NCDD’s main listserv is a popular resource for practitioners, scholars, activists and students of dialogue and deliberation. As of January 2022, more than 1,000 subscribers use this moderated listserv to network, share information, and discuss key issues facing our field. This discussion list is NCDD members’ primary means of communicating directly with one another. Non-members are welcome to subscribe to this list, though we strongly encourage you to join NCDD.
Please familiarize yourself with the list’s ground rules below before posting to the list. People tend to be very generous with their expertise and know-how on the list, so it’s a great place to ask for practice-related advice. One subscriber posted that she’s “always grateful for the generosity of spirit and sharing within this group …. all the sharing's are like jewels!”
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This 10-page manual teaches the Conversation Café method in detail. This is the simplest process we know and one that has a proven track record to be easily and reliably adopted by hosts who may have no previous experience – as well as by skilled facilitators. Let’s Talk America was a 2004 national dialogue initiative designed to spark and coordinate dialogues of various sizes across the political divide in the U.S. This manual provides a process that honors LTA principles and enables you to take the conversation from small talk to big talk in a way that allows everyone to feel respected, safe and heard. With a little study and preparation, your conversation can create a positive and empowering experience for all. Download the manual here.
Also see the 12-page Let’s Talk America Cafe Hosting Guide, created to help people host large-group LTA dialogues.This 12-page guide blends the Conversation Café and World Café approaches. The World Café’s principles are aligned with Conversation Café, though the form is different. Instead of convening random people at a café, the World Café is an event hosted by a group that wants to think and learn together, often to aid their work. Instead of staying in one conversation for 60 to 90 minutes, at a World Café people move to different tables to stimulate new thoughts. Instead of “no committees will be formed,” the World Café conversations lead to a whole group discussion that surfaces group insights and learnings and new commitments. Let’s Talk America (LTA) was a joint project of the Utne Institute, Conversation Cafe, World Cafe, and NCDD run in/around 2004. The project strove to bring Americans from all points on the political spectrum together in cafes, bookstores, churches and living rooms for lively, open-hearted dialogue to consider questions essential to the future of our democracy. LTA reconnected with the “town hall” meeting spirit that’s the lifeblood of our democracy, providing opportunities for everyone to talk about America’s promise, about what freedom, democracy, unity and equality mean to us — to “we the people.” Let’s Talk America is a meeting ground where we can come together to listen, speak, ask and learn — without being forced to agree, change or bite our tongues. Here is a bare bones version of what’s in the LTA Hosting Manual… How can I start a Let’s Talk America Conversation? Anyone who has the curiosity and courage to find out what other people think about America – especially the current state of our democracy — can start a LTA conversation. Let’s Talk America gives you a way to invite others into a conversation about what our democracy means in our lives. Who do you do it with? Anyone else. You can choose how safe or adventurous you want to be. You can pick a circle of friends, a few neighbors, the person next to you in the grocery line, a church group, a work group or come to any of the open Let’s Talk America events listed on this website. You are always welcome! And if you’d like others to join, you can post your event. LTA especially encourages you to invite others who think differently than you do – others that you don’t usually get to talk to about the questions that matter to you. How many people come? You can have a Let’s Talk America conversation with one other person, with ten …or, if more, we can help you do that. What do you talk about? The best response to a question isn’t an answer, it’s a conversation. Try these conversation starters:
How do you have a Let’s Talk America conversation? Gather these ingredients:
How do I take the conversation from good to great? We’ve all been in conversations that have gotten stuck, confused, boring or even a bit scary. Here are some ideas to help you stay at ease, curious and inviting, and keep the conversation interesting:
Once we’ve talked, then what?
Download this resource here At the 2008 NCDD conference in Austin, from 4:00 to 5:00 pm on the first day, we held a plenary session we called the “D&D Marketplace.” Similar to a poster session, the Marketplace provided a way for 20 or so presenters to introduce their work and their ideas to the majority of conference participants. Here’s how this high-energy session worked…
Conference planners selected people to present during the D&D Marketplace who are passionate about sharing tools, concepts, and success stories. During the session, these presenters struck up conversations with participants who strolled around the room, perusing the wares. No timers or buzzers were involved. Presenters displayed “posters” during the Marketplace (more on this below) and provided handouts for participants. They also prepared succinct “spiels” about their method, topic, case or resource so attendees could quickly learn the basics and follow up with whatever questions they had. During the D&D Marketplace, the round conference tables were removed from the ballroom so people had room to move about. Marketplace presenters were stationed throughout the room, standing at small cocktail table where they displayed information and handouts. Every Marketplace presenter was provided with a sign with their topic printed on it. Those who prepared posters were also provided with tabletop easels. During this 90-minute session, conference participants strolled around the ballroom, looking over posters, picking up resources, and talking with Marketplace presenters. Are you presenting in the Marketplace? Here’s what you’ll need to prepare…
About the Posters… D&D Marketplace presenters were invited to also prepare posters, which were displayed at their Marketplace table and then moved to a prominent location near the main ballroom for the rest of the three-day conference. Posters are a great way to introduce a large percentage of conference participants to your work or your idea. A workshop about a method, resource or program people aren’t familiar with may attract only a few people, while a poster on something new and innovative is likely to be seen by the majority of attendees. Your poster may consist of one large sheet of paper, or you can tack up multiple sheets of smaller paper. Your poster should take people through a process, program, concept or story. The type is large and wording is simple, and diagrams and pictures bring the poster to life. People should be able to quickly discern your message and determine whether they need to read more or move on. Although you will be able to walk people through the story/process/concept depicted on your poster during the marketplace and perhaps at other times as well, the poster should be able to clearly present the concept on its own. Your poster should NOT consist mainly of pasted-up pages of small type! Up to three co-authors can be named for each poster, and up to three people may present the poster during the D&D Marketplace. The following article is one of a series of articles NCDD created in August 2009 in response to the volatile town hall meetings on healthcare held at the time. NCDD members were encouraged to adapt the articles and submit them as op-eds in their local papers. Go to https://ncdd.org/rc/item/3172 to see the other articles and one-page flyer.
-- Town hall meetings being held on healthcare legislation across the country are exploding with emotion, frustration, and conflict. Citizens are showing up in throngs to speak out about health care as well as dozens of other topics, but it seems the louder voices get, the less people are actually heard. The meetings have become a vivid demonstration of what’s missing in American Democracy. So how can officials hold better open meetings with their constituents? The following article is one of a series of articles NCDD created in August 2009 in response to the volatile town hall meetings on healthcare held at the time. NCDD members were encouraged to adapt the articles and submit them as op-eds in their local papers. Go to https://ncdd.org/rc/item/3172 to see the other articles and one-page flyer.
-- Town hall meetings being held on healthcare legislation across the country are exploding with emotion, frustration, and conflict. Citizens are showing up in throngs to speak out about health care as well as dozens of other topics, but it seems the louder voices get, the less people are actually heard. The meetings have become a vivid demonstration of what’s missing in American Democracy. So how can officials hold better open meetings with their constituents? Dozens of effective public engagement techniques have been developed to enable citizens to have authentic, civil, productive discussions at public meetings—even on highly contentious issues. Techniques like National Issues Forums, Study Circles, 21st Century Town Meetings, Open Space Technology, and World Cafe, to name just a few. When done well, these techniques create the space for real dialogue, so everyone who shows up can tell their story and share their perspective on the topic at hand. Dialogue builds trust and enables people to be open to listening to perspectives that are very different from their own. Deliberation is often key to public engagement work as well, enabling people to discuss the consequences, costs, and trade-offs of various policy options, and to work through the emotions and values inherent in tough public decisions. Given a diverse group, good information, a structured format, and time, citizens can grapple with complicated issues and trade-offs across partisan and other divides. Perhaps most importantly, the legislator hosting the meeting must genuinely be open to learning from what his or her constituents think should be done to address the issue at hand. Here are some guidelines for our political leaders:
These ideas and others posted at www.ncdd.org were developed by members of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD). Though it may not seem like it when we watch clips from recent healthcare town halls, the truth is that people can come together to have a positive impact on national policy—not only in spite of our differences, but because working through those differences allows us to make better decisions. Citizens have higher expectations than ever for a government that is of, by and for the people, and it’s high time for an upgrade in the way we do politics. by Sandy Heierbacher Sandy Heierbacher is the co-founder of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), a network of groups and professionals who bring together Americans of all stripes to discuss, decide and act together on today’s toughest issues. She recommends the following resources to those interested in engaging the public in healthcare in more meaningful and substantive ways. NCDD Members Directory: www.ncdd.org/directory Find a facilitator or convening organization in your region. NCDD’s Engagement Streams Framework: www.ncdd.org/streams This free resource helps practitioners, community leaders and elected officials decide which public engagement methods are most appropriate for their circumstances and resources. Core Principles for Public Engagement: www.ncdd.org/pep These seven principles were developed collaboratively by leaders in citizen engagement, and have been endorsed by over 50 organizations. The following article is one of a series of articles NCDD created in August 2009 in response to the volatile town hall meetings on healthcare held at the time. NCDD members were encouraged to adapt the articles and submit them as op-eds in their local papers. Go to https://ncdd.org/rc/item/3172 to see the other articles and one-page flyer.
-- Town hall meetings being held on healthcare legislation across the country are exploding with emotion, frustration, and conflict. Citizens are showing up in throngs to speak out about health care as well as dozens of other topics, but it seems the louder voices get, the less people are actually heard. The meetings have become a vivid demonstration of what’s missing in American Democracy. At the 2008 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, we focused on 5 challenges identified by participants at our past conferences as being vitally important for our field to address. This is one in a series of five posts featuring the final reports from our “challenge leaders.”
Systems Challenge: Making dialogue and deliberation integral to our systems Most civic experiments in the last decade have been temporary organizing efforts that don’t lead to structured long-term changes in the way citizens and the system interact. How can we make D&D values and practices integral to government, schools, organizations, etc. so that our methods of involving people, solving problems, and making decisions happen more predictably and naturally? Challenge Leaders: Will Friedman, Chief Operating Officer of Public Agenda Matt Leighninger, Executive Director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium Report on the Systems Challenge: Although no formal report was submitted, Will and Matt identified the following as common themes that emerged in this challenge area:
At the 2008 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, we focused on 5 challenges identified by participants at our past conferences as being vitally important for our field to address. This is one in a series of five posts featuring the final reports from our “challenge leaders.”
Evaluation Challenge: Demonstrating that dialogue and deliberation works How can we demonstrate to power-holders (public officials, funders, CEOs, etc.) that D&D really works? Evaluation and measurement is a perennial focus of human performance/change interventions. What evaluation tools and related research do we need to develop? Challenge Leaders: John Gastil, Communications Professor at the University of Washington Janette Hartz-Karp, Professor at Curtin Univ. Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute The most poignant reflection of where the field of deliberative democracy stands in relation to evaluation is that despite this being a specific ‘challenge’ area, there was only one session in the NCDD Conference aimed specifically at evaluation – ‘Evaluating Dialogue and Deliberation: What are we Learning?’ by Miriam Wyman, Jacquie Dale and Natasha Manji. This deficit of specific sessions in evaluation at the NCDD Conference offerings is all the more surprising since as learners, practitioners, public and elected officials and researchers, we all grapple with this issue with regular monotony, knowing that it is pivotal to our practice. Suffice to say, this challenge is so daunting that few choose to face it head-on. Wyman et al. made this observation when they quoted the cautionary words of the OECD (from a 2006 report): “There is a striking imbalance between time, money and energy that governments in OECD countries invest in engaging citizens and civil society in public decision-making and the amount of attention they pay to evaluating the effectiveness and impact of such efforts.” The conversations during the Conference appeared to weave into two main streams: the varied reasons people have for doing evaluations and the diverse approaches to evaluation. A. Reasons for Evaluating The first conversation stream was one of convergence or more accurately, several streams proceeding quietly in tandem. This conversation eddied around the reasons different practitioners have for conducting evaluations. These included: “External” reasons oriented toward outside perceptions:
“Internal” reasons more focused on making the process work or the practitioner’s drive for self-critique:
B. How to Evaluate The second conversation stream at the Conference – how we should evaluate – was more divergent, reflecting some of the divides in values and practices between participants. On the one hand there was a loud and clear stream that stated if we want to link citizens’ voices with governance/decision making, we need to use measures that have credibility with policy/decision-makers. Such measures would include instruments such as surveys, interviews and cost benefit analysis that applied quantitative, statistical methods, and to a lesser extent, qualitative analyses, that could claim independence and research rigor. On the other hand, there was another stream that questioned the assumptions underlying these more status quo instruments and their basis in linear thinking. This stream inquired, Are we measuring what matters when we use more conventional tools? For example, did the dialogue and deliberation result in:
From these questions, at least three perspectives emerged:
An ecumenical approach to evaluation may keep peace in the NCDD community, but one of the challenges raised in the Wyman et al. session was the lack of standard indicators for comparability. What good are our evaluation tools if they differ so much from one context to another? How then could we compare the efficacy of different approaches to public involvement? Final Reflections Along with the lack of standard indicators, other barriers to evaluation also persist, as identified in the Wyman et al. session:
Wyman et al commenced their session with the seemingly obvious but often neglected proposition that evaluation plans need to be built into the design of processes. This was demonstrated in their Canadian preventative health care example on the potential pandemic of influenza, where there was a conscious decision to integrate evaluation from the outset. The process they outlined was as follows: Any evaluation should start with early agreement on areas of inquiry. This should be followed by deciding the kinds of information that would support these areas of inquiry, the performance indicators; then the tools most suited; and finally the questions to be asked given the context. A key learning from the pandemic initiative they examined was “In a nutshell, start at the beginning and hang in until well after the end, if there even is an end (because the learning is ideally never ending).” In terms of NCDD, we clearly need to find opportunities to share more D & D evaluation stories to increase our learning, and in so doing, increase the strength and resilience of our dialogue and deliberation community. At the 2008 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, we focused on 5 challenges identified by participants at our past conferences as being vitally important for our field to address. Our leader for the “Framing Challenge” was Jacob Hess, then-Ph.D. Candidate in Clinical-Community Psychology at the University of Illinois. Jacob wrote up an in-depth report on what was discussed at the conference in this challenge area, as well as his own reflections as a social conservative who is committed to dialogue. Download the 2008 Framing Challenge Report (Word doc). Framing Challenge: Framing this work in an accessible way How can we “frame” (write, talk about, and present) D&D in a more accessible and compelling way, so that people of all income levels, educational levels, and political perspectives are drawn to this work? How can we better describe the features and benefits of D&D and equip our members to effectively deliver that message? Addressing this challenge may contribute greatly to other challenges. Challenge Leader: Jacob Hess, then-Ph.D. Candidate in Clinical-Community Psychology at the University of Illinois Here is a taste of Jacob’s thoughtful report: As a social conservative who has found a home in the dialogue community, I was invited to be “point person” for this challenge at the 2008 Austin Conference. The different ways we talk about, portray and frame dialogue can obviously have major differences in whether diverse groups feel comfortable participating in D&D venues (including our coalition). Of course, conservatives are only one example of a group for whom this challenge matters; others who may struggle with our prevailing frameworks include young people, those without the privilege of education, minority ethnic communities, etc. As I learned myself, even progressive people may be “turned off” from a particular framing. After becoming involved in dialogue, I would share what I was learning with classmates and professors during our “diversity seminar.” When hearing about dialogue framed from their white, male, conservatively religious classmate, several of my classmates decided that dialogue must really be a conservative thing—i.e., an attempt to placate, muffle or distract from activism and thereby indirectly reinforce the status quo (a valid concern!). Ultimately, however, in each case I believe these fears are less inherent to dialogue or deliberation itself than to a particular framing of the same. Does dialogue inherently serve either a radical or status quo agenda? Does it require someone to either believe or disbelieve in truth? Does it implicitly cater to one ethnic community or another—one age group above another—one gender or another? I think not. Having said this, little cues in our language and framing may inadvertently communicate otherwise. . . After being identified by the NCDD community (alongside 4 other key challenges), the articulation of this challenge was explored and elaborated in an online discussion of members of NCDD; ultimately, the challenge came to read: “Articulating the importance of this work to those beyond our immediate community (making D&D compelling to people of all income levels, educations levels, political perspectives, etc.) — and helping equip members of the D&D community to talk about this work in an accessible and effective way.” This “challenge #2” is intended to draw our collective attention to how we can make dialogue and deliberation more accessible to more communities—not necessarily by radically altering the practice itself, but my making sure the packaging, the framing and presentation doesn’t inadvertently scare them away. As reframed by Steven Fearing, the “core question” for this challenge becomes: “How can we frame (speak of) this work in a more accessible and compelling way, so that people of income levels, educational levels, and political perspectives are drawn to D&D?” At the 2008 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, we focused on 5 challenges identified by participants at our past conferences as being vitally important for our field to address. This is one in a series of five posts featuring the final reports from our “challenge leaders.”
Inclusion Challenge: Walking our talk in terms of bias and inclusion What are the most critical issues of inclusion and bias right now in the D&D community and how do we address them? What are the most critical issues related to bias, inclusion, and oppression in the world at large and how can we most effectively address these issues through the use of dialogue and deliberation methods? Challenge Leader: Leanne Nurse, Program Analyst for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Did you ever wonder how Citizens Juries are different from Deliberative Polling? When should you use World Café, rather than Open Space? Or are Charrettes what's called for? First developed in 2005, NCDD’s Engagement Streams Framework (web version) helps people navigate the range of dialogue and deliberation approaches available to them, and make design choices that best fit their circumstance and resources. No method works in all situations, yet too often people become overly attached to the first D&D process they learn about -- and end up with less-than-satisfying results. Although it was designed for beginners to these processes, the tool also helps more seasoned practitioners understand where their own experience resides on the continuum, and which methods they may want to learn more about depending on the needs of their communities or clients. The framework presents two charts:
The full 8-page Engagement Streams Framework (.pdf) should be printed in color on 8.5 x 11 paper, front-and-back (so the charts line up across two pages). Download the print version of the doc. Last updated August 2014.
Here are a few ways people are using the framework:“The Engagement Streams Framework is a critical tool for us at the CPD as we initially evaluate potential projects for deliberative ripeness, and then again when we get down to process design. It succinctly introduces and organizes the diverse world of D&D in a very practical way. It’s simple enough for beginners to not get overwhelmed, but rich enough for more experienced practitioners to return to again and again.”
-Martín Carcasson, Colorado State University Center for Public Deliberation “I’ve found NCDD’s Engagement Streams Framework to be a very valuable tool when conducting workshops with local government staff and officials on how to improve public engagement practices. It not only helps give the big picture of what methods make sense to use when, but provides enough detail so that people can begin thinking about how they could apply these methods in their local engagement efforts.” -Diane Miller, Civic Collaboration “I love the Engagement Streams as a jumping off point to understanding what features you need in a deliberative process. It’s one of the best breakdowns I’ve seen for explaining the progression of complexity in implementation of the deliberative process. I trust NCDD, which is regularly looking at ALL the methods in play, to do a sound analysis as opposed to people who might be seated in a particular practice or approach. This kind of logical analysis from the community itself is invaluable for technologists to build applications that effectively support dialogue and deliberation.” - Ele Munjeli, Web Developer “When I was working on my report on the civic engagement landscape in Chicago, I had no idea how to organize the thousands of diverse pieces of information I’d collected into a coherent narrative. As I thought through options, the information naturally seemed to cluster into four areas, strikingly reminiscent of the four NCDD Engagement Streams. At first, I hesitated using that framework, designed to categorize methods, to segment a city’s organizations and projects. Surprisingly though, it has proven the single most valuable tool in helping Chicagoans understand the local D&D field.” - Janice Thomson, Stakeholder Engagement Consultant “I use the framework in both leadership training and traditional teaching environments. I found it very helpful for adults taking leadership courses who often had little experience with dialogue, as the framework helped them “get it” and differentiates dialogue from other processes. It also quickly gave them several models of dialogue, so they understood that there are many ways to approach it. With professors and students who are engaged in “Difficult Dialogues” classes at UT Austin, focusing on challenging topics such as immigration, science and religion, and HIV, the framework helps them understand what I mean when I say “Dialogue is NOT your usual classroom discussion” and gives them a useful context for learning how to talk about these controversial topics in a meaningful and productive way.” - Juli Fellows, Organizational Consultant and Trainer “We built the Streams of Engagement framework into our online Issue Guide Exchange. When someone uploads a guide to the tool we give them the option of identifying which streams of practice the guide addresses. Then, when someone is searching for guides, the streams of practice provide them with another way to figure out which guides will best meet their needs.” - Carrie Boron, formerly of Everyday Democracy “I just discovered the framework and am using it in a group facilitation workshop I’m teaching to AmeriCorps interns. My intent is to get them to think about what type of facilitation they are attempting and what outcomes they are looking for, and then look at what methods make the most sense, given the desired outcomes.” - Marty Jacobs, Systems In Sync “I’ve used the engagement streams cartoon mostly, since it’s a great tool for introducing people to the ideas of different uses for the methods. I’ve used it and prepared it for Carolyn [Lukensmeyer] to use at presentations for United Way leadership, state elected officials, and college classrooms.” - Susanna Haas Lyons, formerly of AmericaSpeaks Web Version (373KB) Print Version (3.5 MB) We also recommend you download NCDD's Resource Guide on Public Engagement which features the engagement streams in full. The third NCDD conference (we feel, the best of the three!) took place in San Francisco, California in August 2006. The conference was designed to give us all a better sense of who we are as a community of practice, field, and/or movement, and provide us with a stronger sense of where we should go from here if we want to truly have the impact we believe we could and should have on the world.
By the 2006 NCDD Conference Planning Team (design and layout by NCDD's Creative Director, Andy Fluke) National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) (2006) Download this resource Collaborative Governance in Local Government: Choosing Practice Models and Assessing Experience12/24/2008 This workshop at NCDD’s 2006 conference addressed how civic engagement practitioners can assist local governments in thinking systematically about and choosing among the various forms of civic engagement in public decision-making, and here is where you can find all five handouts/presentations that from this popular session.
In the workshop, Terry Amsler presented a forthcoming Collaborative Governance Initiative publication on Strategic Civic Engagement addressing important questions for local government officials to consider in selecting, designing, implementing, and sustaining civic engagement processes. Beyond the Vocal Few: Ideas To Encourage Broader Public Participation In Your Community This 2-page document offers suggestions for achieving better representation in public involvement and civic engagement efforts that were compiled by the Institute for Local Government’s Collaborative Governance Initiative. Ten Public Involvement “Hot Spots” While most public involvement strategies offer positive results for all, some efforts are not as effective as sponsors and participants would like. Outlined in this two-page document from the Institute for Local Government are a few of the ‘hot spots’ where extra attention may mean the difference between success and failure. Lisa Blomgren Bingham presented a research paper examining the work of AmericaSpeaks in three cities – Cincinnati, Chicago, and Charlotte. In interviews with local and regional government officials, researchers examined questions of entry and contracting, impact of the process on public policy, and sustainability or institutionalization of civic engagement processes. Assessing Deliberation: Setting the Agenda, Implementing Policy, and Outcomes This 33-page research report presented at NCDD’s 2006 conference examines AmericaSpeaks’ 21st Century Town Meeting – one important model for facilitating citizen participation through large scale (100-5,000) dialogue in which citizens come together, listen to each other in a public arena, and make decisions as a collective community. Many researchers ask why there is a gap between scholarship and practice in the field of deliberation; this study responds to the call for empirical testing by examining the AmericaSpeaks model of a 21st Town Meeting. Specifically, this study examines agenda setting, implementation, and outcomes in the context of three different cities where the Town Hall Meetings occurred. You can also download the 20-slide PowerPoint presentation used to introduce this research project. Malka Kopell presented Community Focus’s report on participatory budgeting in Menlo Park, Your City/Your Decision: Phase II Report on Community Workshop Results, describing a year-long process to involve the community in decisions about a sustainable funding strategy for city-provided services. Your City/Your Decision: Citizen-Based Budgeting in Menlo Park, CA 5-page PowerPoint document created by Malka Kopell. Here are the five great handouts from “The Wisdom Council: A Tool for Empowering 'We the People'” – facilitated by Jim Rough and Deanna Martin at the 2006 NCDD Conference in San Francisco. Here is the full workshop description: Imagine all of citizens in your community talking together creatively and collaboratively about the big, important issues. Convening this kind of conversation holds the promise of raising our collective intelligence, consciousness and wisdom on issues like healthcare, traffic, our educational system, and violence. The Wisdom Council is a new democratic tool that promises a grassroots way to develop near-unanimous strategies and the will to implement them on the issues that matter to you and your neighbors. It offers the prospect of engaging all in one, heartfelt, creative conversation that is ongoing, moving people beyond partisanship to serving the public interest. There have been a number of successful experiments with the "Wisdom Council" in cities, schools, among homeless people and in various organizations. Come hear about the growing number of experiments that demonstrate this new process really works – like in the Department of Agriculture of Washington State, at Salmon Bay Elementary School in Seattle, and at a local food co-op. Join us for an introduction to the process and learn how you might implement a Wisdom Council in your community. The Handouts:
(2006) This very meaty 151-page final report to the Hewlett Foundation by Elena Fagotto and Archon Fung includes detailed case studies on West Virginia’s National Issues Forums, Public Deliberation in South Dakota, Public Deliberation in Hawai’i, and Connecticut’s Community Conversations about Education. Elena Fagotto presented a workshop on her research at NCDD’s 2006 conference called “Embedded Deliberation: Moving from Deliberation to Action.” She decided to share the report with the NCDD community since many of her workshop participants requested it.
NCDD 2006 session description for “Embedded Deliberation: Moving from Deliberation to Action” In this session, Elena Fagotto will present findings from an ongoing research project based at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government investigating the connections between embedded deliberation and action. She will first introduce the concept of embedded deliberation, and how embeddedness can lead to action. We will also analyze different arenas in which deliberation can become embedded – from non-profit organizations, to academia and state legislatures. We will then examine the role of deliberative entrepreneurs, and areas in which public deliberation can promote public action and policy change. Throughout the presentation, fieldwork evidence will be used to support the theory and provide concrete examples for the audience. There will also be opportunities for participants to engage by reflecting on new arenas for embedding deliberation, or examples of action not contemplated in our findings. This workshop offers new ideas for those interested in exploring opportunities to promote action through public deliberation. -- Also download Elena’s 30-slide PowerPoint presentation for the workshop, entitled Public Deliberation and Action: Key Findings. The PowerPoint provides a nice overview of the research results and you may find it easier to digest. Final Report for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, submitted by the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. April 14 (2006) Download this resource here |
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