The Canadian School of Peacebuilding (CSOP), an institute of Canadian Mennonite University, offers a selection of five-day courses each June. Courses can be taken for professional or personal development or for academic credit. The CSOP is designed for anyone between the ages of 20 and 90 who is interested in peace work, including not-for-profit staff and interns, activists and peace educators, community leaders, religious leaders, teachers and professors, students (undergraduate or graduate), and government officials. All participants need to be fluent in English. The school […] (continue)

The 28-page paper, 21st Century Civic Infrastructure: Under Construction, written by Jill Blair and Malka Kopell was commissioned by The Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions and published in spring 2015. The paper offers 3 keystones for building an effective and more equitable civic infrastructure: engaging all sectors; enlisting all voices; and creating vertical and horizontal thoroughfares for the exchange of information and practice. Below is an excerpt of the paper, which can be found in full on The Aspen Institute’s FCS’s site here. From the introduction… […] (continue)

The resource, The Civic Engagement Primer, from Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE) was released April 2017. It was designed to help philanthropies explore fostering civic engagement interests and increase their understanding of the civic engagement field. You can view the primer’s write up from PACE below and check out the primer on PACE’s site here. From the site… A new conversation about civic engagement is emerging. At PACE–a network of funders and foundations committed to civic engagement and democracy–we’ve seen the swell in interest and […] (continue)

In June 2016, the Davenport Institute released, How are WE Doing? A Public Engagement Evaluation Platform, which was designed for public leaders to evaluate their public engagement processes and/or apply to be recognized as a “publicly engaged city” on a silver, gold, or platinum level. The Davenport Institute offers support to officials looking to engage their public better; and offer training and resources to help improve this process. Below describes how the platform works, the way it was designed, and the support provided by the Davenport Institute. You […] (continue)

The 57-page guide, A Guide to Participatory Budgeting in Schools, was a project of the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) and published in 2016. The guide’s curriculum design was created by Valeria Mogilevich, with project support by Melissa Appleton and Maria Hadden of PBP. This thorough guide gives details for implementing a participatory budgeting process within schools. Participatory budgeting is a process where people decide where to spend a portion of a budget by engaging their community- or in this case- their school, and vote on projects to make final […] (continue)

The 68-page report, Beyond Business as Usual: Leaders of California’s Civic Organizations Seek New Ways to Engage the Public in Local Governance, was published 2013. The report was in partnership with Institute for Local Government and the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership at Pepperdine University. Below is an excerpt from the report and you can read the original report (or download the PDF version) from ILG’s site here. From ILG… What opportunities do Californians have to engage with public issues and influence decisions […] (continue)

Deliberation: A SUNY Broome & Windsor Middle School Collaboration (2015), is an eight-minute video documenting the collaborative experience of students engaging in deliberation during the Fall 2014. The video shows the experience between SUNY Broome Civic Engagement Center and Windsor Middle School, where students used deliberation to better understand the American Revolution. Check out the video below or read more about in on NIFI’s blog here. From NIFI… (continue)

The Hague Symposium on Post-Conflict Transitions & International Justice is held at the Clingendael Institute for International Relations and is an intensive training by world leaders in the skills necessary to holistically restructure a post-conflict society. The Symposium has special focus on mechanisms of justice, through formal lectures, site visits to International Tribunals and Courts, and interactive simulations and workshops. It is recommended for exceptional professionals or lawyers, graduate students, law students, or accomplished undergraduates. Transitioning a society from violence to peace is one of […] (continue)

This report describes the findings of the May 22, 2014 workshop “Bringing Citizen Voices to the Table: Infrastructure Needs in a Democracy,” hosted by Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue in partnership with SFU Public Square. The featured speaker was Dr. Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer, Executive Director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, founder of AmericaSpeaks, and one of the foremost citizen engagement practitioners in North America. The report summarizes participant evaluations of the citizen engagement infrastructure in British Columbia, Canada, as well as participants’ […] (continue)

Communities have rhythms to them that we must come to understand so that our approaches, programs and initiatives — and the building of public capital — work with those rhythms, take advantage of them, even accelerate them. This 1999 report from the Harwood Institute describes five stages of community life: The Waiting Place, Impasse, Catalytic, Growth, and Sustain and Renew. According to the Harwood Institute, while a community can accelerate its movement through the Stages of Community Life, it cannot violate, or simply pass over, […] (continue)