Here’s an important heads-up for NCDDers… During a plenary session at the Independent Sector’s annual conference on September 30, 2013, Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Diana Aviv, president and CEO of Independent Sector, unveiled planning for a “National Purpose Initiative,” an effort to reunite Americans around a common purpose. The project aims to engage hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of Americans in a dialogue that will culminate in a broadly shared agenda of national priorities by 2016. Other funders of the planning, proof of […] (continue)

My friend Ileana Marin at the Kettering Foundation brought my attention to this announcement the other day, thinking it would be of interest to some NCDD members… CIVICUS is looking for Expressions of Interest by potential convening partners to conduct locally-initiated multi-stakeholder dialogues, following the methodological approach proposed by the project New Social Contract. The dialogues shall take place between November 2013 and May 2014.  Selected partners will receive a financial contribution of $4000. We’re looking for NGOs, CBOs, CSOs, umbrella organisations and other relevant […] (continue)

The Institute for Local Government is recruiting for a public engagement program manager. The position, based in Sacramento, offers an exciting opportunity for an energetic individual who shares the Institute’s passion for good government at the local level and the role that public education and engagement can play in building greater public trust and confidence. Salary depends on qualifications, but the salary range starts at $73,488 per year. The position has primary responsibility for developing and recommending the overall strategy and workplan for the program, planning, […] (continue)

I recently asked NCDD supporting member Marty Jacobs to write a primer for the NCDD blog on “collective impact.” This strategy for large-scale collaborative change has been gaining momentum among funders and nonprofit thought leaders, and we wanted to make sure NCDD members are aware of the concept. Marty Jacobs has been teaching and consulting for 20 years, applying a systems thinking approach to organizations. As of September 30th, Marty is bringing her Collective Impact expertise to the VT Department of Mental Health in her new […] (continue)

During the 2012 NCDD national conference in Seattle, NCDD member and filmmaker Jeffrey Abelson sat down with over a dozen leaders in our community to ask them about their work, their hopes and concerns for our field and for democratic governance in our country, and their ideas about how we might effectively combine forces to make a greater impact — questions that were very much aligned with our conference themes. The result was a series of wonderfully rich videos focusing on the current state of […] (continue)

This post was submitted by John Spady of the National Dialogue Network via our Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have field news you want to share with the rest of us? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog! NCDD member John Spady, who received our 2012 Catalyst Award for Civic Infrastructure, has announced that the National Dialogue Network achieved a major milestone on September 18 when it released its public Conversation Kit on the topic of Poverty & Wealth in America for voluntary and coordinated national conversations. To remember why NDN decided on […] (continue)

Attendees of the IAP2 national conference being held in Salt Lake City, UT next week will have the opportunity to learn more about the progress of both NCDD 2012 Catalyst Award projects.  Project representatives, John Spady (National Dialogue Network) and Tim Bonnemann (Real Dialogues), will be hosting the session “Bridge Building and Other Civic Infrastructures — Status of NCDD Catalyst Award Efforts” on Monday from 1:30pm to 3:00pm. Below is the session summary. Presenters will describe their independent and collaborative efforts since receiving grants from the National […] (continue)

We are pleased to be able to announce the launch of Slow Communities – a new engagement consulting service offering help to those who know that they need to “go slow to go fast.” Slow Communities was recently founded by Bill Roper, who served for 14 years with one of our partners, the Orton Family Foundation – first as Director of Programs, then as its longest-serving President and CEO. Bill, along with affiliate Barbara Ganley, is now offering his wealth of experience and knowledge as an engagement professional to foundations, […] (continue)

Our partners at the Kettering Foundation recently posted about a write-up on their own David Holwerk’s talk at Rhodes University in South Africa on how journalists talk about citizens.  His remarks focused on the question, “What is a citizen?“, and how the answer is related to the role of the press in a democracy. In the U.S. Constitution, the role of the press is given explicit protections, ostensibly because a free press that can cover whatever it wants is an integral part of a well-functioning […] (continue)

Practitioners and advocates involved with group process, dialogue and deliberation, public engagement, and deliberative democracy are aware that ordinary people, under the right conditions, are capable of generating public policy guidance that is at least as wise—and often far wiser—than what we typically see produced by government bodies. Such forums facilitate productive reflection and interaction among diverse citizens—often informed by fair briefings and diverse experts—to come up with creative responses to major public issues that make sense to a very wide spectrum of their fellow […] (continue)