On January 16, 2013, President Obama called for a “national conversation to increase understanding about mental health,” and directed Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services and Secretary Arne Duncan of the U.S. Dept of Education to launch a National Dialogue on Mental Health. The national dialogue was officially launched by Obama on June 3rd at the White House. As you may know from my persistent emails and tweets, NCDD is involved in an exciting initiative called Creating Community Solutions, which is a key ... (continue)

Metrics, measurement, assessment, evaluation — in the past ten years I’ve mostly heard these terms talked about in our field as things we “don’t know enough about,” or “don’t have the right tools to do well.”  However, as I write this, NCDD has indexed exactly 43 “assessment tools” in our online Resource Center — surveys, questionnaires, guidebooks, essays and more. Some of my favorites: A Manager’s Guide to Evaluating Citizen Participation (Tina Nabatchi, 2012) A Comprehensive Approach to Evaluating Deliberative Public Engagement (John Gastil, 2008) ... (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)

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)

We had another great NCDD “Confab Call” last week and as always, if you couldn’t join us we welcome you to listen to the audio recording. Our latest Confab featured NCDD members Jacob Hess and Phil Neisser, co-authers of “You’re Not as Crazy as I Thought, But You’re Still Wrong,” leading a discussion on red-blue dialogue. We had over 100 participants, 75 of which dropped in on the call’s collaborative doc, which this time was hosted on Hackpad.com and focused on several thoughtful questions and next ... (continue)

Andy and I put together some new postcards (featuring attendees of our conferences — you might recognize some of them!). The postcards are simple, with a short description of NCDD on the back, as well as some contact info. We got plenty to share, and we’re wondering if some of you would like a handful — or even a small stack — sent to you to distribute at conferences you’re attending or running, public meetings, or workshops you’re giving.  Distributing these postcards helps raise awareness ... (continue)

Brandon Lee of the Campaign for Stronger Democracy posted this great write-up on CSD’s blog this morning and gave me the okay to cross-post it.  Thanks for taking the time to provide these great reflections on yesterday’s NCDD confab call on red-blue dialogue, Brandon! Had a great time listening in to NCDD’s confab call this month on liberal-conservative dialogue. Unfortunately I had to jump off a little early, but there was still plenty of great conversation to be had. Here are some takeaways and other ... (continue)

In preparation for our NCDD Confab call on Wednesday at 2pm on the current state of liberal-conservative dialogue, we’ve been thinking about key milestones and programs in this area that NCDD members have spearheaded or have played a major role in. Andy Fluke, NCDD’s creative director and co-founder, created a timeline for us to take a look at during this popular confab call (over 120 people have signed up so far!), to help us think about the trajectory of red-blue (or transpartisan, or political bridge-building) dialogue ... (continue)

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)

Join us for our next NCDD Confab call on Wednesday, May 15th from 2:00 to 3:30 EST.  May’s featured NCDDers are Phil Neisser and Jacob Hess, who will lead a discussion on the current status of liberal-conservative and transpartisan dialogue, and how we might work together to expand this area of dialogue and deliberation further. 5/13/13 update: Jacob is surveying call participants here about their work and ideas re: red-blue dialogue.  Please add your thoughts if you haven’t already.  Also check out our 10-year timeline of milestones in red-blue dialogue ... (continue)