This new resource just brought to my attention by Sandy Heierbacher on NCDD’s listserve is worth sharing … a 50-page Understanding Participation: A Literature Review  covers a wide range of participatory activities that are often viewed in isolation. Download it here.

“The review brings together different bodies of literature on participation, including literature on community development, volunteering, public participation, social movements, everyday politics and ethical consumption.”

(From a major national research project called “Pathways through Participation: What creates and sustains active citizenship?” led by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) in partnership with the Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR) and Involve.)

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Thanks to a wonderful process developed by Lisa Heft of Opening Space, my colleague at Masterful Facilitation Institute Brenda Chaddock, Sandy Heierbacher from NCDD, and I co-designed a Spoken Word Group Poem with 18 participants at the IAP2 San Diego conference. Together, their response to three key questions resulted in an extraordinary co-created group poem which was delivered it in a collaborative performance at the start of the Wednesday morning Plenary.

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Great post by Matt Leighninger, director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, on the question, “How should we improve democracy?”, with myriad resources and links such as:

• “Democracy, Growing Up,” Where Is Democracy Headed?, Funding and Fostering Local Democracy, and Democracy as Problem Solving? The core principles underpinning these projects are described here.
• “Promising Practices in Online Engagement” categorizes different online projects, and “Sidewalks for Democracy Online.”
• Empowered Participation
• The Promise and Challenge of Neighborhood Democracy.
• Involve
• “Deliberative Democracy and the Problem of Power”
• “Strengthening Our Nation’s Democracy”
• Youth engagement and the role of higher ed.

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“Most of our communities are fragmented and at odds within themselves. Businesses, social services, education, and health care each live within their own worlds. The same is true of individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. What keeps this from changing is that we are trapped in an old and tired conversation about who we are. If this narrative does not shift, we will never truly create a common future and work toward it together.”

In his book, Community – The Structure of Belonging, Peter Block explores how community can emerge from fragmentation, how community is built, how transformation occurs, and what individuals and formal leaders can do to create a place they want to inhabit. The kind of transformation that can occur in community starting from powerful questions, other than just talk, include:

-Invitation replaces mandate, policy and alignment
-Possibility replaces problem solving
-Ownership and Cause replace explanation and denial
-Dissent and Refusal replace resignation and lip service
-Commitment replaces hedge and barter
-Gifts replace deficiencies

“We know what healthy communities look like—there are many success stories out there. The challenge is how to create one in our own place. Peter Block helps us see how we can change the existing context of community from one of deficiencies, interests, and entitlement to one of possibility, generosity, and gifts. Questions are more important than answers in this effort, which means leadership is not a matter of style or vision but is about getting the right people together in the right way: convening is a more critical skill than commanding.”

As he explores the nature of community and the dynamics of transformation, Peter outlines six kinds of conversation that will create communal accountability and commitment and describes how we can design physical spaces and structures that will themselves foster a sense of belonging:

1. Conversations for Inviting
2. Conversations for Possibility
3. Conversations for Ownership
4. Conversations for Dissent
5. Conversations for Commitment
6. Conversations of Gifts.

Download the booklet Civic Engagement and the Restoration of Community: Changing the Nature of the Conversation for the questions, tools and techniques to foster the transformation and restoration of community.

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From the NCDD listserve, just received this incredibly positive breaking news for the field…!

The White House announced today that the White House Office of Public Liaison is being tasked with an expanded mission, and a new name: the Office of Public Engagement! In his video announcement about OPE, President Obama said:

“This office will seek to engage as many Americans as possible in the difficult work of changing this country, through meetings and conversations with groups and individuals held in Washington and across the country.”

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Reproducing here, a truly important synthesis piece initiated by the National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation, the Co-Intelligence Institute, the International Association of Public Practitioners, and endorsed by many others….

PREAMBLE

The Seven Principles for Public Engagement were developed collaboratively in Spring 2009 by dozens of leaders in public engagement, with the expectation of ongoing dialogue and periodic revision. (See National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation for full details.)

In a strong democracy, citizens and government work together to build a society that protects individual freedom while simultaneously ensuring liberty and justice for all. Engaging people around the issues that affect their lives and their country is a key component of a strong democratic society.

Public engagement involves convening diverse, representative groups of people to wrestle with information from a variety of viewpoints all to the end of making better, often more creative decisions. Public engagement aims to provide people with direction for their own community activities, or with public judgments that will be seriously considered by policy-makers and other power-holders.

The more any given public engagement effort takes into consideration the following seven Core Principles, the more it can expect to effectively build mutual understanding, meaningfully affect policy development, and/or inspire collaborative action among citizens and institutions. These seven interdependent principles serve both as ideals to pursue and as criteria for judging quality. Rather than promoting partisan agendas, the application of the Core Principles creates the conditions for authentic engagement around public issues.

The Seven Core Principles (download PDF)

These seven recommendations reflect the common beliefs and understandings of those working in the fields of public engagement, conflict resolution, and collaboration. In practice, people apply these and additional principles in many different ways.

1. Careful Planning and Preparation

Through adequate and inclusive planning, ensure that the design, organization, and convening of the process serve both a clearly defined purpose and the needs of the participants.

2. Inclusion and Demographic Diversity

Equitably incorporate diverse people, voices, ideas, and information to lay the groundwork for quality outcomes and democratic legitimacy.

3. Collaboration and Shared Purpose

Support and encourage participants, government and community institutions, and others to work together to advance the common good.1

4. Openness and Learning

Help all involved listen to each other, explore new ideas unconstrained by predetermined outcomes, learn and apply information in ways that generate new options, and rigorously evaluate public engagement activities for effectiveness.

5. Transparency and Trust

Be clear and open about the process, and provide a public record of the organizers, sponsors, outcomes, and range of views and ideas expressed.

6. Impact and Action
Ensure each participatory effort has real potential to make a difference, and that participants are aware of that potential.

7. Sustained Engagement and Participatory Culture

Promote a culture of participation with programs and institutions that support ongoing quality public engagement.

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1 In addition to reflecting democratic ideals of liberty, justice, and freedom for everyone, “common good” refers to that which benefits all, like a traffic light in a dangerous intersection or a cleaned-up water supply.

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