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 […] (continue)

NCDD has been working closely with the Kettering Foundation recently, including playing a role in this past week’s Public Voice 2013, and we wanted to share more of what Kettering has been up to over the past few months… A Public Voice 2013: Framing the Public Deliberation on Budget Issues On June 5, Washington policymakers and representatives from the deliberative democracy network will meet at the National Press Club for a working meeting. Do Partisan Elites Polarize the Public? KF research associate David McIvor recently […] (continue)

Tomorrow (Monday, June 3rd), President Obama and Vice President Biden will host a National Conference on Mental Health as part of the Administration’s commitment to launch a national conversation to increase understanding and awareness of mental health. The day-long conference at the White House will convene people from across the country, including representatives from state and local governments, mental health advocates, educators, health care providers, faith leaders and individuals who have struggled with mental health problems. The public will be able to view the invitation-only […] (continue)

Join us for a fun afternoon meetup immediately before this year’s Frontiers of Democracy conference begins! On Thursday, July 18th from 1-4pm at Tufts in Medford, Massachusetts, we’ll do some “speed networking,” spend time in small groups learning about some of the region’s most exciting dialogue and deliberation projects, and talk some about what is and can be done to build civic infrastructure in the region. Coffee and snacks will be provided. We’re encouraging NCDD members (and potential members) from across New England to come together for […] (continue)

We would like you to join our friends at the National Issues Forums Institute in congratulating the three winners of the Taylor  L. Willingham Legacy Award.  The 2013 winners are Michael Baldwin, Krysta Best, and Erin Katherine Sykes.  This is the second year that the fund has provided $1,000 grants in memory of Taylor Willingham’s contribution to the deliberative movement, and you can read more about the exciting projects that the winners will be creating with their grants in the NIFI’s write-up on this year’s winners, which […] (continue)

I’m excited to launch a new tool on the NCDD website to help you share your success stories more broadly The draft tool can be found at www.ncdd.org/storytelling-tool and I encourage everybody to take a look and give the tool a test drive by entering one of your dialogue and deliberation projects! For a long time now, NCDD has wanted to find a way to collect more stories from our members about their dialogue and deliberation projects.  We’re working with both the Kettering Foundation and Participedia.net to broaden […] (continue)

Here’s an important announcement from John Spady of the National Dialogue Network project… Hello friends, I have important results to share with everyone! The National Dialogue Network (NDN) conducted a survey in April 2013. A total of 415 people participated (including both self-selected and random panel responses). Each participant ranked their top five choices from a provided list of twenty-two issue titles to identify the top issue for our inaugural 2013 national conversations that will take place in communities across the U.S. in September. The top ranked issue […] (continue)

Last fall, Participatory Budgeting Project donors voted to fund a new PB Intro Video – a tool that could be widely used to introduce people to PB at meetings and online, and to promote the process to government officials, community groups, and funders. The PBP staff and advisory board (I’m on the advisory board!) are thrilled to share a preview of the video with you, and we hope you’ll help push it to the next level. We’re so excited about the video’s potential to raise the profile of […] (continue)

I’m excited to share the news today that Pete Peterson of the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement & Civic Leadership (an organizational member of NCDD) just announced his candidacy for Secretary of State in California.  Pete has been involved in NCDD since 2008, and I’m a huge fan of his. He was part of our “panel of conservatives” who support public engagement work at our 2008 national conference in Austin (along with Grover Norquist), and we asked him to play a speaking role again at […] (continue)

Hello again friends, This is a quick update from John Spady on the opinions collected so far to help determine the inaugural issue for the 2013 conversations from the National Dialogue Network (this project received the endorsement of the NCDD voting membership in January 2013). At the bottom of this post is a link to the latest results — updated daily until the survey closes on April 30th. And if you haven’t yet contributed your own voice to these results, you can click here to […] (continue)