This post is Appendix 7 of Kaliya’s NSTIC Governance NOI Response – please see this page for the overview and links to the rest of the posts. Here is a link to the PDF.
Resource Guide on Public Engagement
Created collaboratively by the dialogue & deliberation community.
From NCDD’s October 2010 Resource Guide on Public Engagement:
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.
Inclusion and Demographic Diversity
Equitably incorporate diverse people, voices, ideas, and information to lay the groundwork for quality
outcomes and democratic legitimacy.
Collaboration and Shared Purpose
Support and encourage participants, government and community institutions, and others to work
together to advance the common good.
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 the process.
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.
Impact and Action
Ensure each participatory effort has real potential to make a difference, and that participants are
aware of that potential.
Sustained Engagement and Participatory Culture
Promote a culture of participation with programs and institutions that support ongoing quality public
engagement.
In spring 2009, the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2), and the Co-Intelligence Institute engaged practitioners and scholars in the creation of these 7 Core Principles for Public Engagement, aimed at creating clarity for practitioners, public managers, and community leaders about the fundamental components of quality public engagement.
Visit www.ncdd.org/pep to download the full 12-page Principles document, which details what each principle looks like in practice and what practitioners and leaders should avoid.
Descriptions of Processes
Intergroup Dialogues are face-to-face meetings of people from at least two different social identity groups. They are designed to offer
an open and inclusive space where participants can foster a deeper understanding of diversity and justice issues through participation in
experiential activities, individual and small group reflections, and dialogues.
www.umich.edu/~igrc/ and www.depts.washington.edu/sswweb/idea/
National Issues Forums offer citizens the opportunity to join together to deliberate, to make choices with others about ways to approach
diffcult issues and to work toward creating reasoned public judgment. NIF is known for its careful issue framing and quality issue guides
which outline 3 or 4 different viewpoints.
www.nifi.org
Open Space Technology is a self-organizing practice that invites people to take responsibility for what they care about. In Open Space,
a marketplace of inquiry is created where people offer topics they are passionate about and reflect and learn from one another. It is an
innovative approach to creating whole systems change and inspiring creativity and leadership among participants.
www.openspaceworld.org
The Public Conversations Project helps people with fundamental disagreements over divisive issues develop the mutual understanding
and trust essential for strong communities and positive action. Their dialogue model is characterized by a careful preparatory phase in which
all stakeholders/sides are interviewed and prepared for the dialogue process.
www.publicconversations.org
Socrates Cafés and other forms of Socratic Dialogue encourage groups inside and outside the classroom to engage in robust philosophical
inquiry. The Cafés consist of spontaneous yet rigorous dialogue that inspires people to articulate and discover their unique philosophical
perspectives and worldview. They don’t force consensus or closure, but are open-ended and can be considered a success if there are more
questions at the end than there were at the outset.
www.philosopher.org
Study Circles enable communities to strengthen their own ability to solve problems by bringing large numbers of people together in
dialogue across divides of race, income, age, and political viewpoints. Study Circles combine dialogue, deliberation, and community
organizing techniques, enabling public talk to build understanding, explore a range of solutions, and serve as a catalyst for social, political,
and policy change.
www.everyday-democracy.org
Sustained Dialogue is a process for transforming and building the relationships that are essential to democratic political and economic
practice. SD is not a problem-solving workshop; it is a sustained interaction to transform and build relationships among members of deeply
conflicted groups so that they may effectively deal with practical problems. As a process that develops over time through a sequence of
meetings, SD seems to move through a series of recognizable phases including a deliberative “scenario-building” stage and an “acting
together” stage.
www.sustaineddialogue.org
Victim Offender Mediation is a restorative justice process that allows the victim of a crime and the person who committed that crime to talk
to each other about what happened, the effects of the crime on their lives, and their feelings about it. They may choose to create a mutually
agreeable plan to repair any damages that occurred as a result of the crime. In some practices, the victim and the offender are joined by
family and community members or others.
www.voma.org
A Wisdom Circle is a small group dialogue designed to encourage people to listen and speak from the heart in a spirit of inquiry. By opening
and closing the circle with a simple ritual of the group’s choosing, using a talking object, and welcoming silence, a safe space is created where
participants can be trusting, authentic, caring, and open to change. Also referred to as Council process and Listening Circles.
www.wisdomcircle.org
Wisdom Councils are microcosms of larger systems like cities and organizations that engage in a creative, thoughtful exploration of the
issues affecting the system. A specialized facilitation process is used called “Dynamic Facilitation” – a nonlinear approach for addressing
complex issues that allows shared insights and aligned action to emerge. The outcomes of the Wisdom Council, which are reported back to
the community, can catalyze further dialogue, self-organizing action and change throughout the larger system.
www.wisedemocracy.org
World Cafés enable groups of people to participate together in evolving rounds of dialogue with three or four others while at the same time
remaining part of a single, larger, connected conversation. Small, intimate conversations link and build on each other as people move between
groups, cross-pollinate ideas, and discover new insights into questions or issues that really matter in their life, work, or community.
www.theworldcafe.com
This post is Appendix 7 of Kaliya’s NSTIC Governance NOI Response – please see this page for the overview and links to the rest of the posts. Here is a link to the PDF.
This is the section before: Reboot: Deliberative Democracy
This is the section after: Anti-pseudonym bingo
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