An Overview of the
Dialogue & Deliberation Community:
How it came to be, how it has changed, and what’s next
By Sandy
Heierbacher, Director of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation
(NCDD)
The
Birth of the “Dialogue & Deliberation Community”
The 2002
National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation marked the first attempt to
bring together practitioners, scholars, activists, and artists from across the
entire spectrum of dialogue and deliberation practice. Before the 2002 conference, deliberative
democracy pioneers had been brought together, organization development
practitioners had been convened, and events had brought together those who
practice specific methods like Study Circles and World Café—but there had not
yet been an attempt to convene all of these groups and others who practice,
study, and promote dialogue and deliberation.
Around
the time of NCDD’s first conference, people and groups committed to finding new
and better ways to give people a voice in decision-making, problem-solving, and
conflict resolution were beginning to sense a shift. Some felt a field was developing, and others
called it a movement. Only one thing was
certain: whatever “it” was, it was
disconnected and disorganized.
This
field-movement-community of practice was emerging from the grassroots, and each
separate enclave had developed their own unique terminology, looked to their
own thought leaders for direction and inspiration, had their
own ways of connecting with their colleagues, and were familiar with their
specific set of resources and tools.
As a
result, a group organizing community-wide Study Circles in
This kind
of disconnect was understandable given the tremendous grassroots growth in the
use and development of dialogic and deliberative processes in the past decade
alone. But for these processes to be refined and the practice to continue to be
developed, we needed to establish ways to stay connected with one another. We
needed to develop ways to share strategies and learnings, ask questions and get
good answers quickly, get the word out about trainings and other opportunities,
evaluate programs effectively, and develop common terminology for this
work. We knew that all of these things
are essential for the growth of the field and the future of these processes.
The 2002
conference was the first step. It was a
highly participatory, high-energy event which brought dialogue and deliberation
pioneers together across models, topics, regions, applications, and
philosophies for a unique learning, networking, and planning experience. Dozens of top-notch workshops introduced
conference participants to myriad dialogue methods, models, and tools. And three plenary sessions took participants
through a dialogic and deliberative process—using a small group dialogue
technique on the first day, AmericaSpeaks 21st Century Town Meeting
on the second, and a Study Circles-style action forum on the final day—to help
them determine collectively what actions we should take as a group to move our
field forward.
Participants
developed a blueprint of action for strengthening this emerging field, and
twelve groups formed to address specific needs that are vital to dialogue and
deliberation practitioners and the greater D&D community:
- Networking and Communications within the D&D
Community
- Research & Development
-
- Connecting to the Arts
- Creating a Toolbox for D&D Practitioners
- Expanding Diversity and Connections
- Marketing Dialogue to the Media and the Public
- Integrating Dialogue into Educational Environments
- Meeting Practitioners' Funding Needs
- Convening and Coordinating Nationwide Dialogues
- Involving International Practitioners and Issues
- Networking and Collaboration Among
Online D&D Practitioners
Because
of the relationships participants developed and the learnings and resources
shared, participants at the 2002 conference left the event more willing and able
to share their successes and strategies with others in the field and more
informed about where to go to learn from the successes and strategies of
others. Many participants left the
conference feeling—for the first time—that they are part of an important,
growing field of practice.
After the
2002 conference concluded, the 50 organizations that had formed the Coalition
for a National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation decided to continue
working together to strengthen and unite the dialogue and deliberation community.
They become the founding members of the National Coalition for Dialogue &
Deliberation (NCDD).
Between
the 2002 and 2004 conferences, in large part due to NCDD’s communication
strategies and resource-rich website but also due to the work of other
organizations and networks, a recognizable “dialogue and deliberation
community” began to develop. Sharing
resources, news, and opportunities became the norm, and common terminology was
informally developed so we could all “speak the same language.” The community’s biggest challenges became
common knowledge, and people began talking about how we can address these
challenges collectively and how else we can strengthen this field. NCDD continues to address the
disconnect in this emerging field through our activities and
collaborative projects, and through the resources and opportunities we provide
our members and others involved in dialogue and deliberation work.
How
the 2004 Conference Was Different
The 2004
conference reflected this growth in our field of practice. Instead of asking participants to think about
their needs as individuals, our needs as a field, and what we may be able to do
together to meet those needs, we asked participants to consider some of the
most pressing—and most complicated—issues this field is facing. In particular, participants examined
questions like:
- How can we make a greater collective impact on the challenging
issues of our time?
- How can we determine fairly which processes work best in
specific circumstances?
- Where are we going as a field or community of practice,
and where should we be going?
We
encouraged participants to grapple with these issues through large-group
processes including World Café, a unique “Reflective Panel,” Open Space
Technology, and Playback Theatre.
The
content and focus of the 2004 conference were not the only things that were
different from the first gathering; conference participants were notably
different was well. Participants, for
the most part, were better prepared.
Most participants were more aware of what they had expertise in and what
they were new to, and they knew what they wanted to learn more about. At the same time, many more conference
participants were brand new to the field than in 2002, and these new practitioners
came in the hopes of being oriented into this broad field of practice and
mentored into this work by more experienced conference attendees.
We saw a
notable difference in people’s openness to different methods as well. At the 2002 conference, some of the more
experimental methods that were presented during workshops were not
well-received; people were not convinced that some new dialogic and
deliberative models had much potential.
At the 2004 conference we saw a clear shift in people’s willingness to give
new methods a chance. Conference
attendees were curious about their colleagues’ experiments and seemed to
recognize that a wide variety of methods and techniques are needed, and that
different approaches can be useful in different contexts. People knew each other and each other’s work
better, and they seemed to have more respect for each other’s knowledge and
niches.
Now
What? What Was Learned and What NCDD is
Doing About It
We
learned a great deal from the 2004 conference and the work that led up to
it. NCDD has taken the lead in converging the various streams that are finding their home
in this nascent field of practice, but with this convergence comes growing
pains, unexpected needs, and complicated challenges. Below I’ll outline some of the challenges
that emerged as themes at the 2004 gathering, and how NCDD is or hopes to
address each of these challenges.
There is great need for local/regional gatherings
and networks
Conference
participants felt strongly that they and others involved in dialogue &
deliberation need ways to collaborate, network, and support each other locally. The practitioners, scholars, students, and
activists at the 2004 conference expressed a strong interest in seeing NCDD
develop regional networks.
Practitioners
want to be able to access colleagues in their area for support,
knowledge-sharing, and encouragement, and they want to be able to easily
connect with others near them on collaborative projects.
NCDD is
doing what we can to help get regional networks and gatherings started up. We hope to obtain funding to do much more,
but here are the things we have been doing so far:
- We have encouraged NCDD members to take leadership roles
in establishing D&D networks in their areas.
- We have assisted those members who have taken such
initiative by sharing contacts in our database with them, providing
meeting-planning advice, providing them with listservs and other interactive
features at our website, publicizing their efforts, and providing resources
for the occasion. We have
helped ongoing networks form in
- We are working with Najeeba Syeed-Miller, Executive
Director of the Western Justice Center Foundation, to organize a
- We often share segments of our 7000-entry database with
people and groups who are initiating networks or seeking to collaborate with
others in their area.
- We launched a searchable members
database on the NCDD website that enables members and visitors to search by
state and country in order to locate others they can connect with in their
area.
- We have been exploring with other networking
organizations including the Victim Offender Mediation Association (VOMA) and PeaceWeb the possibility of launching a prototype network
in a region where we all have a significant number of members.
Much more
needs to be done, including instituting ways to provide ongoing support and
encouragement to those initiating networks in their area.
Many people are just entering this field and need
oriented
While
many of us are still getting used to thinking of this loosely connected set of
practices, processes, and practitioners as a field, others are jumping right
in, expecting their “elders” to have paved the way for them bit.
Thanks in
large part to the $10,000 grant for youth scholarships from the Rockefeller
Brothers Fund, we were blessed with a significant
number of 2004 conference participants who considered themselves to be “newbies” in dialogue and deliberation work. We learned from these new practitioners that
people entering into this field are in great need of established structures to
help them enter into and succeed in this work.
The young
people and other new practitioners at the conference talked about this issue
throughout the conference and met during the Open Space plenary to gain further
clarity about what those new to dialogue and deliberation need, and what the
D&D community can do to meet those needs.
Here are some of the things we learned:
- People who are new to this work need access to those who
are more experienced and can help them make wise decisions.
- New practitioners need opportunities to gain experience
as well as knowledge. They are often
caught in the age-old quandary of not being able to gain experience without
having a job in the field, and not being able to get a job in the field without
having substantial experience.
- New practitioners need information and resources that
are tailored to beginners. Navigating
this broad field can be a bewildering experience, and new practitioners need
more direction than is currently available to them.
Since the
conference, NCDD has begun addressing these needs in several different ways,
largely due to the continued efforts of some of the young people who attended
the conference.
New Practitioners
Discussion List
Immediately after the conference,
NCDD created a listserv (email discussion list) for new practitioners, and
dozens of people subscribed immediately.
Subscribers use the listserv to share job postings and resources of
interest to those beginning their careers in dialogue and deliberation. We also encourage subscribers to network with
one another and to advise NCDD on how we can better meet the needs of new
practitioners.
New Practitioners
Practicum Project
One of the strategies NCDD is
exploring in order to meet the needs of young people and others who are
entering the growing dialogue and deliberation field is a “New Practitioners
Practicum Project.” This project would
help match new practitioners to established organizations and practitioners who
can use their help. Similar to
internships, practicums would be structured to ensure
that new practitioners maximize this learning opportunity while helping host
organizations to meet their goals. One
of NCDD’s roles would be to ensure that practitioners’ and organizations’
learnings would be made available to the entire field.
Evan Thomas Paul, a student at the
Mentorship Program
Participants at the 2004 NCDD
conference identified the need to create a more systematic approach to attract
and retain new practitioners in this rapidly growing field. They identified a number of obstacles to
penetrating the field, including the lack of resources to identify, support,
and connect new people interested in pursuing a career in dialogue and
deliberation to those who can help them get started successfully. To make sure the dialogue and deliberation
field is sustainable, we need to find ways to attract, nurture, and train more
young people and others who are new to this field.
NCDD’s mentorship program, which
is being spearheaded by Priya Parker, Program Director of the Sustained
Dialogue Campus Network, will help new D&D practitioners along their career
path by creating an opportunity for them to develop a professional relationship
with an experienced D&D professional.
Priya’s strong relationship with her mentor,
Harold Saunders, Director of the International Institute for Sustained
Dialogue, inspires her to help other new practitioners find mentors.
Priya is currently developing a
needs assessment for members of the dialogue and deliberation community to
determine whether and how an ongoing mentorship program would be beneficial to
both mentors and mentees.
We need to handle issues of inclusion more openly
and effectively
It is natural that more concerns and issues are brought to
the surface when an environment is created in which people feel safe speaking
up, but some participants at the 2004 NCDD conference felt that diversity
issues were overly emphasized at the conference, both by a small number of
vocal participants and by the programs implemented by the conference Diversity
Team. While some participants felt that
“isms were everywhere” (racism, sexism, classism,
heterosexism, etc.) and were not being addressed effectively, others did not
witness or experience any diversity-related problems directly and suspected
that people were overreacting or pursuing a personal agenda.
Planning Team members felt they had designed a conference
that allows for participants to bring up (during Playback Theatre) and take
action on (during Open Space) whatever issues, conflicts, concerns, and needs
remained for them by the last day of the conference—and throughout the
conference in the Integration Groups and through the Diversity Team’s processes. We learned at the gathering, however, that
people want the opportunity to voice concerns, desires, and learnings
throughout the conference, and to be heard by the entire group.
The bottom line is that many issues of difference emerged
at the 2004 NCDD conference, and not all were sufficiently addressed. In order to learn how to more effectively
address issues of marginalization and inclusion at our next conference and
organizationally, NCDD’s director and a group of concerned conference
participants and Diversity Team members began exploring these issues at the
conference and during subsequent phone meetings. The group has since developed a set of
concrete ideas and suggestions for the 2006 conference.
As part of our strategic planning process, NCDD is also
working on developing a clear diversity policy to provide our Board and staff
with direction in this important area.
And as one participant said in her evaluation form, “It’s great that
these tensions surfaced, since they will bring us closer together the next
time.”
We need to develop ways to bring these processes to
decision-makers
The
second National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation was held just days
before the 2004 presidential election, and politics and partisanship were at
the front of conference participants minds.
Dialogue
and deliberation are all about bringing ordinary people’s voices and values
back into the decision-making process, no matter who is in power, but many
participants feared that if their candidate was not elected, decisions would be
made with no consideration given to common ground and common values.
The
conference was held during a time when division and partisanship seemed to be
at all-time highs, and despite emphasizing efforts to unite citizens with
different political ideologies—like Let’s Talk America and By the People—at the
conference, participants had more faith that dialogue and deliberation could influence decision-making beyond
the local level than that they would
influence decision-making beyond the local level.
Given
this context, participants at the 2004 conference emphasized the need to bring
these processes to decision-makers at all levels. Our speakers emphasized this need during the
Reflective Panel, workshop presenters emphasized this need during their
sessions, and participants emphasized this need during the World Café and Open
Space.
Admittedly,
NCDD has not been very proactive in this area—yet. We were recently honored to add Leanne Nurse,
program analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to NCDD’s Board of
Directors, and we have worked with Hawaii State Senator Les Ihara to consider
various ways that NCDD can connect more effectively with legislators. In November 2005, NCDD was invited to send a
representative to speak to local elected officials at a
We hope
to recruit more elected officials to our 2006 gathering, and we also hope to be
actively involved in the Deliberative Democracy Consortium’s efforts to bring
an international group of elected officials together to initiate a network of
decision-makers who are committed to deliberative democracy.
We need to develop quality practitioner tools for
common challenges
Practitioners
are in need of high-quality tools and in-depth information on common challenges
such as:
- how
to evaluation programs
- how
to decide when to use which D&D method
- how
to frame issues effectively
- how
to work with the media
- when
and how to connect dialogue and deliberation to the arts
- how
to connect dialogue and deliberation to action
We heard
about the need for such tools at the 2004 conference, in our 2005 membership
survey, and in the conference needs assessment, and we have been working on
several exciting projects to help meet these vital needs.
Resources to Help
People Match Contexts to Processes
Navigating the broad range of approaches available to them
can be an extremely daunting task for those new—and those not-so-new—to
dialogue and deliberation. Too often we
hear about people using
the first method they learn about when their community or organization really
needed a different type of process.
Making
distinctions between established models is a risky undertaking that NCDD has
avoided in the past. We have always been
sensitive to the fact that processes are best described by their creators, and
they can often be adapted for different circumstances. But the need in this field for clearer
distinctions between processes has become too great to ignore. As Hal Saunders humbly stated during the
Reflective Panel at the 2004 NCDD conference,
I think we’re all doing things that
are slightly different because we’re different human beings; we’ve had
different experiences, and we live in
different circumstances. And the
important thing for us to realize in this room is “what is the difference?”—not
to say “mine’s better than yours,” but “what is the difference?” “What is the best process for this
circumstance?” And maybe Martha has it
in one case; maybe David Mathews at
NCDD is
developing two resources we hope will help people make better design
choices. Both resources are meant to
introduce people to the range of possibilities out there and to send them in a
better direction than they may have gone otherwise.
The first
resource is a series of two “diagnostic charts” that categorize the dialogue
and deliberation field into four streams based on purpose. A group interested in organizing a dialogue
or deliberation program may intend to resolve a specific conflict, to influence
policy, to empower community members to take steps to solve a problem, to
encourage healing after a crime or crisis, or to simply increase awareness of
an issue.
NCDD has
worked collaboratively with a number of leaders in the field to identify the
four streams: Exploration, Conflict
Transformation, Decision-Making, and Collaborative Action. The charts, which we have presented at
conferences with glowing results, explain the reasons each stream is
used, what issues they are most effective in addressing, and which well-known
dialogue and deliberation models focus on each stream. The charts also provide much-appreciated
details about each of the methods, such as size of group and how participants
are selected.
The
following table provides a taste of the first chart. Email sandy@thataway.org
for a copy of the full document.
|
Dialogue
& Deliberation Stream |
Intention/Purpose |
Some
Appropriate D&D Processes |
|
|
|
|
|
Exploration |
To encourage people and groups to learn more
about themselves, their community, or an issue, and possibly discover
innovative solutions |
Bohmian Dialogue, World Café, Conversation Café,
Council process, Open Space |
|
|
|
|
|
Conflict
Transformation |
To resolve conflicts, to foster personal healing
and growth, and to improve relations among groups |
Sustained Dialogue, Victim-Offender Mediation,
Public Conversations Project dialogues, Web Lab's Small Group Dialogue |
|
|
|
|
|
Decision-Making |
To influence decisions and policy, and to improve
public knowledge |
National Issues Forums, Citizens Juries,
Deliberative Polling, 21st Century Town Meeting, Citizen Choicework,
Consensus Conference |
|
|
|
|
|
Collaborative
Action |
To empower people and groups to solve complicated
problems and take responsibility for the solution. |
Study Circles, Future Search, Appreciative
Inquiry |
In
addition to these charts—which despite being works-in-progress, more and more
members of the dialogue and deliberation community are presenting at workshops
and including in various publications—NCDD is also developing a “Beginner’s
Toolkit to Dialogue & Deliberation.”
The National
Dialogue Bureau
There is
a startling deficit of the informed views of ordinary Americans in mainstream
news coverage of current events. Instead,
the nation is fed a constant stream of “expert” views, which often have little
to do with how people experience issues in their day-to-day lives. To provide reporters with access to the
informed views of ordinary citizens, and to promote dialogue and deliberation, NCDD
members are developing a “National Dialogue Bureau.”
NCDD’s National
Lars Hasselblad Torres, Researcher for AmericaSpeaks, has
been spearheading this project, and Karla Andreu was hired to conduct interviews
and research in order to determine the feasibility of a National Dialogue
Bureau and what would be needed to make such a Bureau a success.
The Learning
Exchange
The
Learning Exchange will be a dynamic space on NCDD’s website that will house a
rich variety of resources and works focused on dialogue and deliberation. In
addition to incorporating the large number of resources already featured in thataway.org’s Resources Section, the Learning Exchange
will be a repository for scholarly resources (research results, articles,
summaries of dissertations) as well as practitioner-oriented resources such as
case studies, reports on best practices, summaries of projects, and more.
In an
email to NCDD’s Convenor about a document he would like to post on the Learning
Exchange, NCDD member Michael Briand, a research associate for the Kettering
Foundation, noted that “few scholars know much about the work of practitioners,
and few of the latter know much about the work of the former. This ‘gap’ serves
neither group well, and as a result the entire field loses.” By enabling NCDD
members and others to easily share their research and writings with one
another, The Learning Exchange will provide an ongoing means for practitioners
to become and remain informed about the latest theory, and for researchers to
keep updated on what practitioners are learning and experiencing in the field.
The Learning Exchange will not only provide a vast amount
of information in an organized, easy-to-navigate manner, it will also provide
users with the means to easily submit new content and enable NCDD staff to more
effectively and efficiently update the site’s resources. The NCDD website will soon become an even
more up-to-date, comprehensive source of tips, tools and research on dialogue
and deliberation.
Dialogue & the
Arts Project
In
partnership with Americans for the Arts’ Animating Democracy Initiative, NCDD
is developing a web feature that will help members of the dialogue &
deliberation community strengthen their work by linking to the arts. The
feature will include descriptions of successful arts-based civic dialogue
projects and links to artists who can work with D&D practitioners to bring
the arts into their projects. This project has its roots in the Connecting to
the Arts group that formed at NCDD's 2002 conference. Leah Lamb, Artistic Director of The
Performance Initiative, is the Dialogue & the Arts Project Manager.
We need to expand our focus from National to Global
Although NCDD
is a U.S.-based organization that holds a biennial national conference, our conferences attract people from outside of
the
Our first
conference inspired Miriam Wyman and Sandra Zagon to organize a Canadian
Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, which attracted 300 people to
Many
conference participants feel that we should add a stronger global dimension to
the conferences, and to the network.
They would like to see more global issues addressed at the conferences,
more non U.S.-solutions featured, and more international participants in
attendance.
NCDD’s
reach does go beyond the borders of the
We hope
to focus on global issues and highlight international successes more at the
2006 conference, and we plan to more actively recruit participants from outside
of the
What
Else Needs to be Done?
Despite
all of the projects NCDD is spearheading and all of the great work being done
by other organizations, much more needs to be done to strengthen this growing field. We need to
find ways, through evaluation, reporting, and data-collecting, to prove that
dialogue and deliberation work. Without
such proof, how can we expect decision-makers, community leaders, and funders
to take chances with these processes?
We also
need to do much more multi-process experimentation. No one dialogue or deliberation process has
all of the answers, or works in every circumstance. Many issues require intervention at various
levels—national or international as well as local, online as well as
face-to-face—and we need to get better at working together and combining
methods.
We need
to continue to develop new tools, and to gather existing tools and make them
widely available to people who are practicing and researching this work. We need to articulate a common vision for
this field that allows people who are new to these practices to understand and
be open to the work. And we need to find
more and more ways to encourage practitioners and scholars to develop ongoing
relationships, learn from each other, and work together.
We are
challenged to really start walking our talk.
As Glenna Gerard explained in the Reflective Panel at the 2004 NCDD
conference,
For me, it’s about how do we create
that space between us of listening and honor and respect? How do we build our internal capacity to be
able to be present with people in that way?
And how do we also, then, as people who are seeking to create those
environments for others, how do we begin to learn more about how we create
those environments externally as well as internally that allow for openings for
other possibilities to emerge?
How can
we encourage, in our own field, honest analysis of one’s own and others’ work,
genuine collaboration for the benefit of the community, and open access to
knowledge and information? How can we
set our egos aside and start working together to make a greater impact?
NCDD’s
2006 conference will take place in