AmericaSpeaks recently launched a new effort to support U.S. officials who seek to involve citizens in shaping policy. They’re partnering with leading Canadian citizen participation firm Ascentum to offer a set of services and tools that they believe public officials need to create meaningful opportunities for citizen participation. You can find these at ASonline.org. (continue)
Here are some great tips that Joe Goldman from AmericaSpeaks sent out to people who were considering writing op-eds/letters to the editor as a part of the Democracy Communications Network… Limit the article to 750 words. Shorter is even better. Unfortunately, newspapers have limited space to offer, and editors generally won’t take the time to cut a long article down to size. Make a single point — well. You cannot solve all of the world’s problems in 750 words. Be satisfied with making a single […] (continue)
AmericaSpeaks' newest case study highlights the 2009 Advancing Futures for Adults with Autism National Town Meeting. More than 1,000 people in 16 cities and online came together to set an agenda for addressing the service needs for adults with autism. The 4-page case study can be downloaded here... (continue)
This video features AmericaSpeaks' summer 2010 national discussion on the nation's fiscal challenges. The core video is only about 6 minutes long, but included at the end are several minutes of interviews with participants and partners about their experience at the event. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfOqh_yKPR0 (continue)
3,500 Americans came together across 57 sites around the country to discuss the nation’s long-term fiscal challenges on June 26, 2010 as part of Our Budget, Our Economy: An AmericaSpeaks National Town Meeting. Participants worked in small groups with skilled facilitators to learn about the issues, weigh trade offs, and express their preferences. Face-to-face meetings at each of the sites took place simultaneously and were linked together by satellite and webcast to create a true National Town Meeting. At 19 of the sites, participants used […] (continue)
Written by NCDD director Sandy Heierbacher to expand upon the text on our “What Are Dialogue & Deliberation?” page. This resource provides enough details to enable you to decide which of these leading dialogue and deliberation methods you should learn more about. In addition to looking at which methods fit your intentions, you will need to consider which methods are aligned with your resources, timeline, and the people you feel need to be involved. The text below is drawn from NCDD’s Engagement Streams Framework. AmericaSpeaks […] (continue)
Open Policy Making 101: 10 Questions To Ask Before Launching Your Online Public Consultation (November 2009) is a list of ten important questions to consider before beginning an online public consultation, published by Joseph Peters, a founding Partner of Ascentum, and Joe Goldman, the Vice President of Citizen Engagement at AmericaSpeaks. The ten questions are listed below, and for more details, check out the full document, posted on Ascentum’s website. What do you want to know? What is your commitment to participants? Who needs to […] (continue)
The 21st Century Town Meeting was created to meet the needs of citizens and decision makers'"to meet the needs of our democracy. Decision makers who want to understand and act on the collective wisdom of their constituency are well served by the aggregate power of a large number of citizen voices. Citizens who want to be heard by decision makers desire meaningful in-depth dialogue and tend to thrive in a small-scale setting. The 21st Century Town Meeting serves both of these needs through using the latest information technology. (continue)
This 50-page report expands on previous Center reports by adding an important practical tool for managers in networks: how to manage and negotiate the conflicts that may occur among a network's members. The approach they describe - interest-based negotiation - has worked in other settings, such as bargaining with unions. Such negotiation techniques are becoming crucial in sustaining the effectiveness of networks, where successful performance is defined by how well people collaborate and not by hierarchical commands. (continue)
This article reviews the AmericaSpeaks model for large group interventions followed by an examination of AmericaSpeaks' intent to institutionalize the practice of national discussions on critical policy issues. (continue)
