DemocracySpace.org

Hard times can inspire creativity

Writing at her "Smart Communities" blog yesterday, Suzanne Morse of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change says pinched economic times like these might inspire local governments to seek more citizen input:

This is a time like no other to get citizens involved in the reality of local politics. I am not talking about a focus group to set priorities for local spending. I am talking about ways to inform and involve the public on the issues at hand. If there will be less for social services--say so--and ask for help. If parks and recreation are to be affected--say so--and ask for help. People are not stupid. They know that gas prices are affecting everything from food delivery to municipal services. This is an opportunity to change business as usual.

Suzanne goes on to say that the economy will eventually rebound, as it always does, and that if local governments take this opportunity to boost citizen participation in public life, "we will be better prepared, have closed the gaps, and will engage the community in ways not seen before." Read her whole post here - and if you know of any ways local governments near you are thinking creatively in these tough times, please note them in the comments.

The greatest challenges

Before the national meeting, Everyday Democracy did a survey asking those who planned to rank the greatest challenges their communities face. Those original survey results are here. But participants in Friday's afternoon plenary got to add to the "greatest challenges" list, then re-vote. Here were the results (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest; new items suggested Friday are in italics):

Poverty    7.6
Cost of energy 7.4
Health care    7.4
Crisis in the public schools    7.3
Economic downturn    7.3
Lack of affordable housing 7.2
Growing gap between rich and poor    7.0
Role of race    6.7
Lack of infrastructure for real civic engagement    6.7
Moving from polarization to common ground    6.7
Failure of government to provide resources    6.4

Also on Friday afternoon, participants drew up a list focused on the question "What do we most need to work on?" See the results at our wiki.

Colorado Springs book talk

We've just seen a notice that Matt Leighninger will be visiting the Penrose Branch Library, 20  N. Cascade Ave., in Colorado Springs to talk about his book The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule Is Giving Way to Shared Governance - and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same. The event is set from 4 to 5:30 Wednesday, June 11,in the library's Carnegie Room. Get more information here. Matt was a recent guest at the Everyday Democracy Book Club here at DemocracySpace. Read the transcript here.

Denver preview, Part I

Everyday Democracy's 2008 national conference, Making Every Voice Matter, gets started this Thursday evening in Denver, Colorado. From Thursday through Saturday, we'll have live blogging and photos from the conference right here at DemocracySpace. Today and Wednesday, we're offering previews of the meeting. This post highlights some of the key events that are planned. All sessions are at the Renaissance Denver Hotel.

Colorado, the site of the conference, has been a hotbed of civic experimentation for the past decade. John Parr, president of the National Civic League from 1985 to 1995, was at the forefront of this movement. On Thursday from 4 to 6 p.m., we will celebrate the legacy of Parr - who died late last year - through a symposium titled "What Have We Learned About Democratic Governance in Colorado?" A panel of civic innovators will talk about how Colorado communities are developing new ways for citizens to take part in deliberation, decision-making, and problem-solving.

Racial equity, the heart of Everyday Democracy's work, will be a central theme throughout the conference as more than 150 community leaders from across the country will share their experiences of addressing race and racism. Workshops focused on these topics will include "Why Addressing Racism is Key to Making Progress on Other Issues" (10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Friday), "Making Progress on Democracy and Race: A Two-Way Street" (10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Friday), "Dismantling Racism: An Essential Element in Creating Community Change" (10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Friday and 9 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday), and three screenings plus discussions of the documentary Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible (10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and 3:30 to 5 p.m. Friday, 9 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday).

The Friday evening Civic Fair is certain to be another highlight. This social and networking event will feature displays, great Colorado food and drink, and some of Denver's finest entertainers offering Taiko drumming, hip-hop stylings, Mexican folkloric dance, Chinese pipa music, Native American magic, traditional storytelling, and more.

For those of you who live in or near Denver, it's not too late to join us at the conference. Onsite registrations will be accepted; the cost is $230 per person (or $195 each for teams of two or more) and $130 for youth and young adults up to age 25. Single-day registrations also are available at $130 for Friday or $100 for Saturday. These prices include meals.We hope you'll be able to join us in Denver. If not, please plan to follow the action here at DemocracySpace.

Wednesday: We'll look at the results of a survey in which meeting participants were asked to identify the key challenges in their communities.

Program provides skills boost

If you're reading DemocracySpace, you know that "business as usual" no longer applies when it comes to doing the public's business. You may also be the sort of person who'd be interested in Fielding Graduate University's graduate-level certificate program in Dialogue, Deliberation, and Public Engagement. The 19-week program will run mid-August 2008 through mid-January 2009, and an informational teleconference on the curriculum will happen at 5 p.m. Eastern next Wednesday, June 4. (To register for that teleconference, contact Nathan Lewin.)

The program - now in its fifth year - is designed and delivered in collaboration with The International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, the Kettering Foundation, and the Public Dialogue Consortium. By focusing on recent innovations and by working with faculty and guest speakers who are pioneers in the field, the program helps professionals achieve mastery in the practice of dialogue and deliberation. Online and telephone coursework will be complemented by two face-to-face workshops, set for October 5-8 in Austin, Texas, and January 10-13 in Santa Barbara, California.

Tuition is $3,490 for students who register by July 15. National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation members get a discounted rate of $3,140 before that date. After July 15, tuition rises to $3,740 (or $3,390 for NCDD members). Click here to read testimonials from past students, and here to register.

Introducing "webstorming"

You've heard of brainstorming, of course. Here at DemocracySpace, we'd like to start a wave of webstorming - and we need your help.

Do you have a vexing question about organizing large-scale, action-oriented dialogues in your community, or taking them to the next level? Would you like to ask others who've "been there, done that" how to recruit and train facilitators, attract more (and more varied) participants, publicize your programs to a wider range of people, involve elected and appointed officials, or implement action ideas from the beginning? We invite you to post your question here at DemocracySpace, where we can put the collective energy, knowledge, and insights of Everyday Democracy's staff, associates, and colleagues to work on it.

The webstorming sessions will be a variation on the water coolers we've held most months, which - although useful and full of information - require that you be online at a certain time and that you continually refresh your browser to keep up with the discussions. Webstorming sessions will be more relaxed: We'll feature a question in a post here at DemSpace, then ask people to add their ideas and input in the comments for a week or so. That way, people can check in at their convenience and yet still contribute information in a timely and focused way.

So send your burning questions to blog manager Julie Fanselow. Please include your contact information in your email. We look forward to webstorming with you in the very near future!

The Friday digest will return next week. Enjoy your holiday weekend ...

Welcome to the book club (5/08)

Update ... click here for the easier-to-read, threaded version of this discussion.

Welcome to this month's water cooler, which is also the spring meeting of the Everyday Democracy Book Club. For the next hour, from 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern, we'll be discussing The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule Is Giving Way to Shared Governance - and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same with its author, Matt Leighninger.

Matt is the executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium as well as a senior associate with Everyday Democracy. His book, published by the Vanderbilt University Press, draws from his years of working with communities to better engage citizens in decision making, problem solving, and the daily work of democracy. As the jacket copy says:

Beneath the national radar, the relationship between citizens and government is undergoing a dramatic shift. More than ever before, citizens are educated, skeptical, and capable of bringing the decision-making process to a sudden halt. Public officials and other leaders are tired of confrontation and desperate for resources. In order to address persistent challenges like education, race relations, crime prevention, land use planning, and economic development, communities have been forced to find new ways for people and public servants to work together.

During the next hour, we'l learn from Matt and each other how innovative public officials and committed activists are forging new ways to run our neighborhoods, cities, counties, and beyond. Here's how the water cooler will work:

I'll ask Matt the first question at 1 p.m. Eastern. To follow the Q&A discussion, click on the word "comments" below this post. If you'd like to pose a question or add a comment, look for the phrase "POST A COMMENT" at the end of the existing comments. Below it, insert your name (real names, please); email address (it will not be visible online); and, if you like, the URL of your organization or program’s website. Write your question or comment in the box, then click “post.”

Please note: You will need to refresh your browser periodically to see the latest questions and comments that have been posted and answered. If traffic gets heavy, you may be asked to verify your comment with a "captcha check," or typing in a string of letters.

Also, if you see that several questions have already been asked, please be kind and give Matt a chance to catch up before posting your question.
We'll post a rethreaded, easier-to-read version of this live blog at our wiki within 24 hours. (You can read past water cooler discussions there, too.)

Thank you for joining us for today's meeting of the Everyday Democracy Book Club! And now, let the discussion begin ...

Tracking tales of civic revival

PACE - Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement - presented preliminary findings from its study of "How Local Governments Are Reinventing Civic Engagement" at a webinar today. "There's a lot going on, and it's coming from many directions," said lead researcher Mike McGrath, who shared these examples:

California is home to a groundswell of activity, ranging from Oakland's Neighborhood Law Corps to the renaming of Ventura's Marketing and Public Affairs Division as the Civic Engagement Division. In Palo Alto, the city council adopted public engagement as one of four priorities for 2008. The 1978 Proposition 13 property tax revolt in California created a climate where local governments faced with hard budgetary choices have had to seek greater citizen consensus on decisions.

In Sarasota County, Florida, several foundations teamed to create a nonprofit called SCOPE (Sarasota Openly Plans for Excellence). As its website says: "The idea for SCOPE emerged following a series of discussions among a broad-based group of Sarasota County residents concerned about the county’s future. After several informal meetings, a diverse group of community leaders came together to discuss the idea of undertaking a visioning or community goal-setting process." Since its founding in 2001, SCOPE has held citizen study groups on a wide array of issues, including affordable housing, family violence, traffic congestion, and  many others. See more about SCOPE's work here.

Dubuque, Iowa, was in sorry shape in the mid-1980s after the John Deere tractor company left town, but a series of visioning processes held since then have helped turn the former industrial town into a community that's pursuing riverfront development, a revitalized downtown, and greater broadband connectivity. A city that actually once had a "Will the last person to leave Dubuque please turn out the lights?" billboard now calls itself "the masterpiece on the Mississippi" and boasts the highest job-growth rate in the state.

Other communities mentioned included Portland, Oregon; Chicago, Illinois; Greeley County, Kansas; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Worcester, Massachusetts, where neighborhood teams use handheld computers and digital cameras to record code-enforcement eyesores and public safety problems. The PACE team also gave props to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which has worked with Everyday Democracy as it has addressed community growth, sustainability, and education issues via its long-running Portsmouth Listens program.

McGrath noted how it pays to go well beyond the usual suspects (a.k.a. "stakeholders") in engaging the public. Many homeless people in Ventura, California, live in the river bottoms when the weather is dry and aren't keen to move into the indoor shelter during the rainy season. Through a community conversation on the issue, an artist who lives near the river suggested that the homeless people establish a camp. With help from a nonprofit and city resources, "River Haven" is a self-regulating, self-policing community of homeless people.

Today's PACE presentation left participants with a sense that although a robust civic revival in the United States seems to be well under way, there's plenty of work to be done to create a more coherent national movement. Some questions include:

What's better - temporary processes for public engagement, or permanent structures? If the former, should they be run by city employees or outside facilitators? If the latter, how can such structures be sustained? Should more decisions be made and implemented at the neighborhood level? Should citizen participants be selected randomly or by interest level? Can we develop a new language to better describe these new forms of shared governance, as well as minimum standards to guide everyone doing the work?

Kudos to the PACE team for its work. Anyone who wants a copy of the report can request one via email.

Remember: Matt Leighninger's book The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule Is Giving Way to Shared Governance - and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same - cited in today's PACE presentation - is the selection for the Everyday Democracy Book Club, which will be meeting right here at DemocracySpace on Thursday, May 15. Join us at 1 p.m. Eastern that day for an hour of live discussion on the sort of examples and questions raised at today's webinar.

'We' got game - or do we?

It was a big weekend for sports fans. The NBA and Stanley Cup hockey playoffs are in full swing, the NFL draft captivated football devotees, and the 2008 baseball season is hitting its stride. Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts wrote late last week how sports have "a singular ability  ... to make people say 'we.'" He continued:

It happens much less often in other areas of civic life. No one says ''we'' when they talk about homelessness or hunger, no ''our'' enters the discussion of fatherless families or abortion rights, ''us'' is a stranger to the debate over failing schools and crime. Those conversations are framed by words like ''them'' and "they.''

I have no bone to pick with sports. Still, I find myself thinking a healthier society would find common cause beyond the ball field and the basketball court, would regard working toward great and ambitious goals as a civic obligation.

He pointed to the Civil War, the Depression, the War on Poverty, and even the Apollo space program as examples of times when our nation has come together to work for the greater good. But in recent decades, too many politicians and pundits have been short on vision and long on divisive rhetoric.

Yet the tide may be turning, Pitts suggests, as Barack Obama "has been able to build a political movement on a simple promise to bring people together" and John McCain "has lately been calling people to ''sacrifice for a cause greater than yourself.'" Pitts ends his column by asking us to remember the first three words in our Constitution: We, the People. (Read the whole column here.)

Anyone who could have lurked on our Communities Creating Racial Equity Learning Exchange last week would know that all across the United States, "we" remains the operative word for activists who are intent on being sure that everyone within their communities has the chance to speak out, to take action, and to be part of building communities that thrive. (I've posted notes from the introductory session at our wiki so you can easily see just a taste of the tremendous work they're doing.)

And there are hundreds of other communities getting in the game, too. Whether your city (or even your neighborhood) is ready to work on racial equity, youth issues, or growth and sprawl, Everyday Democracy has tools to help you put points on the board. Look at our website to learn what others are doing and how you can get started.

Friday digest-open thread 4/18/08

It's time to announce the spring selection for our Everyday Democracy Book Club. Join us here at Democracy Space at 1 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, May 15, as we'll meet with Everyday Democracy senior associate Matt Leighninger to discuss his book The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule Is Giving Way to Shared Governance - and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same. In the book, Matt - who also is executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium - tells how communities all across the nation are seeing how officials and citizens can work together to address pressing issues.

This will be a great opportunity to share stories of "shared governance" and learn from other communities (and Matt's considerable expertise). Order the book from your local bookstore or online, and be sure to mark your calendar for May 15. And if you missed our last book club with Frances Moore Lappé, you can read the transcript here.

Speaking of the DDC, thanks to Joe Goldman for his tip on this recent article on Politico.com, in which e-democracy advocate Steven Clift asked this timely question: “Isn’t it interesting that the best-designed government websites are those collecting your taxes, while the worst sites are those giving you a say on how your taxes are spent?” The article tells how many other governments are way beyond ours in offering the public a chance to comment on legislation, submit petitions, and more. For example, write authors Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifr, "In England, anyone can submit an e-petition directly on the 10 Downing Street website, and the most popular ones are featured on the site’s home page. More than 7 million people — one in 10 British citizens — have signed one of those petitions since the site’s launch in the fall of 2006."

Next week, Everyday Democracy will be holding the first of two Learning Exchanges for the nine communities involved in our Communities Creating Racial Equity initiative. Two important articles on this topic crossed our desks this week. Education Week had the bad but not unsurprising news that the academic achievement gap grows fastest for bright African-American children, particularly in schools with higher black populations, "where test scores are lower on average, teachers are less experienced, and high-achieving peers are harder to find."

Meanwhile, criminal injustice is in the spotlight in the current issue of the alumni magazine for Brown University, where economics professor Glenn Loury has been working to bring greater attention to the fact, as author Beth Schwartzapfel wrote, "that the number of black men incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails—a number wildly disproportionate to their representation in the general population—reflects the social dishonor to which African Americans are still subject today, a dishonor with roots in U.S. slavery." Click here to read "A Nation of Jailers."

The good news is that many communities are proactively deciding to address racial inequity, often with the help of resources from Everyday Democracy. If you caught yesterday's water cooler, you learned how Lynchburg, Virginia, successfully held the action forum for its first round of "Many Voices - One Community" dialogues on race and racism this week, and how activists from New Haven and Stratford, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; Syracuse, New York; and Memphis, Tennessee are being - and leading - the change they want to see in their communities.

Next week at DemocracySpace: We'll have news from communities walking the walk for Earth Day and two days of live blogging from the CCRE Learning Exchange. If you like what you read here, you can get it delivered right to your email box by subscribing via the link atop the right-hand side of the page.

Happy Passover to our Jewish readers!