Alchemy Consulting LLC

We are process experts who help teams around the world unleash their creativity to solve today's complex business issues. Alchemy gives you a system that works -- graphic recording, strategic illustration, process innovation, organizational strategy, leadership development -- leading you and your business to sustainable success. The Alchemy team, which provided their top-knotch graphic recording services at the 2004 NCDD conference in Denver, consists of Chris Chopyak, Patti Dobrowolski and Lois Todd.

Resource Link: http://link2alchemy.com

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

Art, Dialogue, Action, Activism: Case Studies from Animating Democracy

Americans for the Arts' Animating Democracy Initiative, 2005.

This 114-page book opens with an essay by Detroit-based activist, cultural worker, and nonagenarian, Grace Lee Boggs. The book?’s case studies feature projects by the Council for the Arts of Greater Lima and Sojourn Theatre on longstanding issues of race and trust among city and county leaders, Los Angeles Poverty Department on the advent of crack in the United States and drug policy reform, The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center on engaging disenfranchised people in dialogue and action on current issues of cultural equity and democracy, and Out North Contemporary Art House on the role of same-sex couples in society.

Resource Link: http://americans4thearts.stores.yahoo.net/noname.html

Christine Valenza, Graphic Facilitator

Christine Valenza has been illustrating the thoughts and processes of groups for over 20 years. Through her deep listening she creates a rapid in-real time visual synthesis of ideas. This work has taken her to Russia, Europe, Asia, Scandinavia, Nairobi, Jerusalem and Barcelona.

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

Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture: Findings from Animating Democracy

Americans for the Arts, 2005.

This 312-page book from Animating Democracy explores the power of the arts and humanities to foster civic engagement while advancing possibilities for arts and humanities organizations to be vital civic as well as cultural institutions. From 2000 to 2004, Americans for the Arts, with support from the Ford Foundation, implemented Animating Democracy, an initiative to foster artistic activities encouraging civic dialogue on important contemporary issues. This book examines the experiences of 37 arts and humanities projects, realized by a wide range of cultural organizations. These projects explored such issues as race relations, economic inequity, gentrification, school violence, the role of same-sex couples in society, and the influx of immigrants and refugees in communities, among others.

Resource Link: http://americans4thearts.stores.yahoo.net/civdialarcul.html

Community Public Art Guide: Making Murals, Mosaics, Sculptures, and Spaces

Olivia Gude, Editor. Chicago Public Art Group.

The Chicago Public Art Group claims that their web-based Public Art Guide is the most comprehensive manual for making public artworks through collaboration with community that has ever been produced. The website represents the collective experience of dozens of dedicated community public artists, working on hundreds of projects, with thousands of participants.

Resource Link: http://www.cpag.net/guide/index.htm

Creating Meaningful Dialogue at Arts Events: Getting beyond Q & A, testimonial, art critique, or soapbox oratory!

Excerpted from Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture: Findings from Animating Democracy by Pam Korza, Barbara Schaffer Bacon, and Andrea Assaf. Washington, D.C.: Americans for the Arts, 2005.

This great 2-page handout was created for a workshop at NCDD's 2006 conference called "Inquiring Minds Want to Know: What Do the Arts Have to Do With Dialogue?" Presenters Leah Lamb, Ellen Schneider, and Pam Korza list challenges, offer strategies for effectively engaging audiences in civic dialogue at arts events, provide examples of how dialogue professionals can learn to incorporate art to support their dialogue goals, and more.

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

Internews Interactive (InterAct)

The widespread use of digital communication devices has created a nation not only clamoring for 15 minutes of fame on national television, but capable of connecting to it. InterAct's mission is to help Americans gain a place among the pundits and politicians who create public policy, using the most powerful medium on earth, broadcast television. The Public Conversations Project partnered with InterAct on RedBlue - an Internet project that gives Americans, whether ?“red,?” ?“blue?” or ?“purple,?” a way to connect, explore differences, and find out what we have in common.

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

National Playback Theatre

Playback Theatre is practiced in hundreds of settings in many localities and cultures around the world, as both an art form and a means of generating community power and possibility. This improvisational form of communication was developed in 1975 by Jonathan Fox in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York. The National Playback Theater ensemble, which performed at the 2004 NCDD conference, was founded by Leilani Rashida Henry to integrate the principles of art, spontaneity and authenticity to facilitate dialogue and enhance cohesion and transformation within organizations and communities.

Resource Link: http://beingandliving.com

Shared Vision

Shared Vision is a nonprofit organization founded in 1993. Its mission is to leverage the imaginative power of communities to build cataylsts for social, cultural and economic renewal. It does this by producing monumental public artworks of exceptional quality in urban areas thatengage the public directly in their creation. We harness the combined imaginative power of thousands of people to build a potent force for the revitalization of cities and communities. In this we follow the vision of our artistic director, William Cochran, one of the country's leading muralists. Cochran's amazing "Community Bridge" in Frederick, Maryland was featured at the 2002 NCDD conference.

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