The National Issues Forums (NIF) has released new issue book materials titled America’s Role in the World: What Does National Security Mean in the 21st Century? A limited supply of material packets will be available FREE to individuals or groups interested in hosting a deliberative community forum this spring.

Free packets include:

• 5 copies of the issue book with questionnaires
• 10 copies of the issue book issue map and
• 1 DVD starter video

Call AIT at 1.800.600.4060 and ask for the free NIF materials on America’s Role in the World.  You can also contact Deborah Witte if you have questions, at or 800.221.3657.

More about National Issues Forums from the NCDD website:

National Issues Forums are characterized by choice work, deliberation, and working toward common ground for action or a shared sense of purpose. In forums, people find places where their values, interests, and goals overlap. By giving citizens a chance to deliberate about public issues, National Issues Forums offer a place at the table where decisions are made that affect their lives. Forums, which are generally two hours long, can engage from a dozen to hundreds of people in one room around small tables. Forums are open to the public, and organizers often publicize widely to ensure that a variety of viewpoints are present.

National Issues Forums offer citizens the opportunity to join together to deliberate, to make choices with others about ways to approach difficult issues and to work toward creating reasoned public judgment.

The use of “issue books” as a basis for deliberative choice work is central to the NIF method. NIF issue books use research on the public’s concerns to identify three or four options or approaches to an issue. Presenting issues in this way invites citizens to confront the conflicts among different options and avoids the usual debates in which people lash out with simplistic arguments.

Forums seldom end in total agreement or total disagreement. Instead, they frequently end in a discovery of a shared sense of purpose or recognition of how interests are interconnected. Learn more at www.nifi.org.