Mapping Dialogue: A research project profiling dialogue tools and processes for social change

German Technical Co-Operation (GTZ) and Pioneers of Change. Johannesburg, South Africa, 2006.

This research project was commissioned by GTZ as part of their supporting the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) to explore ways in which dialogue can be used to address social challenges in South Africa. During and since South Africa?’s transition to democracy, Nelson Mandela has exhibited a formidable ability to forgive and suspend judgment, along with an awareness of the importance of listening to all sides. Pioneers of Change was asked in this context to map out a variety of approaches, and to provide an overview, case examples and commentary on each.

Resource Link: http://pioneersofchange.net/library/dialogue/Dialogue%20Project%20V%202.0c.pdf

Meaningful Public Involvement: Charrettes for Community Change

National Charrette Institute for the National Association of REALTORS.

Achieving true citizen participation in community planning is always a challenge. To address the need for a better participation process, communities and developers are turning to the "charrette," a multi-day intensive planning workshop that includes all stakeholders in a community and results in a plan that can be implemented and built. This PowerPoint presentation, which includes both slides and a script, describes what a charrette is and how it can be used to improve the planning process in your community.

Resource Link: http://www.realtor.org/sg3.nsf/pages/Charrettes

Media and Public Relations Guide

Let's Talk America, 2004.

Originally created for Let's Talk America conversation hosts, this 6-page document suggests a variety of methods for getting the word out through the media about your dialogue or deliberation program. The methods range from simple letters to the editor to a major media campaign.

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

Meetings as a Strategy for Change

The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and BTW Consultants, 2004.

Meetings are a ubiquitous, time-consuming, and often expensive feature of organizational life. They range from ad hoc meetings of two or three people to multi-day events with hundreds of speakers and thousands participants. To maximize the value of meetings, grantmakers who fund them and organizations that sponsor them must be clear about their objectives and must think strategically about both the benefits and costs of the events. This packet includes three tools that provide a series of questions to be asked of meeting planners or foundation staff in considering whether a meeting is the best strategy for accomplishing the desired results.

Resource Link: http://http://www.hewlett.org/NR/rdonlyres/047CCF02-D038-4C0E-9121-FDD4074E6ACD/0/HFBTWmeetingspilot.pdf

Millions of Voices: A Blueprint for Engaging the American Public in National Policy-Making

AmericaSpeaks, 2004.

In 2002, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon introduced legislation that called for a national conversation on health care reform. The following spring and summer, AmericaSpeaks convened more than a dozen leaders in the field of citizen engagement to develop a strategy for making it happen: to figure out how to involve more than a million Americans in deliberations that would identify shared priorities for reforming the nation's troubled health care system - or any other matter of pressing national importance.

Resource Link: http://www.americaspeaks.org/resources/library/as/pubs/millions_of_voices_1104.pdf

Mini-Manual for Conversation Cafe Hosts

Conversation Cafe.

This 4-page host manual provides you with everything you need to know to start and host a Café. Conversation Cafés are lively, hosted, drop-in conversations among diverse people about our feelings, thoughts and actions in this complex, changing world. The simple structure of Conversation Cafés ?– and their spirit of respect, curiosity and warm welcome ?– help people shift from small talk to BIG talk.

Resource Link: http://www.conversationcafe.org/docs/Host_kit/HostManual.doc

Mix It Up

Launched in November 2002, the Study Circles Resource Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Mix It Up" campaign helps young people identify, question and cross social boundaries in their schools and communities. Hundreds of thousands of students in thousands of schools have taken the challenge to sit with someone new during Mix It Up At Lunch Day. Students and teachers are welcome to order the free Mix It Up handbook, Reaching Across Boundaries: Talk to Create Change.

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

Mobilize.org

Mobilize.org, formerly Mobilizing America's Youth, is an all-partisan network dedicated to educating, empowering, and energizing young people to increase our civic engagement and political participation. We work to show young people how their lives are impacted by public policy and in turn, how we can impact public policy.

Resource Link: http://mobilize.org

Montgomery Co Public Schools Study Circles

Montgomery County Study Circles, 2006.

This 6-minute video highlights the efforts of Montgomery County Public Schools (Maryland) Study Circles Program to address racism and student achievement in the district's schools and community. Includes Spanish subtitles.

Resource Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iusbihd0qK8&NR=1

Morris J. Wosk Centre - Dialogue Capacity-Building Workshop

The Wosk Centre offers a one-day, customized dialogue capacity-building workshop that introduces groups to the study and practice of dialogue within various contexts - organizational change, workplace conflict, difficult conversations, as a preamble to decision-making, and healing rifts between individuals. Custom workshops for off-site groups can be created for groups of 20 or more.

Resource Link: http://www.sfu.ca/dialogue

Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue

Simon Fraser University, which is located in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada), is the home of the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, an international conference centre providing 16,000 square feet of specialized meeting and function space which is devoted to facilitating public and private dialogue in order to foster understanding and engender positive action.

Resource Link: http://www.sfu.ca/dialogue

Multicultural Teaching in the University

David Schoem and Linda Frankel, Ximena Zuniga, Edith Lewis. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995.

Rather than representing a homogeneous view of multicultural teaching, this volume reflects the debate and dialogue that surround the issue. This book integrates new scholarship that reflects a more expansive notion of knowledge, and suggests new ways to communicate with diverse populations of students.

NAME Listserv

National Association for Multicultural Education.

NAME-MCE provides a forum to discuss multicultural education, share resources, post job openings, announce conferences or other events, and ask questions of educators and activists around the world.

Resource Link: http://mail.nameorg.org/mailman/listinfo/name-mce_nameorg.org

Narrative Mediation

Narrative mediation is an innovative conflict resolution paradigm that is a revolutionary departure from the traditional problem-solving, interest-based model of resolving disputes. Based on a postmodern, social constructionist philosophy, narrative mediation views conflict as arising within cultural contexts that have a direct bearing on how parties construct their perceptions of a particular event. A narrative mediation approach encourages the conflicting parties to reach understanding and resolution through a deep understanding of the shared personal and cultural narratives underlying the conflict.

Resource Link: http://narrative-mediation.crinfo.org

National Association for Community Mediation

NAFCM is a membership organization comprised of community mediation centers, their staff and volunteer mediators, and other individuals and organizations interested in the community mediation movement.

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

National Charrette Institute (NCI)

The National Charrette Institute (NCI) is a nonprofit educational institution. We help people build community capacity for collaboration to create healthy community plans. We teach professionals and community leaders the art and science of Dynamic Planning, a holistic, collaborative planning process that harnesses the talents and energies of all interested parties to create and support a feasible plan. And we advance the fields of community planning and public involvement through research and publications.

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

National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation

NCDD formed in 2002 after 60 leaders and 50 organizations collaborated to produce the first National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation. The conference brought together practitioners and scholars from across the spectrum of D&D practice for the first time, and NCDD's members are committed to continuing to foster collaboration and build understanding and cohesion in the D&D community.

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

National Dialogue on Social Security

In 1999, Information Renaissance collaborated with Americans Discuss Social Security to host a non-partisan electronic discussion and debate on Social Security reform. Thousands of Americans participated in a national discussion with policymakers, experts and each other via the internet. You can browse the archives of this event to learn more about large-scale online discussions.

Resource Link: http://www.network-democracy.org/social-security

National Issues Forums

The term "National Issues Forums" is used to refer to both a network of programs and a deliberative process. National Issues Forums (NIF) is an independent network of civic and educational groups which use "issue books" as a basis for deliberative choice work in forums based on the town meeting tradition. 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.

National Issues Forums Institute

NIFI is a nationwide network of educational and community organizations that deliberate about nationwide issues. NIFI publishes deliberation guides on such topics as Racial and Ethnic Tensions: What Should We Do?; Money and Politics: Who Owns Democracy?; and Violent Kids: Can We Change The Trend? Members of the network also provide workshops on convening and moderating National Issues Forums or on framing issues for deliberation.

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