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)

The National League of Cities, as part of its work with Knight Foundation, is hosting a free webinar highlighting civic engagement in Philadelphia this Wednesday (April 24) at 2pm Eastern. While many tech entrepreneurs are passionate advocates for their communities, most are ambivalent about city hall: neither expecting nor offering assistance, and often working around rather than with local elected leaders. This is not the case in Philadelphia, where a dynamic partnership has developed among city government, civic leaders and entrepreneurs from the technology community. ... (continue)

Ellen Ernst from IAP2 submitted this post to the blog a couple of weeks ago — so sorry for the delay!  There are still 4 days left to apply for this great position.  I’ll check with Ellen to see if we can get a further extension for NCDD members since we were slow in posting this. Position Title: Professional Development Manager of IAP2 Location: Virtual Office (International Travel Requirement) Salary Range: A flat rate of $4,500 per month – $55,000 per year (USD) Contract Type: ... (continue)

From the Participedia news page… The FACTS Initiative and CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation have announced a call for proposals on local democratic innovations for publication in a special issue of the FACTS Reports, on the 2013 website of the journal, and on the CIVICUS website. This special issue of the FACTS Report, in partnership with CIVICUS, is to promote, publish and publicize new projects and ideas on participatory and accountable governance of public institutions at local and national levels. This call for proposals ... (continue)

We want to make the NCDD community aware of some interesting content the Davenport Institute has been posting on their inCommon blog.  As of late, they have highlighted a number of different projects the City of Detroit has undertaken over the last year to increase civic engagement. Most recently, the city launched its “Detroit Future City” website to encourage online engagement around the city’s strategic framework plan, and our friends at the Davenport Institute are helping to bring more attention to the project. Now – after hundreds ... (continue)

Update:  Registration for this call is now open at https://www.orton.org/civicrm/event/info?id=62 (sign up soon, as our last couple of CM calls have had to be capped!) Our friends at CommunityMatters — a partnership of seven leading organizations in the fields of community building and deliberative democracy (including NCDD!) — would like to invite all interested NCDD members to participate in a conference call on Participatory Budgeting on Valentine’s Day (Feb 14th) from 4-5pm Eastern.  This installment of the CommunityMatters conference call series will feature insights from two ... (continue)

The latest edition of the Journal of Public Deliberation (released December 2012) focuses on participatory budgeting and its spread across the globe. Guest editors of the issue are long-time NCDD supporting member Janette Hartz-Karp from Curtin University, Australia, and Brian Wampler from Boise State University. Janette and Brian brought together an interesting and distinguished range of authors, as you can see from the list of articles below. Here’s how JPD introduces the issue: Since its humble beginnings in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in the early 1990s, Participatory Budgeting (PB) ... (continue)

The International Association for Public Participation just issued an RFP (max $15,000) for public participation practitioners to work with their Board to get their Innovation Project back on track and complete. Significant work has already gone into the Innovation Project over the past couple of years, which is focused on revising the structure, teaching and learning materials of IAP2′s flagship Certificate Program in Public Participation. IAP2 is looking for someone with a good understanding of the IAP2 Certificate course. The person or group selected will ... (continue)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 13th Community Involvement Training Conference is planned for Boston, Massachusetts in Late Summer 2013. The theme of this year’s conference is “The Next Generation of Community Involvement” and the goal is to provide an exceptional conference that both informs and trains EPA staff as well as Agency stakeholders and partners in best practices to enhance community involvement. Learn more about the conference and the call for proposals at http://www.epa.gov/ciconference/cfp_instructions.htm (continue)