12manage

12manage is a free knowledge portal that summarizes over 400 management methods and theories and explains over 1.500 management terms. This portal is categorized into a dozen management disciplines, including change, communication, decision-making, leadership, and more. Besides English, 12manage is available in 12 other languages.

Resource Link: http://www.12manage.com

21st Century Town Meeting

AmericaSpeaks' 21st Century Town Meeting method creates engaging, meaningful opportunities for citizens to participate in public decision making. This unique process updates the traditional New England town meeting to address the needs of today's citizens, decision makers and democracy.

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

A Community Builder's Tool Kit: 15 Tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/Multicultural Communities

Anti-Racism Initiative of the Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change, 2001.

This primer for revitalizing democracy from the ground up can be downloaded for free or ordered for $1.50 per copy.

Resource Link: http://www.race-democracy.org

A Manual for Group Facilitators

Brian Auvine. Center for Conflict Resolution; reprinted by the Fellowship for Intentional Community, 1981.

The role of group facilitator is often pivotal to good results for groups making the transition to consensus. The Manual is a great introduction to the concept of approaching the role of facilitator as someone who welcomes both rational and emotional input. The staff of the Center for Conflict Resolution put their experience in working with groups into A Manual for Group Facilitators. This is an informal outline detailing useful and effective techniques to help groups work well. More than a simple 'how to,' the manual contains a discussion of the values, dynamics, and common sense behind group process that have been verified by our own experience.

Resource Link: http://store.ic.org

A Model for an Introductory Dialogue on Abortion

Public Conversations Project.

The model described here was developed for the single session introductory dialogues on abortion that Public Conversations Project conducted in 1990-1992 (eighteen sessions) and 1995-1998 (ten sessions). Most of these dialogues took place on weekday evenings between 6:00 and 9:30 and involved four to eight participants who did not know one another ahead of time. Several participants were activists but few were highly visible leaders. All groups were evenly balanced with people who described themselves as ?“prochoice?” or ?“prolife.?”

A Practical Guide to Consensus

Chris Carlson and Jim Arthur. Policy Consensus Institute.

This 75-page step-by-step handbook walks readers through the stages of sponsoring, organizing, and participating in a public policy consensus process. Designed primarily for government agencies or departments, the guide also is useful for any other sponsor of - or participant in - a consensus building process.

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

A Report on CPRN?’s Community Forum: "Integrating Citizens' Voices into Policy Discourse"

Sandra Zagon. Canadian Policy Research Networks.

CPRN's Public Involvement Network hosted a community forum at a 2003 IAP2 conference. 33 delegates from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. heard from CPRN presenters the lessons of CPRN's growing experience in the practice of public dialogues. The Community Forums, which were part of the May 2003 IAP2 conference program, gave CPRN an excellent opportunity to share some of these lessons with over 30 public participation practitioners who were delegates at the Conference. CPRN's Community Forum took place on May 21, 2003, from 1:30 to 5:00 p.m.

Resource Link: http://www.cprn.com/en/doc.cfm?doc=341

A Review of Public Participation and Consultation Methods

J. Abelson, P-G. Forest, J. Eyles, P. Smith, E. Martin, F-P Gauvin. Deliberations about Deliberation: Issues in the Design and Evaluation of Public Consultation Processes, McMaster University Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis Research Working Paper 01-04, June, 2001.

This PDF document presents a 5-page matrix of public participation and consultation methods, both deliberative and non-deliberative. Included are Citizens Juries, Citizens Panels, Planning Cells, Consensus Conferences, Deliberative Polling, focus groups, consensus building exercises, surveys, public hearings, open houses, Citizen Advisory Committees, community planning, visioning, and more.

Resource Link: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/citizens-handbook/compareparticipation.pdf

A Survey for Use in Evaluating Dialogue Programs

Walter Stephan, New Mexico State University. Presented by the Western Justice Center, 1999.

This questionnaire was designed to be used to examine the outcomes of dialogue groups. The intention was to measure attitudes toward racial, ethnic and cultural groups, optimism regarding the future of race relations in this country, willingness to interact with members of other racial and ethnic groups, perceived understanding of other racial and ethnic groups, and racial and ethnic stereotypes.

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

About Race Relations newsletter

About.com's free weekly email newsletter about Race Relations.

Resource Link: http://racerelations.about.com

Action Dialogues: Meaningful Conversations to Accelerate Change

Debbe Kennedy, Global Dialogue Center. Berrett-Koehler Press, 2000.

Meant to be used as a part of Debbe Kennedy's Diversity Breakthrough! Strategic Action series, this is a simple pack of 52 glossy cards, each isolating specific roadblocks that organizations commonly face when looking to launch a diversity initiative. The first, for example, reads, 'Our leadership team does not reflect our stated commitment to inclusion.' Another reads, 'Resistance to change keeps diversity out of reach.'

Active Citizenship: Empowering America's Youth

John Minkler. Educators for Social Responsibility, 1998.

This curriculum introduces students to the knowledge, skills, and values of responsible citizenship in the context of analyzing and solving real school and community problems. Contains 17 lessons with extensions including a group project in which students identify a real political problem, research related issues, and propose a solution.

Resource Link: http://esrnational.org/Merchant2/merchant.mvc

Active Democracy

Lyn Carson's website provides easy access to information which individuals, groups or organisations can use to enhance citizens' involvement in the activities of local, state or federal government. Carson is a senior lecturer in applied politics with Government and International Relations in the School of Economics and Political Science, at the University of Sydney Australia.

Resource Link: http://www.activedemocracy.net

Active Listening

Active listening is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding. Active listening is a structured form of listening and responding that focuses the attention on the speaker. The listener must take care to attend to the speaker fully, and then repeats, in the listener's own words, what he or she thinks the speaker has said.

Addressing Language-Related Challenges in the Practice of Dialogue and Deliberation

Sandy Heierbacher (Director of NCDD). Unpublished manuscript, 2006.

The true power of dialogue and deliberation lies in their ability to surface new insights and innovative solutions when all voices are brought to the table. But while diversity is an asset to these programs, it brings with it a unique set of challenges. This paper addresses four broad challenges related to language and culture that dialogue and deliberation practitioners regularly face. These are: (1) the challenge of getting culturally diverse participants in the door; (2) the logistics involved in having multiple languages spoken in the room; (3) creating a safe space for those with other language/speech needs or differences; and (4) dealing with participants?’ existing preconceptions, assumptions and stereotypes related to language/cultural differences.

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

Administrative Structure and Social Democratic Results: The Case of Education

Kevin B. Smith.

At the center of the contemporary education reform debate is an argument that organizational structure makes a difference to school outcomes. This in turn centers on a basic premise of the public choice literature -- that public and private goods and services are in some fashion analogous, and public sector performance can be improved by adopting at least some of the institutional arrangements and processes of the market (Tiebout 1956). This case study of education with respect to administrative structure examines the goals and challenges to differentially structured education systems.

Resource Link: http://sansfoy.hti.umich.edu/pdf/0472113178-ch11.pdf

Advancing Liberal Education: Assessment Practices on Campus

Michael Ferguson. Association of American Colleges & Universities.

This short publication presents the stories of six different colleges and universities that have developed innovative programs to advance and assess key liberal education outcomes. Originally written for AAC&U News, these stories--which focus on writing, information literacy, understanding of diversity, critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, and civic engagement--offer models for effective assessment practices. Also included is information about finding additional assessment resources.

Resource Link: http://aacu-secure.nisgroup.com/acb/stores/1/product1.cfm?SID=1&Product_ID=95

Adventures in Peacemaking: A Conflict Resolution Guide for School-Age Programs

William J. Kreidler and Lisa Furlong. Educators for Social Responsibility, 1996.

Designed to meet the unique needs of afterschool programs, camps, and recreation centers, this guide contains hundreds of hands-on, engaging activities that teach basic conflict resolution skills through cooperative challenges, drama, crafts, music and even cooking. Also included are easy-to-implement strategies and tips for providers to both reduce conflict in their programs and to intervene effectively when conflict does occur. Adventures in Peacemaking blends ESR's innovative conflict resolution curricula with Project Adventure's activity-based programming.

Resource Link: http://esrnational.org/Merchant2/merchant.mvc

African Centres for Peace Education and Training

Canadian Centres for Teaching Peace runs this site, which includes (among many other things) links to African centers for peace education and training.

Resource Link: http://www.peace.ca/africa.htm

American Psychological Association (APA)

The APA is a scientific and professional organization that represents psychology in the U.S. and is the largest association of psychologists worldwide. While a scientific organization, its attitude toward lesbians, gays and bisexuals can be described as fairly positive. Searching for a given topic on the APA?’s site is likely to produce a wide variety of types of results - anything from guidelines for psychotherapists dealing with a particular issue to research papers to APA-authored amicus briefs.

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