member benefits

If you haven’t yet joined NCDD, now might be the time…

Joseph McCormick of the Transpartisan Alliance is offering a huge 50% discount to all NCDD members who haven’t registered yet for this month’s American Citizens’ Summit in Denver.

When you register for the American Citizens’ Summit, choose your registration type (affiliated, unaffiliated, leadership delegate) and a box will pop up asking you to “Enter code here.” Enter “friendfamily” (no quotes) in the box and you will be charged half price. I hope some of you – especially those of you near Denver! – will be able to attend this important event. NCDD is a proud co-sponsor of the Summit.

Visit www.transpartisan.net for more details. You can also look over ALL the great discounts that NCDD members who pay the optional annual membership fee (just $50) receive at www.thataway.org/discounts.

Fielding Graduate University’s fifth graduate level Certificate Program in Dialogue, Deliberation, and Public Engagement is being held this fall (August 15, 2008 through January 15, 2009). I have heard only great things about this program, and I recommend it highly to anyone who wants to earn some credentials in D&D but isn’t quite ready for a doctorate.

This distinctive program focuses on recent innovations in dialogue, deliberation, and public engagement featuring outstanding faculty who have played key roles in developing these approaches. It strives for the development of mastery in our practice of dialogue and deliberation.

Designed and delivered in collaboration with The International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, the Kettering Foundation, and the Public Dialogue Consortium, the program features an outstanding faculty of scholar-practitioners (Hal Saunders, Barnett Pearce, Phil Stewart, Keith Melville, Jan Elliott, John Dedrick, Linda Blong, Kath Fisher). It also features guests in phone dialogues who are widely recognized scholars and innovative practitioners. Previous featured guests have included Carolyn Lukensmeyer, Juanita Brown, Martha McCoy, Bob Stains, Shawn Spano, Frank Barrett, Joe Peters, Janette Hartz-Karp and Jim Fishkin.

Come join us and learn with others from different backgrounds and countries who share your energy and enthusiasm for this work. Learn in two face-to-face workshops, online, and on the phone with world renowned practitioners. To help make it easy for those attending the NCDD conference, the first face-to-face workshop will take place in Austin, Texas immediately after the conference.

Here’s what a few previous participants had to say:

• “The DDPE certificate program is exceptional.”
• “Altogether an outstanding experience.”
• “The Program was extremely valuable.”
• “This program has had, and continues to have, a huge impact on my thinking and the way I do my work.”

For a course outline and to check out other testimonials, see www.fielding.edu/hod/ce/dialog/index.html. You can also check on the website to see when the next informational conference call is being held.

Tuition is US $3490 if you register by the early bird deadline of July 15, 2008. NCDD members’ tuition is only US $3,140 (10% discount). Registrants enrolling after July 15 will be charged US $3,740 ($3,390 for NCDD members). Register at https://www.fielding.edu/forms/ce/ce_registration.htm.

Addendum Added 7/1/08…

Dialogue, Deliberation and Public Engagement
Certificate Program (DDPE)
August 15, 2008 – January 15, 2009
Developing Mastery in Dialogue, Deliberation and Public Engagement

Call for Sponsorship Applications—Deadline:  July 15, 2008

The Institute for Social Innovation at Fielding Graduate University announces $2,500 partial sponsorships for professionals who are interested in improving their practice and beginning a project in the area of dialogue, deliberation, and public engagement.  We are particularly interested in partially sponsoring participants who have the opportunity and interest in supporting dialogic, deliberative and engagement practices in their organizations or communities through projects which have the potential to build civic engagement capacity.

With support from the Kellogg Foundation, we are offering partial sponsorships for our 19 week certificate program which provide participants with the opportunity to develop towards mastery of dialogue and deliberation processes by working with a scholar-practitioner model of reflective practice. An exceptional faculty of scholar-practitioners, who do real world work in diverse contexts and cultures, will support your learning and provide coaching for a culminating capstone project.   This program uses blended learning: two face to face sessions, online, and phone and is available for academic graduate credit.  These sponsorships provide about half of the total cost of the program. (For DDPE info www.fielding.edu/hod/ce/dialog/index.html)

Applicants must have organizational support in the form of commitment to dialogue, deliberation and public engagement.  Applicants with financial support from their organization/community will be given preference.  Applicants can be from any sector of society: non-profit, government, or for-profit.

The review team is accepting applications until July 15, 2008.  If you are interested in submitting an application, please send the following by email to .

1. Two page description of how you intend to use this certificate in your work; a description of a potential project opportunity which would help to build civic engagement capacity using dialogue and deliberation in your organization or community.
2. An email letter of support from your organization with an indication of financial contribution.

For questions, please contact: Dr. Katrina Rogers, Fielding Graduate University at (805) 898-2924 or .

On May 20th, Andy and I drove over to Philadelphia to meet with Marv Weisbord and Sandra Janoff – co-founders of the Future Search Network and co-creators of the future search method. For those of you not familiar with it, future search is a great planning method that allows people to discover a set of shared values or themes (common ground) and build new dynamics such as inclusion and collaboration into their organization or community.

Future search is not trademarked and is not owned by anyone (I can’t tell you how much I respect that!) and all are encouraged to use the process and experiment with it. It is an open system process, which means it considers anyone a necessary participant who can affect, is affected by or has important information or experience related to the task at hand.

We had a great visit with Marv and Sandra (pictured), who are super-nice, intelligent, thoughtful people. We visited at Marv’s beautiful house and then had lunch nearby at an Indian restaurant. We learned about the origins of future search and the underlying philosophy of the process.

I left our meeting with a lot more respect for the future search process, and I recommend that everyone involved in change management become familiar with the process. If you want to learn more about future search, here are some things you can do…

• Go to the Future Search Network site
  
• Get trained in future search (they provide great discounts for paid NCDD members!)
• Buy Marv and Sandra’s most recent book, Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! Ten Principles for Leading Meetings that Matter
• Check out the resources we have in the Learning Exchange on future search

A Foundations of Appreciative Inquiry course will be held at the William Penn House in Washington DC May 5th through 7th, and NCDD members are encouraged to attend. Registration is only $150, or $125/person for groups of 4 or more. All NCDD members (whether you’ve paid the membership fee or not) receive a $25 discount (only $100 each for groups of 4+).

Appreciative Inquiry is a process of engagement that moves participants through discovery, dreaming, designing and implementing positive change. It is a process that has helped bring fundamental change to schools, organizations and communities. It has been especially useful in helping community groups that often get “stuck” on social issues to work through these issues, find common ground, and move forward towards a healthier community.

The co-facilitators of this three-day Foundations course, Marge Schiller and Joyce Lemke, have worked specifically with school districts and social service groups to implement new programs with renewed energy throughout the country. Organizations and community partnerships are strongly encouraged to send groups, as there will be time to work together throughout these days.

The course will be held at the William Penn House at 515 E. Capitol St. SE. Lodging (shared accommodations) is available for only $30/night at this Quaker house, including breakfast. For more information or to register, contact NCDD member Brad Ogilvie at or at 301-257-5348. Information is also available at www.williampennhouse.org.

If you lead meetings in any setting, whether at work or in your community, solid facilitation skills are critical for obtaining successful outcomes. The Competent Facilitator: Essential Skills for Guiding Groups (pdf file), a facilitation workshop, (May 14-16 at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Facilitators: Myriam Laberge and Brenda Chaddock) is a three-day experiential program that will give you a practical foundation in facilitation theory and practice. As a competent facilitator, you will be able to use your skills and knowledge to achieve effective results in guiding and enabling groups to move towards their goals and find their own answers. You will know how to create participative environments, and use a variety of approaches to help groups achieve their objectives and desired outcomes. You will be able to honour and recognize diversity, support groups to higher performance and creativity, leverage different learning styles, and minimize tension and conflict. The regular registration rate for this program varies according to corporate or social profit sector, and paid NCDD members are eligible for a 10% discount.

This facilitation workshop (March 24-26 at Villanova Conference Center in Radnor, Pennsylvania) is based on the newly released book, “DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING, STAND THERE! Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter,” and is presented by the authors – internationally-known facilitators and Future Search co-creators Sandra Janoff and Marvin Weisbord.

The workshop presents a philosophy, theory and method for transforming diverse work groups of all kinds. This seminar, integrating system change and personal growth theories is for experienced leaders who want to increase their capacity to help large, diverse groups stay task-focused and accomplish ambitious goals. Future search experience is not necessary for this workshop. This workshop runs one afternoon, one full day and one morning.

The regular registration rate for this training is $1195, but paid NCDD members are eligible for a 30% discount (only $836.50). Learn more or register.

Large Group Design Skills for Leaders and Consultants

Paid NCDD members receive a 15% discount (saving over $200!) off this three-day course: “The Collaboration Imperative,“ facilitated by Nancy Aronson, Ph.D and Gilbert Steil Jr. The program’s goal is to share with participants the magic of whole systems work, and equip them with the tools to design their own large group meetings whether they involve 30 people or several thousand. Large group methods, virtually unknown twenty years ago, are being used worldwide to address complex organizational and community issues. These large group working sessions are task focused and results oriented. They have proven to be an invaluable method for strategic planning, organization design, working specific strategic issues, process re-design and for complex projects that cross the boundaries of functions, departments and organizations. They build the indispensable relationships needed for coherence and alignment within an organization or community.

The fee for the seminar is $1490 ($1267 for NCDD members). Contact Ferne Kuhn at 610-725-0444 or [email protected] for more information – or visit gilsteil.com.

NCI Charrette Certificate Trainings

NCDD paid members can benefit from a 10% discount towards the upcoming trainings from the National Charrettes Institute being held in Portland, OR, March 10-14, 2008. The NCI Certificate Program includes the necessary tools and techniques to prepare you for planning and managing a charrette. Charrettes capable of transformative community change require careful planning and execution. The NCI Charrette Planner® and NCI Complete Charrette Manager™ certificate courses give you the framework and the hands-on skills to successfully utilize the powerful Dynamic Planning process. To register, visit the training information page on the NCI website.

You can learn about additional training discounts for NCDD members here.

Introduction to NCI Dynamic Planning at CNU XVI, April 2 in Austin, Texas

from the NCI Community Forum blog:

Take the first step toward your NCI certificates. This is a stand alone course that describes how a charrette works within the context of NCI Dynamic Planning, a comprehensive project management process that begins with the project vision and ends with the plan’s implementation. Upon the completion of this course you will be eligible to complete your NCI Charrette Planner® certificate by taking just one additional NCI module. Participants include anyone who wants to know about this powerful collaborative planning process, from elected officials to planning staff, from developers to concerned citizens. You do not need to register for the CNU conference in order to attend this training. AICP and AIA credit hours will be awarded for this training. Click here for more information and to register.

Since this training is associated with another event, the NCDD discount does not apply.

Have you been meaning to attend a Future Search Workshop for awhile? Have you wanted to improve your skills & confidence as a group leader or facilitator in 2008? Consider attending one of the Future Search Network’s upcoming trainings, all three of which are discounted generously for NCDD members who have paid the membership fee. The trainings are…

• March 24-26 – Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! – at the Villanova Conference Center in Radnor, PA
• June 8-11 – Managing a Future Search – A Learning Workshop – at the Villanova Conference Center in Radnor, PA
• December 7-9 – Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! – in Seattle, Washington (specific location TBA)

Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff, Ph.D. are co-authors of FUTURE SEARCH: An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations and Communities. They work with whole systems across all sectors. Sandra and Marv are co-directors of Future Search Network, a non-profit voluntary association of 350 practitioners worldwide dedicated to learning, colleagueship, and community service.

Paid NCDD members receive a huge 30% discount, saving hundreds off the registration fees (way more than the $50 individual membership fee!). Learn more at www.futuresearch.net/frms/workshop/index.cfm. Or go to www.thataway.org/discounts to see all of the trainings that are discounted for paid NCDD members.

Bay Area Nonviolent Communication Offers NCCD Members Discounted Training with Living Peace Intensive Residential Retreats in 2008.

BayNVC invites NCDD members to come and stretch their heart muscles and explore the practice of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) at one of this year’s retreats led by Bay Area Nonviolent Communication’s senior trainers and paid NCDD members can take advantage of a special discount (learn more on NCDD’s discounts page). The retreats feature tasty (mostly organic) food, beautiful settings, and dedicated support of individual and small group learning. Register for any of these retreats at http://www.baynvc.org/retreats.php.

A list of trainings follows the break… (more…)

The Harwood Institute will be offering its next Harwood Public Innovators Lab March 17-20, 2008 in Baltimore, MD. The Lab is an intensive, three-day experience that will help you create new pathways to accelerate change and engender authentic hope. The aim of the Lab is to engage people in thinking about and applying the Harwood Institute’s key ideas, frameworks, and tools developed over the last eighteen years to their own context and goals. They offer alumni access to webinars and starting in February a website just for alumni where they can gain access to tools and share their stories and experiences. Information about the Harwood Public Innovators Lab can be found here: www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=173062. Paid NCDD members qualify for a 10% discount. You’ll need to put in NCDD in the special codes space when registering to automatically receive the discount.

Also, Rich Harwood has just written a new essay that you may be interested in reading. Make Hope Real discusses 5 key factors to making hope real in our communities. The essay is a tool for both understanding the challenges of creating change, as well as a way to begin a national discussion on what each of us can do to make hope real in our own community. The essay Make Hope Real offers readers an opportunity to explore the ways that they can help to accelerate change in their community and make hope real. To order the essay, call 301-656-3669. The regular price is $5 but for NCDD members it is $4 – just say you are with NCDD to get the discount.

PublicDecisions.com – a worldwide leader in online training for public participation – has announced its upcoming schedule of nearly two dozen specialized classes for the first quarter of 2008. PublicDecisions provides practically oriented training for persons who work with stakeholders and the public to solve problems, craft policies/programs or achieve social change. The company’s offerings are suitable for working professionals and officials who are constrained from participating in professional development activities by geographic distances and limited budgets. Classes are conducted live, and quality is ensured by limiting class sizes to a small number of participants. Plus – paid NCDD members are eligible for a 20% discount on any PublicDecisions training (read more about this at www.thataway.org/discounts)!

Classes are taught by skilled practitioners experienced in the public, private and nonprofit/NGO sectors. PublicDecisions also provides a convenient, profitable opportunity for experienced professionals who are interested in establishing or expanding their teaching practice in the field of public participation. To learn more about their course offerings from January to March 2008, visit http://publicdecisions.com/class_schedule.html. Or contact Chief Learning Officer Beth Offenbacker at .

The Perspectives Group has announced the dates for their five-day IAP2 Certificate Program in Public Participation. Each of the four training opportunities are offered in the Washington Metro Area and will be held throughout 2008 on the following dates: February 4-8, 2008, June 9-13, 2008, September 15-19, 2008 and December 1-5, 2008.

Presented by International Master Trainer in Public Participation and NCDD member, Douglas Sarno, the training is offered in 3 sections: Planning for Effective Public Participation (two days), Effective Communication for Public Participation (one day), and Techniques for Public Participation (two days); the course costs $1,625 for the full week of training or $325 per day. Paid NCDD members receive a 15% discount ($244). There’s more info about the member savings on the NCDD discounts page. You can also learn more or register by calling 703-837-1197, or by visiting the program’s website and downloading a registration form.

How do you distinguish prospective clients who want to conduct a true public participation process from those who really want a marketing campaign? This question and other techniques and approaches for screening and qualifying clients in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors are examined in
Consultant’s Corner: Qualifying Prospects Who Want to Engage You, a training presented online by PublicDecisions.com. Participants will learn key insights for making a go/no go decision from a panel of p2 consultants with extensive experience in all three sectors. Guest panelists include Gay Robinson, Gay Robinson Consulting, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Doug Zenn, Zenn Associates, Portland, Oregon, USA; Donald Golob, Donald Golob Consulting, North Vancouver, BC, Canada.

But time is running out to sign-up for this sixty-minute online class which will be presented on Tuesday, January 8 at 1pm EST! Visit the training’s information page for more details. Paid NCDD members receive a 10% discount, so please contact Paul Coelus at for info on registering and receiving the discount.

Most practitioners who are experienced in the charrette process will have heard this news from the National Charrette Institute, but it’s interesting news for the field and I thought I’d share it.

Today’s e-newsletter from the National Charrette Institute included an invitation for experienced charrette practitioners to participate in the Kiryat-Shmona, Israel charrette this December (the 2nd through 6th). This is the first full 5-day charrette in Israel, and experienced practitioners are needed to give the Israeli participants, both professionals and the public, confidence in the charrette process. This charrette is sponsored by the Movement for Israeli Urbanism.

Charrettes, in case you aren’t familiar with them, are used to involve citizens in community planning efforts. They are multi-day intensive planning workshops that include all stakeholders in a community and result in a plan that can be implemented and built. If you’re interested in getting trained to run charrettes, we’ve negotiated some great discounts with NCI for paid NCDD members.

For more info on this opportunity, contact or email NCI at .