This deck of 91 full-color cards distills the core wisdom of the field: what skilled facilitators do over and over again to make things work. The content is more specific than values, and less specific than tips and techniques, cutting across existing methodologies with a designer’s eye to capture patterns that repeat. The deck can be used to plan sessions, reflect on and debrief from them, provide guidance mid-stride, and share responsibility for making the process go well. In addition to the card set (which ... (continue)

The Fund for Democratic Communities (F4DC), a Greensboro, North Carolina based private foundation, supports community-based initiatives and institutions that foster authentic democracy to make communities better places to live. These are some of the things F4DC does: makes grants to groups that engage in participatory democracy to further their social change objectives convenes groups and individuals committed to social and economic justice through deepening democratic practice conducts research and and produces materials to nurture the growth of authentic democracy. Learn more about F4DC’s grantmaking at http://f4dc.org/grants. ... (continue)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) is proud to launch the “Public Participation Guide“, an international public participation toolkit. It is a resource for agencies and organizations to help develop, plan for, and implement programs that engage the public in environmental decision-making. U.S.EPA has worked on developing this guide since 2009, initially for use in the Middle East and North Africa, but with potential for global application. It has now been introduced to regions and countries around the world. The guide was developed to ... (continue)

Each of Craig Freshley’s free Group Decision Tips is a quick one-page read that helps improve group efficiency, productivity, and creativity. At www.groupdecisiontips.com you can view a complete index of over 150 Tips and download PDF handouts of your favorites. Freshley is an NCDD blogger, and has shared some of his tips on the NCDD Community blog. Each Tip begins with a principle – a core concept, and ends with a practical tip – something that you and your group can do to bring more ... (continue)

This article, available for sale at Cambridge Journals Online, is compromised of the text from a Presidential Address delivered before the APSA in Seattle, September 2011, by Carole Pateman of the University of California, Los Angeles and is based in part on her book, Participation and Democratic Theory.  Some of the ideas and arguments in this address were also presented in 2011 at the UK Political Studies Association meeting, in London, and at the Canadian Political Science Association meeting, in Waterloo. From the abstract: Over the past two decades we ... (continue)

This 2011 article by NCDD member Caroline W. Lee of Lafayette College was published in Volume 7 of the Journal of Public Deliberation. A free download of the article is available at http://services.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1137&context=jpd. Abstract: Academic research on public dialogue and deliberation is abundant and sophisticated. This body of multi-disciplinary scholarship draws on the insights of political theory and case studies, such that much is known about the promise and practical nuances of designing engagement processes with authentically deliberative outcomes. The socio-historical and institutional contexts in which public ... (continue)

Debategraph is a social enterprise that combines argument visualization with collaborative wiki editing to make the best arguments on all sides of every complex public debate freely available to all, and continuously open to challenge and improvement by all. It was co-founded by Peter Baldwin and David Price, who have been collaborating on Debategraph’s development on opposites sides of the world over the last five years –  and is evolving continuously towards the fulfilment of our long term vision for a new form of public communication. For a ... (continue)

Tele-Town Hall, LLC ™ is the creator and the leading provider of “telephone town hall” events. Tele-Town Hall™ events are the culmination of our nearly two decades of planning and testing to create an unparalleled breakthrough in LIVE, person-to-person communications. We currently provide thousands of elected officials, political candidates, non-profit organizations, associations, and businesses with one of the most convenient and cost-effective means of mass personal communications. In the past couple of years, tele-town halls have replaced face-to-face town hall meetings for many legislators — ... (continue)

In December 2012, Alberta Climate Dialogue released a series of short videos exploring the benefits of deliberative democracy, featuring well known practitioners such as Matt Leighninger (DDC), Janette Hartz-Karp (Curtin University), Edward Andersson (Involve UK) and others. These insightful snapshots of public engagement knowledge and case studies are a valuable resource for communicating deliberative democracy ideas to others. (continue)

This article (co-authored by NCDD member Ximena Zúñiga, Gretchen E. Lopez & Kristie A. Ford) appears in a special issue of the education journal Equity & Excellence in Education – co-edited by higher education faculty, program developers and practitioners – which includes research and practice examples from higher education, school, and community settings and focuses on intergroup dialogue as form of social justice education. All the articles cover program and social science studies from varied institutional and geographic locations, and capture experiences and reflections of facilitators, students, and diverse ... (continue)