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

Anna Scheleit, Artist

Anna Scheleit's public art piece "The State Hospital: In Memoriam" promoted civic dialogue about the mental health system in America through Habeas Corpus, a one time site-specific sound installation of J.S. Bach's Magnificat, making the abandoned building "sing in memory of the thousands of individuals whose lives were affected by the institution."

Resource Link: http://www.1856.org

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

Arizona State University - Intergroup Relations Center

The IRC provides education and training opportunities to students, faculty, and staff as well as intergroup conflict prevention and mediation services. It sponsors retreats, workshops, seminars, and institutes for faculty, staff and students, and collects, develops, and disseminates educational resources and data on discrimination, hate crimes, and intergroup conflict incidents at ASU.

Resource Link: http://www.asu.edu/provost/intergroup/

Arsalyn

A program of the Ludwick Family Foundation, Arsalyn promotes constructive dialogue between groups with diverse viewpoints as well as the sharing of models and methods. Arsalyn has been convening a series of regional conferences geared toward helping young people--especially politically active youth--develop skills that will help them communicate effectively with those of opposing views or with more lukewarm potential allies without alienating them or poisoning the wells of deliberation and common action. The aim of these conferences: to explore of the art of political deliberation and to apply this art in 'bridging the partisan divide.'

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

Ascentum

Ascentum is a Canada-based professional services firm that combines a unique technology expertise with specialized management consulting services. Dialogue Circles is Ascentum's intermodal approach to consultation that aims to maximize the synergies between the traditional and online worlds of consultation and dialogue. Dialogue Circles provides clients with the flexibility to hold online or traditional consultation and dialogue. According to Ascentum, many of the most successful consultation and dialogue endeavors now involve a mix of online tools and traditional face-to-face approaches that complement one another.

Resource Link: http://www.ascentum.ca

Ascentum's Dialoguecircles Training

Ascentum's dialoguecircles training series includes a wide array of courses on consultation and dialogue (Introduction to Intermodal Consultation and Dialogue, Dialoguecircles Methodology for Consultation and Dialogue, Analyzing Results from Consultation and Dialogue Projects, etc.) designed to meet your needs. All courses and certification programs are based on our proven dialoguecircles methodology. Developed by Sandra Zagon, Joseph Peters and Manon Abud, experts in the consultation and dialogue field, our training courses are practical, relevant and dynamic.

Resource Link: http://www.dialoguecircles.com/training

At The Table

Connect with others, share information, and help build the worldwide movement for youth participation at this online clearinghouse featuring everything you need to know about effectively involving youth in your organization and community. Hosted by the Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development.

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

Bali Institute for Global Renewal

BIGR is a world learning center that engages multicultural leadership and facilitation training, deep dialogue, indigenous wisdom, global consciousness, intergenerational activism and other action-oriented skills and training that empowers individuals, groups and organizations in their quest to make a difference in the world. BIGR includes a consortium of international organizations, corporations, NGOs, universities, thought leaders and consultants who are invested in advancing new forms of leadership training, intergenerational collaboration, nonviolent conflict resolution and social activism as part of a worldview that promotes a sustainable, humane and culturally diverse life for all.

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

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

Beyond Public Meetings: Connecting Community Engagement with Decision-Making

Vivien Twyford, Max Hardy, John Dengate, Stuart Waters and Dr. Vicki Vaartjes. Published by Twyford Consulting, 2007.

Beyond Public Meetings challenges myths and assumptions associated with community engagement and provides organisations, including all layers of government, with a comprehensive guide to why and how communities can be engaged to make better decisions. Written by five internationally recognised experts in the field of community engagement, the book provides a best practice guide to community engagement, building upon the successful framework developed by the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2).

Resource Link: http://www.twyford.com.au/Book_brochure.pdf

Beyond the Comfort Zone: Honest Conversations on Race, Reconciliation and Responsibility

Rob Corcoran, Hope in the Cities.

This paper was presented at a national forum on Building Constructive Frameworks for Improving Ethnic Relations: Best Practices Here and Abroad 50 Years After Brown, hosted by the University of Denver, August 19-21, 2004.

Resource Link: http://www.iofc.org/en/programmes/hic/resources/papers/824.html

Bigger Picture

Bigger Picture is a consulting company based in Scandinavia. We provide visual learning and dialogue tools and consulting services enabling ongoing sustainable organizational and personal change. We are a network of consultants, facilitators and illustrators joining forces to create learning designs and processes with visual support.

Resource Link: http://www.biggerpicture.dk

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company

The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company is a multicultural company committed to performing innovative, collaborative works of dance-theater. The Company has distinguished itself through its teaching and performing in various universities, festivals and under the aegis of government agencies such as the US Information Agency (in Eastern Europe, Asia and South East Asia). Audiences of approximately 50,000 to 100,000 annually see the Company across the country and around the world.

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

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.

Boston Prochoice and Prolife Leaders Dialogue

The Public Conversations Project.

Read about PCP's groundbreaking 7-year abortion dialogue involving pro-choice and pro-life leaders in the Boston area. PCP has been doing dialogue work with Prochoice and Prolife activists and others since 1989.

Resource Link: http://www.publicconversations.org/pcp/resource_details.php?ref_id=97

Bridging the Racial Divide

Paul Martin Du Bois and Jonathan Hutson, The Center for Living Democracy. Brattleboro, VT: Center for Living Democracy, 1997.

Includes lessons, tips and success stories from 65 intergroup dialogues across the country, plus an annotated reading list of resources. Although this book is no longer available and the Center for Living Democracy has closed its dorrs, it was one of the first books to provide best practices from race dialogues in the U.S. Published at the time of President Clinton's Initiative on Race.

Building a Common Future: Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue

Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group of San Mateo County, 2001.

An 11-page how-to brochure of principles, rationale, guidelines, and answers to often-asked questions about Sustained Dialogue. This freely downloadable PDF document was prepared by the Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group of San Mateo, California, which has been going strong for over a dozen years and has inspired many other Jewish-Palestinian living room dialogues to launch across the country.

Resource Link: http://traubman.igc.org/dialoguehow.pdf