This 6-page resource developed by the Orton Family Foundation guides you through six steps to help you identify and map key community networks and stakeholder groups and identify how to reach them. Community Network Analysis (CNA) is a powerful tool for understanding who lives, works and plays in your community and how best to reach them. It’s meant to be used repeatedly to identify: 1) project leadership, 2) partners and 3) participants. (continue)

This 2012 book by Adam Kahane of Reos Partners was published by Berrett-Koehler (San Francisco). People who are trying to solve tough economic, social, and environmental problems often find themselves frustratingly stuck. They can’t solve their problems in their current context, which is too unstable or unfair or unsustainable. They can’t transform this context on their own—it’s too complex to be grasped or shifted by any one person or organization or sector. And the people whose cooperation they need don’t understand or agree with or ... (continue)

Are you interested in finding a way of working with diverse stakeholders to co-create enduring solutions to complex issues? This 2012 book is about Collaborative Governance, or the Power of ‘Co’. This book provides real evidence of the benefits of collaboration as well as a theoretical framework on which to build the capacity of organisations and individuals to collaborate more often and more effectively to address dilemmas and find solutions that stick. Collaborative Governance demands the sharing of both power and trust. It also requires a ... (continue)

Connecting the Deliberative Public To its Elected Representatives is a research report on A Public Voice 2005 by Philip D. Stewart. Find more details on the NIF website. From his conclusion… The real opportunity before us is to take advantage of the learnings from our research to date on what it takes for elected officials and policy influentials to come to the insight that a deliberative public has a useful, even essential contribution to make to policymaking.  I see two major learnings as relevant to embracing this opportunity more ... (continue)

PMLINK 360 is a web development company building web solutions for any industry that can benefit from stakeholder management software. They developed a stakeholder management system to help companies manage stakeholder interaction, increase efficiencies and streamline communications, enabling projects to be delivered on-time, on-budget and in-compliance with industry regulations. They adhere to methodologies based on simple, clean design, scalable database schema and easy, intuitive user-interface design. Learn more at www.pmlink360.com. (continue)

The Orton Family Foundation’s new Planning Tool Exchange (PlanIt X) is a free, community-driven website designed to help people find and share tools and resources to support community planning and civic engagement. PlanIt X is written by you and for you – contributions, edits, comments and improvements all come directly from our users – and it’s only as good as you make it. Visit PlanItX at www.orton.org/tools/planning_tool_exchange. PlanIt X is a community planning database owned and administered by the Orton Family Foundation. PlanIt X embraces ... (continue)

EngagingPlans is a powerful and comprehensive tool for creating and maintaining a public involvement Web site. From Urban Interactive Studio, EngagingPlans is a powerful, feature-rich website package that allows planning firms and government agencies to facilitate broad-scale public outreach and participation. (continue)

Focusing on how to stay “cool” during high-heat meetings, consultant, author, and NCDD member Larry Dressler drew on his 25-years experience facilitating high-stakes meetings and also interviewed 40 other veteran practitioners for this book, co-published by Berrett-Koehler and ASTD. Read a description of Standing in the Fire, sample chapters, and free resources at www.larrydressler.com. You can also order the book from Amazon.com. Description from Larry’s website: Any time people get together to wrestle with serious issues, there is the potential for a high-heat meeting, one ... (continue)

With this report, the Office of Environmental Policy Innovation (OEPI) has taken a fresh look at Agency efforts to involve the public by reviewing formal evaluations and informal summaries from across the Agency that identify, describe, and/or evaluate Agency stakeholder involvement and public participation activities. Based upon their review, OEPI identifies key crosscutting lessons learned, pinpoint unique barriers and ways to overcome them, and highlight innovative approaches to stakeholder involvement and public participation. (continue)

The Participation and Civic Engagement Group of the Social Development Department of the World Bank promotes the participation of people and their organizations to influence institutions, policies and processes for equitable and sustainable development. The Group supports World Bank units, client governments and civil society organizations to incorporate participatory approaches in the design, the implementation, the monitoring and evaluation of World Bank supported operations. The Group works to enhance capacity for participatory processes and social accountability, and develops analytical instruments to assess constraints to the effectiveness of civil society. (continue)