The eight-page article, “The Mediated Town Halls of the Eastern Cape” by Rod Amner was published in Kettering Foundation‘s 2016 edition of their annual newsletter, Connections – Kettering’s Multinational Research. In the fourth article of the newsletter, Amner discusses the ways in which public engagement has been transforming in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, focusing on the ways in which journalism outlets have facilitated engagement spaces with the community to better amplify the voices of the people. Below is an excerpt from the article and Connections 2016 is […] (continue)

The eight-page article, “Citizens in a Global Society” by David Mathews was published in Kettering Foundation‘s 2016 edition of their annual newsletter, Connections – Kettering’s Multinational Research. This is the initial article in the newsletter that introduces the theme for the whole publication which centers around Kettering’s multi-national work.  Below is an excerpt from the article and Connections 2016 is available for free PDF download on Kettering’s site here. From the article… The foundation’s multinational research falls into two broad categories or groups. In the first category, the foundation collaborates with nongovernmental […] (continue)

Nearly five years ago, after seeing so many couples and families interacting with their devices instead of each other, author, advice columnist and now conversation catalyst Debra Darvick felt compelled to do something. That “something” was to create Picture a Conversation™, an engaging set of conversation prompts whose topics are inspired by her husband’s gorgeous nature photographs. Darvick has made it her mission to help people reconnect through face-to-face conversations. What distinguishes Picture a Conversation™ cards from others in the genre is Darvick’s innovation of […] (continue)

What’s Next, Alabama? is an issue guide created by the David Mathews Center for Civic Life in 2017 for Alabama Issues Forums 2017 – 2020. The issue guide provides a brief overview of economic issues facing Alabama and outlines three approaches in addressing economic infrastructure over the course of three forums. The David Mathews Center—a non-profit, non-partisan, non-advocacy organization—does not advocate a particular approach or solution to economic issues, but rather seeks to provide a framework for citizens to carefully examine multiple approaches, weigh costs […] (continue)

Living Room Conversation published the conversation guide, Guns and Responsibility, which was released October 2017. The guide gives pointers on how to hold living room conversations in order to develop a deeper understanding between participants around gun beliefs, gun safety, and responsible gun ownership. You can read the guide below, find a downloadable PDF here, or the original on Living Room Conversation’s site here. From the guide… Overview In Living Room Conversations, a small group of people (e.g. 4-7) people come together to get to know one another in a more […] (continue)

Story Artist Mary Alice Arthur and graphic facilitator Viola Clark collaborated in 2016 to create the first in their Zine series – a POCKET GUIDE TO HOSTING. One side features the Art of Hosting practices, the other side features the AoH methods.  Here is a little snapshot of a couple of pages of the zine. (A zine is a self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via photocopier.) Art of Hosting will be using the Zine in the upcoming trainings in Innsbruck, Austria […] (continue)

The Civil Conversations Project seeks to renew common life in a fractured and tender world. We are a conversation-based, virtues-based resource towards hospitable, trustworthy relationship with and across difference. We honor the power of asking better questions, model reframed approaches to entrenched debates, and insist that the ruptures above the radar do not tell the whole story of our time. We aspire to amplify and cross-pollinate the generative new realities that are also being woven, one word and one life at a time. Better Conversations: […] (continue)

The 300-page book, The World Cafe, was written by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs and published April 2005. In the first comprehensive book on the World Café, co-founders Brown and Isaacs introduce readers to this simple yet powerful conversational process for thinking together, evoking collective intelligence, and creating actionable results. Beautifully illustrated with stories contributed by World Café practitioners, this is still the most definitive compendium of Café Know-How available. Available in Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Japanese, Simple Chinese, Complex Chinese, German, Korean, and Thai. Below is an […] (continue)

The Red Blue Dictionary, in partnership with Allsides, is a collaborative effort with dozens of dialogue experts from the NCDD network, to create a site that gives definitions for a wide variety of words to help those all across the political spectrum better understand each other. The idea for the website stemmed from the “Red Blue Dialogue brainstorming session” at the 2012 NCDD conference in Seattle, where Joan Blades, Amanda Roman and Jacob Hess decided to further develop the idea. Living Room Conversations, in early 2016, continued […] (continue)

The 15-page article, Promoting Inclusion, Equity and Deliberation in a National Dialogue on Mental Health, was written by Tom Campbell, Raquel Goodrich, Carolyn Lukensmeyer, and Daniel Schugurensky, and published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 12: Iss. 2. In the article, the authors share their experiences with the project, “Creating Community Solutions” (CCS), in which six organizations partnered to better understand how the public is engaged around mental health. By implementing three engagement strategies, CCS sought to shift the social norms around mental health and work […] (continue)