I hope those of you in Northern California are planning to join us for the NCDD regional event on Friday, October 29th at De Anza College in Cupertino! Please register for “Making Tough Decisions Together” soon so we know you’re coming.

This is quite the community effort, with numerous local organizations sponsoring (listed below) and the following regional leaders involved in guiding the planning process and leading learning sessions at the event:

• Dave Knapp, City Manager of Cupertino, CA
• Ed Everett, City Manager of Redwood City, CA
• Pete Petersen, Executive Director, Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership/Common Sense California
• Terry Amsler, Program Director, Collaborative Governance Initiative
• Daniel Homsey, Director, Neighborhood Empowerment Network

These leaders have been actively involved in making sure this event addresses the real-world issues you face in your communities. You’ll be able to interact with them in a hands-on workshop environment to learn successful ways to engage and mobilize people around difficult issues.

Making Tough Decisions Together is co-hosted by De Anza’s Institute for Community and Civic Engagement (ICCE) and the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD).

This conference will bring together elected officials, local government managers and staff, community leaders, students and public engagement practitioners from across Northern California for a day-long conference and workshop to explore practical and innovative strategies for working together to make the tough choices communities face today.

The day is designed to be highly interactive, focusing on best practices in public engagement and community building taking place in various communities in Northern California, and it’s a good value—registration is just $85 ($70 for NCDD members, $42 for students). Lunch is included.

Download the event flyer, or visit www.ncdd.org/sanfrancisco2010 for more info on the event, our sponsors, and our amazing planning team. Registration is live at www.ncddsanfrancisco.eventbrite.com.

Shout-0ut to our All-Star Sponsors for all 5 upcoming NCDD regional events:

• AmericaSpeaks
• Citizens in Charge Foundation
• Everyday Democracy
• National Conference of State Legislatures
• Public Conversations Project
• University of Mass. Boston’s Office of Public Collaboration (MODR)

Our Sponsors for the Northern California event:

• California Forward
• Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership
• Public Dialogue Consortium
• The Institute for Local Government

Our Partners for the Northern California event:

• San Francisco Neighborhood Empowerment Network (NEN)
• Community At Work
• SEEDS Community Resolution Center
• Common Knowledge
• Deborah Goldblatt of Wiser Together

Learn more about all our sponsors at www.ncdd.org/sanfrancisco2010 — and feel free to join their ranks! All-Star Sponsors contribute $1500, Sponsors contribute $500, and Partners contribute $250 to help offset event costs and foster local and national networking and knowledge-sharing (more info on sponsorship).

Joining us in Austin on Nov. 5th for the NCDD regional event “From Chaos to Collaboration: Raising the bar in public engagement”? The Central Texas D&D Network is looking for a few additional presenters to make their upcoming workshop more interactive, productive and relevant…

Here are three opportunities for you to contribute, with links to an online form you can complete if you’re interested. The deadline for submitting is Friday, October 22.

1. D&D Marketplace: Sign up for a table at our D&D Marketplace that will take place from approximately from 1:00 – 2:00. This will be an “open space” casual (non-presentation-style) format where you will have an opportunity to share some tools, methods, or insights you have gained.
2. Practitioner Consultant: Provide two hours of consulting services for free to our conference sponsors following the workshop. As a perk to our $500 level sponsors, we are asking practitioners interested in building their business to donate two hours of consulting time to our sponsors. It’s a win-win situation! You get face time with a potential client and they get two hours of consulting from a potential service provider.
3. Community Examples: Send information about an example of a public engagement project that we can use as an example of activities taking place in Central Texas.

This is an exciting opportunity to highlight your work and to contribute to our learning community. I hope that you will jump on this chance and I look forward to seeing you on November 5. Also, don’t forget to register and to spread the word.

Learn more about the workshop at www.ncdd.org/austin2010 and register today at www.ncddaustin.eventbrite.com.

NCDD member Wayne Burke, director of the Open Forum Foundation, is hosting an “NCDD Happy Hour” on Tuesday, October 19 at 5:30.  He was inspired by the amazing people who were introducing themselves on NCDD’s DC-Network listserv. RSVP and see who’s coming at http://ncdd-dc1.eventbrite.com/ (as I write this, 7 people have RSVPed already – and I can guarantee they’re all worth knowing!).

He writes…

Sandy seems to think there are a bunch of cool NCDD people in the DC area. I’m always up for meeting more cool people. There’s a lot of work to be done in our field and the better connections we have between us, the more capable we will be of sharing those responsibilities and truly accomplishing something.

What better way to lubricate the conversation than with a little social drinking?

Besides, this will provide a good opportunity to get to know some of the home town folks before we converge on Boston!

I’ve chosen a location that is easy access from Metro Center, so that it will be easy for everyone to get to. It’s a restaurant inside the Grand Hyatt Washington, so even if it’s raining, you can get there by subway without exposing yourself to the elements.

Hope to see you there!!

On October 4, Join us for a Webinar on October 4 at 2pm, PACE and Everyday Democracy are running a one-hour webinar on “Measurable Community Change: How do we know it when we see it?”

Everyday Democracy has recently completed the grant-funded portion of its Communities Creating Racial Equity (CCRE) initiative, for which the Center for Assessment and Policy Development (CAPD) did the cross-site evaluation. In CCRE, eight community coalitions received coaching and grants from Everyday Democracy to implement dialogue, deliberation and action intended to contribute to closing racial disparities. CAPD worked with the coalitions to help them measure community-level results of that work. Carolyne Abdullah of Everyday Democracy and Sally Leiderman of CAPD will share some of the challenges and lessons from the cross-site evaluation and invite participants to offer additional examples and lessons.

They will highlight learnings on two related fronts – specific outcomes that measure the contribution of civic engagement to community change, and infusing a racial equity lens throughout the creation and application of civic engagement processes. The latter will include candid discussion of issues of power and privilege in: determining what kinds of outcomes should be measured; creating indicators; timing of data collection; and developing feasible and cost-effective ways to document the outcomes of civic engagement. They will also share data collection tools that focus on observable community changes that helped community coalitions measure results based on a “how would you know it when you see it” approach.

Carolyne Abdullah is a program director at Everyday Democracy and Sally Leiderman in President of the Center for Assessment and Policy Development.

Reserve your spot at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/178023290.

The Boston planning team is looking for a few more good cases, tools and questions for the New England regional event at UMass Boston on October 29th.  If you’re planning on joining us at the event, please consider what you might be able to contribute (and don’t forget to register!)…

Early in the planning stages, the Planning Team for the NCDD 2010 Boston event, From Polarization to Problem Solving, reviewed all responses to the pre-meeting survey NCDD sent out to the network. Based on your input, the Boston team is designing a meeting filled with practical information, real cases, and the ability to work with others on real issues. There will be three sections of the meeting where we will work in smaller groups: a Case Analysis Breakout for in-depth discussion of completed cases; a Marketplace for exchanging information on specific tools, techniques, and services; and a Workspace where we will work on (1) key issues and (2) “live cases” or scenarios with actual “clients.”

In order to offer the widest range of powerful learning opportunities within these categories, the team is putting out a call for ideas and leaders for each of these sections. Please read the descriptions below and click on the headers to download the forms. If you have something you would like to offer for one or more of these sessions, please fill out and submit the appropriate form to Courtney Breese () and Barbara Simonetti () no later than 5:00pm next Monday, October 4.

• Case Analysis Breakout: Completed Cases – stories of public engagement work that has been completed or is significantly along. We will be presenting the cases interactively. Please complete the “Case Analysis Breakout – Completed Case” form.
• Workspace: Scenarios or “Live” cases – situations where the work is in the assessment or planning phases and that can be worked on during the meeting. (Public officials especially are invited to bring a situation to the meeting that could be worked on by attendees during the meeting.) Please complete the “Workspace – Live Cases” form.
• Workspace: Key Issues or Questions – Burning questions or issues in the realm of public engagement that could be worked on by participants during the meeting. Please complete the “Workspace – Key Issues” form.
• Marketplace: Tools, techniques or services that you would like to showcase and that you think participants will want to learn about. Please complete the “Marketplace” form.

If you have any questions regarding these forms, please contact Courtney at or 617-287-4046.

Learn more about the Boston event, our sponsors, our planning team, and more at www.ncdd.org/boston2010. And be sure to register soon at http://ncddboston.eventbrite.com!

I know a bunch of you who are planning to attend NCDD’s fall regional events haven’t got around to registering yet.  I thought I’d encourage those of you who enjoy saving money to go ahead and register today!  I’ve set up a 10% off discount code that is only good until midnight tonight.  The codes work for all three registration types:  NCDD members, students, and regular.

Here are links to more info on all our member-run regional events…

• Denver, Colorado – The Wellshire Inn on Friday, October 22nd
• San Francisco Bay Area, California – De Anza College on Friday, October 29th
• Boston, Massachusetts – UMass Boston on Friday, October 29th
• Austin, Texas – St. Edward’s University on Friday, November 5th
• Portland, Oregon – Concordia University on Saturday, November 13th

To register at the discounted rate, follow the links to registration or go directly to this Eventbrite link and choose the event you plan to attend. You’ll see an orange link that says “Enter Discount Code” right under the registration types.  Click on that and enter 10TODAY into the box that appears and click on the “apply discount” button.  You’ll see the registration fees change once you do this. Then change the quantity to “1″ beside your registration type, click on “order now” and complete registration.

Let me know if you have any questions about this or experience any problems.  I can be reached at .

Sandy Heierbacher
Director, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (www.ncdd.org)

Just wanted to point your attention to a resource I added to the NCDD Resource Center yesterday on legal frameworks / legislation that supports dialogue, deliberation and public engagement work.

The new listing at http://ncdd.org/rc/item/4341 describes and links to 3 resources to help you get a sense of the kinds of legislation that can and do support citizen engagement in governance and decision-making–-an NCDD listserv compilation, an amazing article by Lisa Bingham, and a 2003 global compilation by LogoLink.

Have you heard the buzz?  This highly interactive workshop is bringing together folks from the public sector, public engagement practitioners, students, and interested citizens for a rich day of learning and dialogue on how to raise the bar in public engagement. Be sure to join us on November 5 and you will:

• Learn from community examples and real life stories of engagement efforts in Central Texas around a wide range of topics – water, education, community planning, recreation and more.
• Experience firsthand a variety of methods that can be applied to public engagement.
• Explore online and face-to-face techniques, and grapple with some of the tough questions around the use of these tools.
• Identify approaches to work across traditional boundaries and foster collaborations that get results.

Don’t miss out on the in-depth discussion and the practical strategies that can help your next public engagement process be more satisfying and successful!  Registration for this one-day event is $85 ($70 for NCDD members and $42 for students) and includes lunch.  Learn more by emailing and register today at www.ncdd.org/austin2010.

16 new members joined NCDD during the month of August: 2 organizational members and 14 individuals (5 dues-paying and 9 non-dues).  And 18 of our dues-paying members renewed their memberships (5 organization and 13 individuals)! Thanks everybody, and welcome to our new members!

We post these monthly summaries not only to welcome our new members and to thank those who re-upped, but also to help members connect with one another.  Everyone has a page in the members network at  www.thataway.org/ncddnet/ so use the search box in the network if you want to learn more about any of these NCDDers.

Our 2 new organizational members:

1. Citizens in Charge Foundation (Contact: Amanda Roman, who is also an individual member)
2. University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service (Contact: Nancy Gansneder)

Our 14 new individual members (some dues-paying and some non-dues) are:

1. Mark Linder, Director of Parks and Recreation at the City of Cupertino, CA
2. Sam Kaner, Executive Director of Community At Work
3. Linda Denton, Owner of Linda Denton Professional Development
4. Laurie Neighbors, Director of the Education and Coalition Building at Urban Habitat
5. Nancy Sharpless with Nancy B. Sharpless Mediation and Facilitation Services
6. Robert Waldon at Bedford Consulting & Associates
7. Jennifer Stone at Jennifer Stone Consulting
8. Cathie Ostapchuk, a facilitator in Canada
9. David Montgomerie of North Carolina
10. Matthew Cooper at South Mountain Community College
11. Michelle Beasley with Mind of Travels
12. Diane Owens with the Coffee Party Movement
13. Joel Hansen of Iowa
14. Charles Balter of Washington

Our 5 renewed organizational members:

1. Englewood Area Community Foundation (Michael Shannon)
2. Dispute Resolution Program at the Office of the Los Angeles City Attorney (Avis Ridley-Thomas and Yvonne Elias)
3. Healthy Democracy Oregon (Tyrone Reitman and Elliot Shuford)
4. Center for Wise Democratic Processes (DeAnna Martin and Jim and Jean Rough)
5. Open Forum Foundation (Wayne Burke)

Our 13 renewed (dues-paying) individual members::

1. Theodore Thomas at The James P Grant Trust for International Social Development
2. Helen Spector with Spector & Associates
3. Cynthia Gibson with Cynthesis Consulting and CitizenPost
4. Jan Inglis at Integrative Learning Institute
5. Chris Heuer at Social Media Club
6. Roberta Crowe with the Maricopa County Department of Transportation
7. John Godec, Godec at Randall & Associates
8. Richard Ober with the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation
9. Betsy Coddington at Resolutions Northwest
10. Marcus Rivas of Kansas
11. Sheril Smith at the University of Texas
12. Diane Good, a Diversity Consultant in New York
13. Dick LaFever with Crossroads Leadership Institute

Welcome and thanks, everyone!

To learn about other NCDD members (there are over 1,400 of us now!), find members in your state or city, etc., visit the NCDD members network at www.thataway.org/ncddnet/.

And to see if your membership is in good standing, search for yourself in the members network and look at what’s in the Member Type field in your profile. If it says “lapsed” or “non-dues-paying,” please consider becoming a current dues-paying member (see payment details here). You can also email NCDD office manager Joy Garman at if you have questions about your status, need payment instructions, or want to change the info on your profile page.

Ximena Zúñiga sent this announcement to the NCDD Discussion list today…

I wanted to remind you about our special themed issue for Equity & Excellence Education: Intergroup Dialogue: Engaging Difference, Social  Identities, and Social Justice.

SUBMISSIONS ARE DUE NOVEMBER 1ST. You can find the call for submissions pasted below.

We are looking to reach a wide audience.  I would appreciate you forwarding this call to to colleagues who may be interested, and relevant list-serves and networks.

- Ximena Zúñiga (Gretchen Lopez and Kristie Ford) (more…)

At the request of NCDD members, I’ve created a new moderated listserv for people who do dialogue & deliberation work in New England.  I am hoping the list will help you connect with one another, share announcements and opportunities, and collaborate within the region. You don’t have to be a member of NCDD to subscribe.

If you’re interested in subscribing, just send a blank email to . New England-based NCDD members have already been added (just email me at [email protected] if you’d like removed).

At this point, about 150 people are subscribed to the New England Network list.  I anticipate this will be a pretty lightly-used list (not much of a burden on your inbox!), but I hope it is a useful resource to people who do public engagement and conflict resolution work in New England.

We’ll be using the list to periodically update New Englanders on our progress on the upcoming NCDD regional event we’re holding in Boston on Friday, October 29th as well — so I especially hope you subscribe if you’re interested in joining us for the event!

If you’re not in New England, we may have a listserv for your region.  We have lists for D&D folks in Colorado, Northern California, Boston, Central Texas, the Cascadia region (WA, OR and BC), and the DC metro area.  Learn more here.

John Fenner, senior associate with Everyday Democracy and program director for the Center for Courage & Renewal, asked me to share an announcement with you.

This October 21-24, the Center for Courage & Renewal in conjunction with Courage & Renewal Northeast will be hosting Parker J. Palmer, author of The Courage to Teach, Let Your Life Speak, A Hidden Wholeness and others, for a conference and retreat on the The Politics of the Brokenhearted: The Future of Democracy in the Boston area.

This gathering is intended for 75 people who want to reclaim the heart of American democracy and help heal the deep divides that threaten it. We will explore practical approaches to helping ourselves and others hold our political conflicts in ways that can help renew the quality of our civic conversation and the promise of our democratic institutions.

Registration starts at $1000 (for program and meals without overnight stay). Learn more at www.couragerenewal.org/parkerpalmerevent.

If you didn’t see this in your inbox yesterday, please subscribe to the monthly Updates list of the National Coalition for dialogue & Deliberation at www.thataway.org/?page_id=855.

–

Hi, everyone! Did you know that NCDD members are organizing regional events in 5 cities across the U.S. this fall?

Join Us at NCDD’s Upcoming Regional Events

I hope you can join us at the event closest to you! Learn more about the events (and register) at ncdd.org/events. Most events are just $85 for the day ($70 for NCDD members and $42 for students).

• Denver, Colorado at the Wellshire Inn – Friday, October 22, 2010
• San Francisco, California at De Anza College – Friday, October 29, 2010
• Boston, Massachusetts at UMass Boston – Friday, October 29, 2010
• Austin, Texas at St. Edward’s University – Friday, November 5, 2010
• Portland, Oregon at Concordia University – Saturday, November 13, 2010
• A follow-up event is also in the works for spring 2011 in Washington, DC.

The events will focus on connecting practitioners, community leaders and public managers to help build knowledge and capacity in dialogue, deliberation and public engagement regionally.

Consider Sponsoring One or All of the Events!

A number of great organizations and leaders in our field are stepping up and supporting the fall events by becoming sponsors. We are especially grateful to our All-Star Sponsors, which at this point include AmericaSpeaks, the Citizens in Charge Foundation, and the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Our Sponsors and Partners will help strengthen local capacity to bridge divides and solve complex community challenges in the regions we’re holding events. Please consider signing on for one of these three sponsorship levels:

• All-Star Sponsor: Sponsor all of NCDD’s regional events with your contribution of $1,500 or more
• Sponsor: Sponsor the event in your region for $500 (or sponsor more than one event at $400 each)
• Partner: Be a Partner for the event in your region for $250

Learn more about sponsorship levels and benefits at www.ncdd.org/events/sponsor.php.

Check out NCDD’s new Resource Center

After a painfully long hiatus, our resources are back online at http://ncdd.org/rc. Nearly 2,500 (yep – 2,500) dialogue and deliberation case studies, articles, methods, discussion guides, videos, evaluation tools and programs are listed! And our must-see Beginner’s Guide, Quick-Reference Glossary, and Best-of-the-Best Resources are the first links you’ll see in the sidebar… so please check it out.

Headlines from the News & Perspectives Blog

Though we’re focusing this Update on our upcoming events, the NCDD blog (at www.thataway.org) is still a great place to stay up-to-date on opportunities and news in our growing field. Here are the latest headlines:

• Kansas State Univ’s ICDD adopts “JPD”
• PBS films on mosque controversy now online
• Portland City Council adopts Public Involvement Principles
• Question on NCDD Forum about online engagement
• Civic Reflection Facilitation Training Workshops
• Featured NCDD Member: Healthy Democracy Oregon
• Alberta Climate Dialogue hiring a Project Manager

And in case you don’t know, you can stay on top of NCDD blog posts and new resources added to the NCDD Resource Center by joining the NCDD Group on LinkedIn.

Upcoming Changes to NCDD’s Website

The NCDD website has been online at www.thataway.org since 2002. Its predecessor, the Dialogue to Action Initiative website went online in 1998. In the past 12 years we’ve updated the site five times… and it’s time to do it again. We’ve been listening to the needs and interests of our members and have spent the summer rolling out a new design and a few new features at our “new url” NCDD.org (including the new NCDD Forum, check it out!) Over the next few months we’ll be moving our news blog and members listings, and we’re really excited to offer our community a new site in 2011!

Discounts for Dues-Paying NCDD Members

In the sidebar of our monthly updates, we list the great discounts our dues-paying members are eligible for.  You can view them at www.thataway.org/discounts.

NCDD dues are just $50/year ($100 for organizations), and many of these discounts save you hundreds! Go to www.thataway.org/discounts for more details on these trainings. Or go to www.thataway.org/join to become a dues-paying NCDD member and benefit from these great discounts!

If you are interested in improving how citizens and Congress communicate, I’d like to point you to the Open Model for Citizen Engagement (OM4CE), started by Wayne Burke, the visionary executive director of the Open Forum Foundation.

Whether you are involved with elected representatives at the federal, state, or local level, there are some bold ideas swirling around in these conversations that you’ll probably find as intriguing as I do.  Person-for-person, this is the most inspired group of optimists and realists I have met who care passionately about doing something to improve public engagement on Capitol Hill. (more…)