People & Participation is based on the U.K.-based organization Involve’s successful 2005 book by the same name. The book provides a useful summary of participatory methods and practice but given the number of methods and speed of the development of new methods it is impossible for a printed publication to stay accurate for long. The reason for transferring People & Participation to the web is to allow us to maintain more, and more up-to-date information about participation. It also allows site users to add their ... (continue)

Peter Levine is Director of CIRCLE, The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (www.civicyouth.org). CIRCLE conducts and funds research on young people's civic education and participation. Levine is also a Research Scholar at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy in the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. He is chair of the executive committee of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools and a member of the executive committee of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium. Levine's blog primarily covers topics related to youth civic engagement and deliberative democracy. (continue)

The CIVICUS Participatory Governance Programme (PGP), a subset of the World Alliance for Citizen Participation, has launched a global virtual platform for knowledge development, sharing and learning on participatory governance. The PG Exchange, at www.pgexchange.org, offers free access to resources covering a wide range of participatory governance practices and tools that aim to promote active citizenship and more transparent, responsive, accountable and effective governance at both the local and national level. (continue)

Home of the Policy Consensus Initiative and the National Policy Consensus Center. The Policy Consensus Initiative is a national nonprofit organization that works with states to promote collaboration to achieve more effective governance. The National Policy Consensus Center provides assistance to state leaders in addressing difficult policy issues using consensus-based governing models. (continue)

Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation runs a clearinghouse which markets and distributes materials for teaching negotiation, mediation, and other forms of dispute resolution. The online catalog includes videotapes, books, curricular ideas, monographs, working papers, reports, and over 150 role-play simulations (role-plays are a hallmark of the teaching style at PON and were developed and tested by PON faculty and graduate students). (continue)

David Burton's blog focuses on the online deliberation of topics relevant to public issue forums in southwest Missouri. (continue)

Beth Offenbacker's blog highlights the use of technology for public participation/public involvement and decisionmaking purposes. Learn about existing tools, reports, emerging trends and a range of other resources on this subject. (continue)

How do you get people to address problems that create conflict and still remain involved in collaborative problem-solving? How do you create a learning environment that encourages people to see their own potential to affect the world around them? This site responds to these questions with examples from several learning environments and includes practical ideas from our experiences as teachers and participants in workplace, community and classroom settings. (continue)

A website designed to support people and groups who are working for inclusion, racial equity and social justice, racialequitytools.org includes ideas, strategies and tips, as well as a clearinghouse of resources and links from many sources. Racial Equity Tools is a companion site to Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity - which helps people track progress and document results of similar work, in racially explicit and competent ways. (continue)

The Red Lodge Clearinghouse (RLCH) website, at www.rlch.org, makes participation in natural resources decision-making easier than ever before. The RLCH website — originally founded in 2001 by renowned fashion designer and philanthropist, the late Liz Claiborne and her husband, Art Ortenberg — has served the needs of individuals and organizations engaged in collaborative natural resources management for nearly a decade. The Natural Resources Law Center took over the project in 2007 and, with continued funding from the Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation, recently resolved to broaden the mission of the project to support a wider variety of problem-solving methods and to break down the barriers impeding citizen engagement. (continue)