On January 16, 2013, President Obama called for a “national conversation to increase understanding about mental health,” and directed Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services and Secretary Arne Duncan of the U.S. Dept of Education to launch a National Dialogue on Mental Health. The national dialogue was officially launched by Obama on June 3rd at the White House.

As you may know from my persistent emails and tweets, NCDD is involved in an exciting initiative called Creating Community Solutions, which is a key part of the national dialogue.

For the past several months, I’ve been working closely with some great colleagues to help ensure that our community plays an important role in this effort…

Our team, led by the National Institute for Civil Discourse at the University of Arizona, includes AmericaSpeaks, Everyday Democracy, the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, The National Issues Forums Institute and the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation, working in concert with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The national dialogue will take place through…

1. Community conversations. Several cities (including Albuquerque, Sacramento, Birmingham, Kansas City, Akron, and Washington, DC) will host structured conversations facilitated members of the Creating Community Solutions team — and supported by those cities’ mayors — that will result in community-specific action plans. Other communities across the country may join in by utilizing SAMHSA’s Toolkit for Community Conversations About Mental Health to help host their own conversations. And anyone interested in joining the dialogue can participate at TheCivicCommons.com/mentalhealth.
2. Public/private partnership commitments. National associations of schools, faith based groups, medical providers, and others are being asked to commit to including some form of mental health awareness or discussion in their upcoming activities. Combined with the facilitated conversations happening in communities across the country, this will help ensure the dialogue has nationwide reach.
3. Social and online media — including the launch of MentalHealth.gov and Storify.com/MentalHealthGov.

See the June 3rd press release from Creating Community Solutions for more details.

Already, dozens of NCDD members have stepped forward as partners, hosts, facilitators, and supporters of what our team believes will be a unique opportunity to not only make an impact on a critically important public issue, but to demonstrate to those we usually can’t reach that there IS a better way to engage communities on complex issues. This is also a unique learning opportunity for NCDD, and for all of us, to see what we can accomplish when we combine forces.

I would love to see all of you involved in this initiative!  Check out the map on the homepage of the website to see if a dialogue is already being planned near you. If you are interested in hosting a dialogue or getting involved in any other capacity, sign up at www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org and fill out the contact form here. If you are already involved, add a comment here to let other NCDDers know what you’ll be contributing.

Resources will also be available to launch a dialogue in your community at www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org/resources. More information will be posted on Facebook and Twitter.

And join us in the online dialogue at www.theciviccommons.com/mentalhealth — where we’ve set the stage for online dialogue with a group of extraordinary NCDD members volunteering as moderators!

The NBCUniversal Foundation is accepting applications from nonprofits working to address emerging and ongoing community challenges.

Through its annual 21st Century Solutions initiative, the foundation will award thirty grants totaling $1.2 million for initiatives in the areas of civic engagement, education, environment, jobs and economic empowerment, media arts, and technology!

To be eligible, organizations must be tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and serve populations in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas-Fort Worth, the San Francisco Bay Area, Miami-Fort Lauderdale, San Diego, Washington, D.C., or Connecticut.

See the NBCU Foundation website for eligibility and application guidelines. (more…)

Reposted from the Campaign for Stronger Democracy’s blog, this post was written by Brandon Lee…

Yesterday, word broke that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been tracking the phone and internet records of virtually all Americans, and that they ordered companies from which they received information to keep this sharing a secret. (Read the original, exclusive piece from the Guardian here).

I was having a conversation with a couple of friends yesterday about this issue, coming from very different points of view. One thought that the NSA collecting information on everyone was intrusive, he had no expectation of privacy from the government in the first place and therefore wasn’t mad about it in the slightest. The other was outraged over the government’s actions and thought that it was an extreme intrusion into personal privacy. Their arguments were a bit more nuanced than that, but we’re not going to discuss national security and transparency policy at this very moment. (more…)

We were intrigued by this recent post from the Governance Lab @ NYU summarizing an essay by Prof. Douglas Shuler (one of our members) on the possibilities and challenges of building a global civic infrastructure.  While the question of how we can build national civic infrastructure has been on our minds for a long time here at NCDD, imagining a global civic infrastructure is truly a daunting task, and this post captured some of the key issues we face in getting from where we are today where we want to be tomorrow.  Read about it below or check out the original post here.

An essay in this month’s ACM Interactions by Douglas Shuler, author of Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (MIT Press, 2008) focuses on key challenges for interaction designers to establish a global civic engagement platform which he labels a “World Citizen Parliament.”  The core challenge and  question that informs Prof. Shuler’s essay:

“Like it or not, the ability to deliberate might be the key to humankind’s continuing existence. Sometimes people can’t or won’t reason together and the problems they could address together (such as climate change) become worse. Wars, even, can be seen as the result of failed or thwarted deliberations. In a large sense, the lack of widespread and meaningful deliberation in society reveals a severely underdeveloped resource: humankind’s civic intelligence. This proposal is a call for action in the face of unprecedented opportunity and historical necessity. It is intended to help address the question that needs to be asked: Will we be smart enough soon enough?”

The response he proposes is the creation of a global civic infrastructure  comprising “a non-centralized, heterogeneous, loosely-linked network of people, online and offline resources, institutions, deliberative and other collaborative systems”.  To establish such an infrastructure, Doug Shuler sees the need to overcome seven challenges: (more…)

We are excited to invite you all to join us for a free conference call being hosted by our partners at CommunityMatters® and the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design on Thursday, June 20th from 3:00 to 4:00 pm Eastern.  The call will feature Amy Frykman from Resource Media and Fran Stoddard of the Orton Family Foundation who will share strategies and insights on how we can change our outreach efforts to increase attendance at our events and dialogues “beyond the same ten people.” You can read more about the call below, and register for the call here. This is the first in a three-part series, so keep an eye out for next month’s installment.

You get it. You know broad and diverse participation matters to good community planning and design. Now you are trying to figure out how to get more than just the “same ten people” to participate in your effort. You are trying to get at the elusive “general public.”

Here’s a first tip – there’s no such thing as a general public! People come from different backgrounds, they have many interests, and they organize themselves in a lot of ways. So, you need to create a project communications plan that helps you target your message and tactics to the actual people who live and work there.

A communications plan doesn’t need to be complicated but it does have several key components including goals, target audiences, strategies, budget, timeline, and tactics. Taking time on the front end of your project to figure this out will help you make the most of your resources, raise the visibility of your project, and draw more people to participate.

This month’s CommunityMatters conference call, in partnership with the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design, will get you started on the path to doing just that. (more…)

In principle, the next great idea might come from anywhere, not just from the person with the most power or who talks the most. Groups seeking truly creative decisions invite and make room for creative suggestions from all participants. When naturally dominant people are humble and when naturally shy people are courageous, prospects for good group decisions are dramatically increased.

Practical Tip: If you have a strong opinion about something or recognize that you are dominating, consider even for a second that there might be a better way than yours; there might be better ideas out there worth hearing. The less you talk, the more you hear.

If you are part of a group where someone is dominating the conversation, speak up and say that you would like to hear from others. Say, “We appreciate your views but would like to hear other views also. Is there someone else who would like to weigh in on this?” In this way it’s not about shutting someone up, rather it’s about wanting to hear from others.

Appreciate and validate the dominant comments, then move on.

Submitted to the NCDD blog by John Spady…

Throughout June, the National Dialogue Network (NDN) is focused on listening to you! In addition to our quick “Naming and Framing Survey” that is already receiving great feedback (http://tinyurl.com/NDN-Cycle2-2013), our team of volunteers is hosting an experimental weeklong “Virtual Open Space Dialogue” using Hackpad and Maestroconference anchor calls June 18 and 25 so you can contribute your thinking on the general issue of “Poverty/Wealth in America” and influence the final core materials produced for national distribution. During the intervening week, the “space will remain open” for self-organized roundtables and “birds of a feather” gatherings on the topic and overall process.

We want to engage the wisdom of the facilitation community, and all others, who are attracted by the idea of a national conversational project that can be adapted and extended to local sensibilities. Our calling question is: What needs to be discussed now to ensure a successful national conversation on Poverty/Wealth in America this Fall?

Use this link to register and receive your personalized access codes: http://tinyurl.com/NDN-Cycle2-OS-2013

And finally, please help us spread the word! Pass this PDF invitation along to others in your social network: http://tinyurl.com/OSinvite2013

Metrics, measurement, assessment, evaluation — in the past ten years I’ve mostly heard these terms talked about in our field as things we “don’t know enough about,” or “don’t have the right tools to do well.”  However, as I write this, NCDD has indexed exactly 43 “assessment tools” in our online Resource Center — surveys, questionnaires, guidebooks, essays and more.

Some of my favorites:

• A Manager’s Guide to Evaluating Citizen Participation (Tina Nabatchi, 2012)
• A Comprehensive Approach to Evaluating Deliberative Public Engagement (John Gastil, 2008)
• The National Civic League’s Civic Index (1999)
• Evaluation: How Are Things Going? from Everyday Democracy (a few years old, but still a gem)

In addition to those tools, we have tagged 133 resources as having a strong “assessment” component, like the awesome 2011 toolkit from Involve titled “Making the Case for Public Engagement.”

Yet we have a lot to do in our field around metrics and evaluation, and little agreement on techniques and criteria.

Next Wednesday (on June 19th, which happens to be my birthday), I’m heading to DC for a small but important meeting convened by Tina Nabatchi of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse.  A group of open gov and public engagement leaders will be meeting to discuss what metrics for public participation should be included in the second U.S. National Action Plan for open government.

I offered to attempt to crowdsource the NCDD community’s input on metrics and evaluation, to ensure that our community’s broader-based knowledge on this topic can be tapped into during next week’s meeting in DC — and I hope you’re game!

Over the next week, I’ll be prompting you with some questions about evaluation and metrics on the NCDD Discussion list, here on the blog, and in our Facebook group.  Though this may not be the sexiest topic ever, I think we all agree that it’s a critically important topic for both practitioners and scholars to have a handle on.  I plan to both review some things that have been learned and shared over the years, and engage you in a discussion about what you do to evaluate your dialogue and deliberation efforts currently and what kinds of measurement tools might be most useful for your work going forward.

I hope you’ll all be good sports (perhaps as a birthday present to me??) and engage in this project over the course of the week!

Cartoon from Baloo’s Political Cartoon Blog at www.balooscartoonblog.blogspot.com! (Shared with permission)

This July, the White House will host a “Champions of Change” event to celebrate local change agents whose exemplary leadership is helping to strengthen our democracy and increase participation in our government.

The event will convene extraordinary individuals who are taking innovative approaches to engage citizens and communities in the practice of open government and civic participation.  These leaders will be invited to the White House to celebrate their accomplishments and showcase the steps they have taken to foster a more open, transparent, and participatory government.

Unquestionably, many NCDD members and the local leaders you work with could be and should be nominated as Champions of Change in transformative civic engagement.  I encourage all of you to nominate one another to be recognized in this way!  Nominations must be submitted by noon on Friday, June 21st. (Please let me know who you decide to nominate, and send me a copy of the information you submit — I may be able to put in a good word for your nominee.)

Also, send me an email at sandy@ncdd.org if you’d like to join me in attending this Champions of Change event at the White House.  I’ve been given the opportunity to help identify a group of NCDD members who can participate in the event and show their support and appreciation for local innovators in this field of work!

The White House is looking for innovators in civic engagement and open government whose work is characterized by such things as:

• Piloting a participatory and democracy-building initiative, such as one that engages citizens in governance beyond elections;
• Engaging traditionally disengaged communities in local governance;
• Using new technologies to enhance transparency, participation, and collaboration in government.

Nominate a Transformative Civic Leader as a Champion of Change today!  Note: under theme of service, choose “Transformative Civic Engagement Leaders.”

See the White House announcement for this Champions of Change event. Note that about a dozen people are recognized at each Champions of Change event at the White House.

We all dream of a society where citizens are willing and able to participate competently in democratic processes. Yet most of the schools where we ostensibly prepare our young people for the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen are fairly undemocratic places. Thus, making our schools places where the skills and competencies needed for democracy are taught and put into practice is a crucial step to achieving the society we collectively envision.

That is why I’m personally excited to share a unique opportunity for NCDD members to participate in the 21st annual International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC), which is returning to the U.S. for the first time in 10 years this August 4th-8th. You are invited to join hundreds of students, educators, practitioners, organizers, and community members in Boulder, Colorado for a 5-day exploration of democratic education, with highlighted talks from a number of leaders and pioneers from all over the world. (more…)