Slides used in workshop for local leaders on planning for stronger local civic infrastructure

1. Planning for Stronger Local
Democracy
Charleston University
Charleston, WV
August 31, 2012

2. The Deliberative Democracy Consortium

3. Agenda
 Introductions and goals
 Best practices in engagement – and
why they aren’t enough
 Lunch
 Movie
 Building blocks for local democracy
 What are your building blocks?
 Next steps for WV network

4. Opening questions
 What has led you to practice and promote
public engagement in your community?
 Why is this work important?
 What do you hope to learn today?

5. What do you want to learn?
 How this fits in democratic system – especially with the
feeling that ‘you elected us to decide’
 Weed out the weak ones – resources, people, etc.
 How to get more people involved and active –
overcome apathy
 How to use carrots, not cattle prods
 Convince more people that engagement is important –
elected officials in particular
 Give people who want to make change a voice
 Overcome divisions and fractures in the community

6. Slides available at:
www.slideshare.net/mattleighninger
Guides:
http://bit.ly/M1pvMp
http://bit.ly/iwjgqn

7. The context:
How have citizens* changed?
 More educated
 More skeptical – different attitudes
toward authority
 Have less time to spare
 Use the Internet to learn and connect
* “citizens” = residents, people

8. The context:
Families with young children
 Have the most at stake in community
success
 Parents have even more motivation to
engage, but even less time, than
average resident
 Want opportunities to engage in
community, not just politics

9. Successful recent public
engagement tactics
 Proactive about recruitment
 Bringing diverse perspectives together
 Sharing experiences
 Giving people chance to make up their own
minds (deliberative)
 Different levels of action: volunteers, teams,
organizations, policy decisions
 Increasing use of online tools

10. Successful tactic: Proactive recruitment
 Map community networks;
 Involve leaders of those networks;
 Hold a kickoff
meeting;
 Follow up,
follow up, follow
up.

11. Successful tactic: Small-group processes
 No more than 12 people per group;
 Facilitator who is impartial (doesn’t give
opinions);
 Start with people
describing their
experiences, end
with action
planning.

12. Successful tactic: Framing an issue
Provide an agenda or guide that:
 Begins by asking people to talk about why they
care about this issue or question
 Gives them the information they need, in ways
they can absorb and use it
 Lays out several options or views (including
ones you don’t agree with)
 Ends with questions that get people to plan
what they want to do (not just what they want
you to do)

13. Successful tactic: Many levels of action

17. Successful tactic: Online tools
 Complement face-to-face communication,
don’t replace it
 Particularly good for:
o Providing background information
o Data gathering by citizens
o Generating and ranking ideas
o Helping people visualize options
o Maintaining connections over time

18. Digital divides (plural)
 Overall, Internet access growing
 “Access” – to Internet, to government –
has never been enough
 Different people use different hardware
 Different people go to different places on
the Internet
 Communities just as complex online as off
– recruitment must be proactive

19. In other (fewer) words, the key
success factors are:
 Diverse critical mass
 Structured
 Deliberative
 Action-oriented
 Online and F2F

20. “Decatur Next”
Decatur, Georgia
 Large-scale planning efforts in 2000, 2010
 Initial Organizer: city government and a local
nonprofit (Common Focus)
 Issues: schools, race, growth
 450 participants in 2000, 680 in 2010 (city of
17,000)

22. “Decatur Roundtables”
Decatur, Georgia
Outcomes:
 Decatur Neighborhood Alliance
 Promotion of tax abatement plan for seniors,
other anti-displacement efforts
 Less tension between different groups
 New model for land use decisions
 Extensive citizen input into city’s strategic plan

23. “Community Chat”
Southwest Delray Beach, FL
Outcomes:
 Parent support group
 Youth basketball team
 Expansion of “Delray Divas” youth group
 Westside Neighborhood Presidents’ Council
 Citizen input to street redevelopment plan
 “Maintaining the Village” effort to rehab
housing
 New deregulated public
school - the “Village Academy”

24. “What To Do About the Flu?”
Georgia, Nebraska,
Massachusetts, Oregon
• Took place in 2005
• Centers for Disease Control, Study Circles
Resource Center, Keystone Center
• Issue: pandemic influenza
• 500 participants

25. “What To Do About the Flu?”
Georgia, Nebraska,
Massachusetts, Oregon
Outcomes:
• Input used in Bush Administration’s pandemic
preparedness plan
• Local planning to prepare for pandemic

26. “Horizons”
Rural communities in seven
Northwestern states
 Initiated by Northwest Area Foundation
 284 towns, with poverty rates between
10% and 78%
 Issues: poverty reduction and economic
development
 3,000+ participants

27. “Horizons”
Rural communities in seven
Northwestern states
Outcomes listed in recent evaluation:
“Community gardens and farmer’s markets,
parks, trails (one with a $1.2 million grant), and
recreational opportunities, community and
community resource centers, scholarships for
low income children and families for daycare,
after school programming and recreation,
including Boys and Girls’ clubs, car repair and
home maintenance programs, and in (at least)
five communities, the establishment of
community foundations.”

28. Successes, limitations of
engagement so far
Successes: Making policy decisions, planning
Catalyzing citizen action
Building trust
Fostering new leadership
Challenges: Time-consuming (especially recruitment)
Unsustainable (usually not intended to be)
Meets goals of ‘engagers,’ not ‘engaged’
Doesn’t change the institutions
Limited impact on equity
Trust, relationships fade over time

29. Hmm. What do you think of this?
1. Does this match your experiences with public
engagement? Why or why not?
2. What would you add?

30. What do you need to know about
your community?
1. How effective are your engagement efforts –
who participates? Are officials happy with how
they work? Are citizens happy?
2. How effective are the grassroots groups – do
they get things done? Do people participate?
3. Are there segments of the community that
have typically not been involved?

31. Why plan for more sustainable
kinds of engagement?
1. Sustain the benefits
2. Allow the ‘engaged’ to set the agenda
3. Better address inequities
4. Increase community attachment and
economic growth
5. Increase residents’ sense of legitimacy and
“public happiness”

34. Social media is a critical tool for
new forms of engagement
 More sustained
 Larger, more diverse numbers of
people
 Easier for ‘engagers’ – recruitment
doesn’t have to start from scratch
 More open to ideas from the
‘engaged’

36. “Sometimes you need a
meeting that is also a party.
Sometimes you need a party
that is also a meeting.”
─ Gloria Rubio-Cortès,
National Civic League

37. Community engagement planners should
consider some key building blocks::

41. “Portsmouth Listens”
Portsmouth, NH
 Ongoing process since 2000
 Several hundred participants each time
 Addressed a number of major policy
decisions: bullying in schools, school
redistricting, city’s master plan,
balancing city budget, whether to build
new middle school

42. Jane Addams School for Democracy
West Side of St. Paul, MN
 Community center that has hosted “neighborhood
learning circles” every month since 1998
 Involves recent Hmong, Latino, Somali immigrants
 Young people involved in circles and other activities
 Cultural exchanges - food, crafts, storytelling
 Has resulted in new projects, initiatives, festivals, and a
change in INS policy

43. Participatory Budgeting in Brazilian cities
 Commitment from gov’t to adopt budget;
 Wide range of ways to be involved;
 A carnival
atmosphere;
 Started small,
now huge –
60,000+ people

44. “Kuna Alliance for a Cohesive
Community Team” Kuna, ID
 Recurring input-gathering process, used on
all major decisions
 Organized by Kuna Alliance for a Cohesive
Team (Kuna ACT), in collaboration with local
government
 Issues include: school funding, downtown
development, planning and growth
 500 participants annually (city of 6,000)

45. “Kuna Alliance for a Cohesive
Community Team” Kuna, ID
Outcomes:
 New comprehensive plan
 Passage of school bond issue
 Improvements
made to
downtown
 New strategy to
market community
as hub for “Birds
of Prey” area

47. “Democracy needs a place to sit down”
Communities need places that are:
1. Permanent
2. Not just “open,” but actively
welcoming
3. Centered on citizen needs and
priorities
4. Powerful
5. Political, social, and cultural

48. “Democracy is good for your
health”
─ Roger Bernier, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention

49. Questions for discussion
1. Does your community already have some
building blocks in place?
2. Are there other building blocks that might be
useful?
3. If you were to begin creating a long-term plan
for your community, who would you work
with?
4. What do you need to help you get started?

50. What do you want to learn?
 How this fits in democratic system – especially with the
feeling that ‘you elected us to decide’
 Weed out the weak ones – resources, people, etc.
 How to get more people involved and active –
overcome apathy
 How to use carrots, not cattle prods
 Convince more people that engagement is important –
elected officials in particular
 Give people who want to make change a voice
 Overcome divisions and fractures in the community

52. Resources
• www.participedia.net
• www.deliberative-democracy.net
• www.soulofthecommunity.org
• www.everydaydemocracy.org
• www.publicagenda.org
• www.kettering.org
• On Facebook: “Deliberative
Democracy Consortium” group page
• The Next Form of Democracy

53. Resources (continued)
• On YouTube: the DDC channel
• Using Online Tools to Engage – and
Be Engaged by – the Public at
http://bit.ly/iwjgqn
• Planning for Stronger Local
Democracy at bit.ly/rWeHaU – and
other resources at www.nlc.org

54. Slides available at:
www.slideshare.net/mattleighninger
Guides:
http://bit.ly/M1pvMp
http://bit.ly/iwjgqn

55. Next steps in West Virginia
If you could do one thing to strengthen democratic
participation in WV, what would it be?
Participatory Budgeting on use of CDBG funds in
Huntington
Redo the way we do public comment periods
PB on departmental budgets
‘Kids meeting’ as part of commission meetings
Repeat Jamie Oliver project in other counties

56. Next steps in West Virginia
What do you need help with?
Trainings for volunteers on things like how to
engage young people in the community
Sequel to this workshop, with teams from
communities
Help dealing with past community conflicts
(social, political, racial, etc.)
Revitalize committees – how to identify and
recruit people who can jump in and help lead
Success stories from other similar towns
Help with grantwriting, fundraising
Webinars

57. www.wvciviclife.org
www.wvhub.org
www.participatorybudgeting.org
www.e-democracy.org