Here’s a thoughtful message and some great questions from Jacob Hess, one of our two featured speakers on next Wednesday’s confab call on red-blue dialogue.  See the full description of the confab, and register here if you’d like to join us.  We’re excited that 110 people have already signed up! Rush Limbaugh taught me, in my teenage years, that liberals were trying to destroy America. And I believed him. They were the enemy. And I was a combatant in a desperate culture war against them ... (continue)

A recent post on the Everyday Democracy blog caught our eye.  Written by NCDD member Janice Thomson and featuring the work of NCDD member Mary Jane Hollis, the article focuses on the power of sustained dialogue to tease out difficult issues such as race and to create lasting positive effects in our communities.  The full article can be found both on Janice Thomson’s blog where it was originally posted, or on the Everyday Democracy blog here. Last week a small but dedicated group of Chicago area dialogue ... (continue)

From Upworthy… (A 2-minute video everyone in our field should watch and then share widely!) Mark Meckler (co-founder, Tea Party Patriots) and Joan Blades (co-founder, MoveOn.org) come from opposite ends of the political spectrum and should be mortal enemies if the current level of political discourse in Washington D.C. is anything to go by. Instead, they found a way to calmly share their beliefs and discovered that while “right” and “left” obviously don’t agree on everything, they share a lot more common ground than anyone ... (continue)

We are happy to share this insightful blog post from NCDD member John Blakinger, who reflects on the interplay of facts, beliefs, and being wrong when we are trying to address problems together.  John’s reflections come from www.CivilSay.net. Philosopher Charles Bernard Renouvier said “There is no certainty, only people who are certain.” And when it comes to contested issues people tend to project a certainty of their opposing beliefs. We like to think there is an absolute truth or correctness and while this may be so, ... (continue)

The following post, written by CommunityMatters fellow Caitlyn Horose, is reposted from the Orton Family Foundation blog. CommunityMatters®, a partnership of seven national organizations including Orton [and NCDD], share the belief that people have the power to solve their community’s problems and direct future growth and change. As leaders in the fields of civic engagement and community and economic development, the partners believe that by strengthening civic infrastructure, communities can become more prosperous, vibrant places to live. Why is civic infrastructure key? Because, like the ... (continue)

Brad Rourke, NCDD member and Kettering Foundation program officer, wrote the following for the NIFI blog. I highly recommend you download the 4-page issue advisory and think about using it in your community.  And take a minute to read over Brad’s thoughtful post below. On Friday, February 1, 2013, National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI) released an Issue Advisory that contains materials that communities might wish to use in deliberating over the issues raised by the tragic events in Newtown, Connecticut in December last year. It’s not ... (continue)

This extraordinary post was submitted by NCDD supporting member Janice Thomson. Janice has been working in collaboration with UIC’s Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement to map the D&D terrain in Chicago, an effort which has led to the development of a new Community of Practice for dialogue and deliberation practitioners in the city. NCDD supports the effort and we hope to see other members launching similar efforts!  - Sandy From Janice… I honestly didn’t realize just how ambitious trying to understand the use of dialogue ... (continue)

NCDD is proud to join our friends at Kansas State University in announcing that KSU is the new home for the much-touted certificate program in Dialogue, Deliberation, and Public Engagement (DDPE). As we announced at the 2012 NCDD conference in Seattle, NCDD is the “Core Collaborator” for the DDPE program. Our supporting members receive a 10% discount on tuition, and NCDD resources will be featured in the curriculum. The Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy at KSU is offering the award winning graduate level DDPE Collaborative ... (continue)

This has been quite the year, for NCDD and all of us.  Our tiny staff (me, Andy and Joy) and our amazing Board and volunteers do the best we can to support the dialogue and deliberation community.  As always, we need your support to keep this work going – so please think us in your end-of-year gifts. I was just looking over our blog posts over the past year to get a good sense of what 2012 has been about for NCDD. As we close ... (continue)

One of the local heroes of our conference in Seattle this year, longtime NCDD member and NCDD2012 All-Star Sponsor John Spady, worked tirelessly during the event to record as much content as he could, and has recently shared the audio recordings he collected on SoundCloud.com. Since many of these items were recorded from the audience, the sound quality does vary, but there’s some great stuff here, with over 20 recordings capturing both workshops and plenary sessions.  I strongly urge you to spend some time with them, ... (continue)