Save the Date: The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation's 2027 National Conference Comes to Chicago

​NCDD has announced NCDD2027, the 10th National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, taking place May 18–20, 2027, with pre-conference events on May 17, at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois. Building on more than two decades of convening the field, the conference is being intentionally designed not just to exchange ideas but to strengthen the connective infrastructure linking practitioners, organizations, and communities across sectors. Attendees will have opportunities to learn emerging practices, cultivate relationships, and spark new collaborations, with the gathering co-created alongside local Chicago leaders and a growing group of Conference Partners. For the NCDD network and the broader civic engagement field, NCDD2027 offers a strategic moment to deepen relationships and build collective capacity to meet today's complex democratic challenges.

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Save the date: NCDD2027, the 10th National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, is officially on the horizon. The main conference runs May 18–20, 2027, with pre-conference events on May 17, at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago. Registration is not yet open, but the community can begin planning now and can shape the gathering in the meantime. At a time when many communities are navigating polarization and institutional strain, NCDD is convening practitioners, leaders, researchers, students, and changemakers from across the field and beyond for three days grounded in a simple premise: the challenges facing our society cannot be solved by any one organization alone.

For more than two decades, NCDD conferences have created spaces where relationships deepen, ideas cross-pollinate, and new collaborations emerge. NCDD2027 builds on that legacy with a deliberate shift in emphasis. Rather than simply bringing people together to learn from one another, the conference is designed to strengthen the connective infrastructure that helps the broader ecosystem share knowledge, build partnerships, and act collectively. The program is organized around four experiences: learning emerging practices and tools, connecting through networking and cross-sector conversations, collaborating in partner-led and participant-driven sessions, and carrying forward stronger relationships and renewed momentum. In keeping with NCDD's approach, the conference is being co-created in partnership with Chicago-area practitioners and leaders, along with a growing group of Conference Partners that includes The Rippel Foundation.

​The invitation is broad. NCDD2027 welcomes anyone whose work helps people build relationships, navigate differences, make thoughtful decisions, solve problems, or collaborate across divides, whether or not they identify as a dialogue and deliberation practitioner. Expected attendees include facilitators, mediators, community organizers, public servants, educators, researchers, journalists, and philanthropic and nonprofit leaders, among others. Community members can help shape the event well before registration opens by completing NCDD's two-minute Community Input Survey to suggest themes, session topics, and ways to participate as a presenter, volunteer, exhibitor, or sponsor. Organizations interested in helping co-create the conference can explore becoming a Conference Partner. To learn more, save the date, and stay current as registration and programming are announced, visit https://www.ncdd.org/ncdd2027.html.

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