From Everyday Democracy: The basics of dialogue to change

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A national leader in the field of civic participation and community change, Everyday Democracy helps people of different backgrounds and views talk and work together to solve problems and create communities that work for everyone. Using innovative, participatory approaches, Everyday Democracy works with neighborhoods, cities and towns, regions, and states. It also runs the The Issue Guide Exchange, a free, online resource available to anyone who is interested in broad-based, inclusive dialogue leading to community action, where people share, create, and discuss dialogue materials.

Its online handbook, The Basics of Dialogue to Change, which is adapted from its 157-page guide Organizing Community-wide Dialogue for Action and Change (available in pdf for free), covers these topics:

Public Participation Process Planner

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The process planner helps you choose participatory methods that are suitable to your situation. It also helps you plan your process. You answer a series of questions which are compared to a database of methods to determine which methods best fit your needs.

The process planner will suggest a list of methods. It is often a good idea to combine different methods at different stages of a decision making cycle.

You can choose between the following options:

1. The full version of the process planner contains both short online questionnaires and supporting text to help you think through the options available to you. We recommend this for new users.

2. The quick version of the process planner is limited to just the questionnaires. Choosing this option means you will be able to choose a method quicker but you will not have access to the useful supporting information. This option is mainly for advanced users.

3. The supporting information pages where you can view the guidance on planning participation processes without having to click through the questionnaires. This option will not help you choose a method.

4. To find suitable methods you can also use the methods advanced search .

If you are unable to find what you are looking for elsewhere on the site you can post a question for our experts to respond to.

from Public Participation Process Planner via people and participation.net – the public participation public engagement website. People & Participation is based on Involve‘s successful book (pdf) by the same name which was launched in 2005. The book provides a useful summary of participatory methods and practice but given the number of methods and speed of the development of new methods it is impossible for a printed publication to stay accurate for long. The reason for transferring People & Participation to the web is to allow us to maintain more, and more up to date information about participation. It also allows use as the site user to add your knowledge and experience making the site a truly collaborative experience, something that a book simply cannot do.