20,000 Dialogues

20,000 Dialogues is a nationwide campaign to bring people of different faiths together using films about Muslims to stimulate discussion and promote understanding. It brings the concept of interfaith dialogue into the hands of ordinary people who want to make a positive difference. 20,000 Dialogues is a Unity Production Foundation (UPF) project in cooperation with Connecting Cultures, LLC.

Resource Link: http://www.20000dialogues.org

A Dynamic Facilitation Manual and Reader: Evoking practical group creativity through generative dialogue

Rosa Zubizarreta and Jim Rough. Center for Wise Democracy, 2002.

This spiral-bound manual describes a transformational approach for facilitating dialogue in situations where people are highly invested, emotionally charged or polarized, and helping groups arrive at practical and creative breakthroughs.

Resource Link: http://www.wisedemocracy.org

A Resource Guide for Hosting Conversations That Matter at the World Cafe

The World Café is an easy-to-use method for creating a living network of collaborative dialogue around questions that matter to the real-life situations of your organizations or community. In this beautifully illustrated booklet, Juanita Brown collaborates with Nancy Margulies and the World Café Community to articulate seven guiding principles for people to use to host their own Café. Learn about the thousands of people on five continents who have experienced the World Café, a model for setting up the ideal Café for your group, the roles of the hosts, crafting powerful questions, Café assumptions and etiquette, and more.

Resource Link: http://www.theworldcafe.com

AI Annotations

AI Annotations is a place to create a conversation ?– an exchange of ideas and practices - among the co-owners of Appreciative Inquiry Consulting and with others who are on the journey of exploration and collective understanding of Appreciative Inquiry. Loretta Donovan, Roberta Peirick, Loretta Randolph, Tony Silbert and Sandy Wells make up the AI Annotations blog team as of 5/07.

Resource Link: http://aiconsulting.wordpress.com

AiList: Appreciative Inquiry Discussion List

This listserv, hosted by Jack Brittain, is a forum for individuals interested in learning more about the practice of Appreciative Inquiry. The list has nearly 800 subscribers from all over the world. To subscribe, go to http://lists.business.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/ailist or send a message with the word 'help' in the subject or body to [email protected]. To submit, send messages to the list manager at [email protected].

Resource Link: http://lists.business.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/ailist

Americans for Informed Democracy (AID)

Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) is a non-partisan 501(c)(3) organization working to raise global awareness on more than 500 U.S. university campuses and in more than 10 countries. AID fulfills its mission by coordinating town hall meetings on America's Role in the World, hosting leadership retreats, and publishing opinion pieces and reports on issues of global importance. Through these efforts, AID seeks to build a new generation of globally conscious leaders who can shape an American foreign policy appropriate for our increasingly interdependent world.

Resource Link: http://www.aidemocracy.org

Animating Democracy Initiative

Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, fosters arts and cultural activity that encourages and enhances civic engagement and dialogue. It is based on the premise that democracy is animated when an informed public is engaged in the issues affecting people's daily lives. Launched in fall 1999, ADI is a four-year programmatic initiative of Americans for the Arts which fosters artistic activity that encourages civic dialogue on important contemporary issues.

Resource Link: http://www.artsusa.org/animatingdemocracy

Animating Democracy: The Artistic Imagination as a Force in Civic Dialogue

Barbara Schaffer Bacon, Cheryl Yuen and Pam Korza, Animating Democracy Initiative of Americans for the Arts. Americans for the Arts, 1999.

This report reveals pivotal and innovating roles that the arts can play in the renewal of civic dialogue as well as challenges faced by arts and cultural organizations as they engage in this work.

Resource Link: http://www.artsusa.org/animatingdemocracy

Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is about the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them. In its broadest focus, it involves systematic discovery of what gives "life" to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves, in a central way, the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system's capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential.

Appreciative Inquiry Commons

The AI Commons is devoted to the sharing of academic resources and practical tools on Appreciative Inquiry and the rapidly growing discipline of positive change. The site is hosted by Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management. Appreciative Inquiry is the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations and the relevant world around them.

Resource Link: http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu

BeComing: Women's Circles, Women's Lives (DVD)

Stephanie Ryan and Sarita Chawla.

BeComing is an unscripted documentary which offers a rare opportunity to witness what transpires in the privacy of women's circles. The ten women filmed are multi-cultural and cross-generational, with an age span from thirty to eighty. BeComing takes an experiential look at a woman's circle and the women who create it. By joining their circle over a two-year period, we see first-hand what it is to build and be a part of a community, a part of our society which has been lost to some of us. The women speak of their process of creating and sustaining circle, as well as the effects of the circle in their daily lives.

Resource Link: http://www.becoming-womenscircles.com/ordering.html

Bohm Dialogue

The late quantum physicist David Bohm observed that both quantum mechanics and mystical traditions suggest that our beliefs shape the realities we evoke. He further postulated that thought is largely a collective phenomenon, made possible only through culture and communication. Human conversations arise out of and influence an ocean of cultural and transpersonal meanings in which we live our lives, and this process he called dialogue.

Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra

The Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra's Klinghoffer Dialogue Project used opera to engage the people of Brooklyn in dialogue on the effects of tensions between Israelis and Palestinians on their community.

Resource Link: http://www.brooklynphilharmonic.org

Café to Go! A Quick Reference Guide for Putting Conversations to Work

The World Cafe Community Foundation, 2002.

This concise 7-page guide to the World Café covers the basics of the process. It includes brief outlines of each principle, a description of Café Etiquette, an outline of key elements of the World Café conversations, and tips for creating Café ambiance.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/cafetogo.pdf

Calling the Circle: The First and Future Culture

Christina Baldwin, Peer Spirit. Bantam, 1998.

The original small-press edition of Calling the Circle has become one of the key resources for the rapidly-growing 'circle' movement. This newly revised edition brings Baldwin's work to an even broader audience ranging from women's spirituality groups to corporate development teams. Includes detailed instructions and suggestions for getting started, setting goals, and solving disagreements safely and respectfully.

Resource Link: http://www.peerspirit.com

Case Study of the Kentucky Center for Public Issues

Sandy Heierbacher. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2003.

KCPI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy organization based in Frankfort, Kentucky?’s capital. KCPI?’s mission is to help citizens explore, understand and confront issues critical to the future of Kentucky. Among other things, KCPI runs Policy Councils, which involve a diverse group of experts and interested citizens from all parts of the state to consider and, if appropriate, propose improvements in public policies. Policy Councils study a specific contentious issue in depth, obtain public input and raise public awareness about the issue, arrive at a consensus about the issue when possible, and sometimes take action on their findings.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/KCPI_case.doc

Center for Nonviolent Communication

CNVC is a nonprofit training and peacemaking organization dedicated to fostering the 'Nonviolent Communication' process. NVC is a method for being heard, hearing others, clearly and confidently expressing our needs and dreams, and for working through conflict with compassion and success. NVC encourages people to reframe how they express themselves and hear others by focusing on what they are observing, feeling, needing, and requesting.

Resource Link: http://www.cnvc.org

Center for Wise Democracy

The Center assists communities in creating Wisdom Councils - randomly-selected, facilitated 'juries,' reflecting the larger diversity of the community - which engage in dialogue about the larger system and arrive at creative consensus on shared visions. These visions in turn serve to increase the quality of the dialogue among the larger community.

Resource Link: http://www.wisedemocracy.org

Center for Wise Democracy - Dynamic Facilitation Training

The Center assists communities in creating Wisdom Councils - randomly-selected, facilitated 'juries' reflecting the larger diversity of the community - which engage in dialogue about the larger system and arrive at creative consensus on shared visions. These visions in turn serve to increase the quality of the dialogue among the larger community. "Dynamic facilitation" is used to facilitate Wisdom Councils, and the Center provides trainings in dynamic facilitation regularly.

Resource Link: http://www.tobe.net/info/general.html

Chime and Stone

This modification of open conversation in a small group (2-30 people) has some of the benefits of a formal Talking Circle without the constraints. It is best done with the group sitting in a circle.