even calls for civil war, can we find a means to restore stability to our nation, given the possible dire consequences ahead if we stay on this course? For “we the people” find ourselves situated before two political pathways, each reflective of an entirely different vision for America. But, even with my evident stand on one of the two pathways, I feel it is time to work toward civility and peace.

As President Biden noted in his recent speeches, he believes that authoritarian and, yes, even semi-fascist forces are at play that threaten the very bedrock upon which our nation was built by the founding fathers. As elucidated by political philosopher Furio Cerutti and others, characteristics of these systems may include a strong centralized power/leader with a subordinate political elite, flaunting of the rule of law, weakening separation of powers, interfering in the democratic voting process, a far-right political leaning, use of violence when necessary to maintain control, pursuit of racial purity, general feelings of community decline and victimhood in the populace, and ultra-nationalism. It is hard to generalize across millions of people, but for more than a small minority, much of this mirrors the ideology, rhetoric, and behavior of former President Trump or his followers --even if in a less extreme form. In contrast, there is a significant bloc of the electorate who feel we must take the opposite approach to this agenda.

However, as laid out by Peter Baker and Blake Hounshell, an equal number (69%) of Democrats and Republicans agree that democracy is “in danger of collapse,” each blaming Trump or Biden, respectively. They have differing views on what constitutes such things as freedom and election integrity. In typical “enemy image” fashion, each side sees itself as the good and the other as the bad, or even the evil.

Is there any hope of finding common ground, where each side feels heard?

The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) staff and Board of Directors send you our wishes for a safe and happy holiday season and our sincerest thanks for your continued participation and support. 

2022 was an exciting year for NCDD, as we celebrate 20 years as a network of innovators, working to help communities across the world discuss, decide, and take action together. It has been a time for reflection and for planning, but also for action. In 2022 we held our second Summer Learning Springboard, bringing people across the world together for skill building and learning exchange sessions. We hosted numerous webinars featuring network members and their work. We worked with other networks to help bring the skills of dialogue and deliberation to their members, including the American Library Association and the Association for Science and Technology Centers (a new NCDD Member Organization in 2022).

Most importantly, we began planning for big things in 2023. First and foremost, we begun planning the return of our signature event, the National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, which will be held October 13-15, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with this event, we plan to increase of member and network engagement, including more regular webinars, new content on the blog and resource center, and rolling out our new member directory. We'll also host conversations about what comes next for the field, in anticipation of our conference, where we always look to identify new innovations and avenues. 

Last week NCDD held our December webinar, featuring EnCiv and their "Undebates" tool.

EnCiv is a nonpartisan organization looking to challenge sensationalism and polarization in civic discourse by offering social technologies that power widespread, cross-partisan discussion and better decision making. In this webinar, David Fridley and Adolf Gundersen provided an overview of their latest tool, Undebates, and talked about other discussion processes where a platform of this sort could be helpful, including their Unroundtable tool. Thank you to everyone who joined us and shared your questions and feedback!

Check out the webinar recording here.  

EnCiv - Undebates for Organizations
For organizations that are run democratically, getting members to participate - meaning vote, is a challenge.  They are forced to compete for people's attention from all the usual sources - social media, mass media, even streaming media.  EnCiv allows organizations to create "Undebates" for their elections.  It automates the process recording video Q&A with candidates and assembling it into an interactive viewer for voters to review on their own schedule and quickly decide, and it can be shared on social media, and embedded on a website.  The same process can also be used to present differing views on ballot measures. For now, you are able to create an account and try it out for free. 

Learn more about EnCiv and the Undebates tool at www.enciv.org/undebates.

We have several job opportunities to lift up to the NCDD network! The Interactivity Foundation is hiring for a full-time Visiting Fellow and the Sustained Dialogue Institute is seeking a Program Director (see below for both). The Participatory Budgeting Project has several opportunities available - view these here. Don't forget to check out the "Democracy Jobs" board too - linked here. Best of luck to those who apply!

The Interactivity Foundation (IF) announces an opening for a full-time position of Visiting Fellow. This position is for an original term of two years, with the possibility of renewal or transition to a permanent position. This is a hybrid position, largely remote with the possibility of some in-person activities. Learn more about the position and how to apply here: https://www.interactivityfoundation.org/were-hiring/

The Interactivity Foundation is a small nonprofit operating foundation whose mission is to strengthen our democracy through the use of a small-group discussion process to explore diverse perspectives and generate an expanding set of divergent possibilities for addressing complex areas of concern. The Visiting Fellow will collaborate on, and eventually lead, activities in IF’s core focal areas of 1) Sustained Dialogue Projects, 2) Community Conversations, and 3) Education.

We recognize that there is no one single path to being successful in this position, so we are open and committed to looking at candidates who have traveled different pathways. Successful candidates will show:

• Ability to facilitate collaborative small-group discussions on complex topics
• Commitment to advancing robust citizen-centered democracy via collaborative and generative discussions
• Curiosity about, and interest in, exploring a wide range of topics of societal concern
• Mindsets of being creative and disciplined, independent and collaborative, exploratory and critically-minded, focused and expansive
• Demonstration of relevant skills through education or practical work experiences

 
The Interactivity Foundation views diversity as foundational to democracy and to our mission to strengthen democracy through inclusive and robust civic discourse. IF is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to creating and sustaining an inclusive environment for all employees. For full consideration, please apply by January 29, 2023.

Two weeks ago, NCDD celebrated 20 years of connecting people who care about the way we talk with one another with an exciting and lively event. Thank you to everyone who joined us for this hybrid event, and to the many of our network members who shared remarks for the event and/or contributed a photo for our 20th Anniversary photo project!

If you were not able to join us live, we have now uploaded the video of the event here. Please check it out, as it captures much of this amazing network over the last 20 years, and talks about what we can continue to work on together. Plus, you can check out the announcement we made about our next national conference!

NCDD is excited to announce our next webinar featuring NCDD Member Org EnCiv! Join us on Tuesday, December 13th from 1-2pm Eastern/10-11am Pacific for this FREE webinar sharing more about the development of EnCiv's "Undebates" tool.

EnCiv is a nonpartisan organization looking to challenge sensationalism and polarization in civic discourse by offering social technologies that power widespread, cross-partisan discussion and better decision making. In this webinar, we'll be joined by David Fridley and Adolf Gundersen who will provide us with an overview of their latest tool, Undebates, and talk with us about other discussion processes where a platform of this sort could be helpful. He'll also discuss one such effort, called the Unroundtable. 

Register today to join us!

EnCiv - Undebates for Organizations
For organizations that are run democratically, getting members to participate - meaning vote, is a challenge.  They are forced to compete for people's attention from all the usual sources - social media, mass media, even streaming media.   EnCiv will demo a new tool that allows organizations to create "Undebates" for their elections.  It automates the process recording video Q&A with candidates and assembling it into an interactive viewer for voters to review on their own schedule and quickly decide, and it can be shared on social media, and embedded on a website.  The same process can also be used to present differing views on ballot measures.

For now, you are able to create an account and try it out for free. In this webinar we are also looking to brainstorm other forms of discussion processes to adapt this to, including what we call an "Unroundtable."  The challenge is to create connection between people at large scale when they can't all be in the same place at the same time.

Learn more about EnCiv and the Undebates tool at www.enciv.org/undebates.