About us

Los Angeles-area agency and nonprofit leaders take part in a sample dialogue as part of an Everyday Democracy orientation in 2007.

Everyday Democracy helps local communities find ways for all kinds of people to think, talk and work together to solve problems. Using groundbreaking tools and methods for organizing large-scale dialogue and collaborative problem solving, Everyday Democracy works with neighborhoods, cities and towns, regions, and states, helping them pay particular attention to how structural racism and other structural inequalities affect the problems they address.

We partner with local, regional and national innovators to explore ways to connect public dialogue to community change and governance, and to place racial inclusion at the forefront of practices to strengthen democracy. Building on the real-life challenges and successes of communities, Everyday Democracy creates flexible tools and processes that are widely used and adapted in the United States and beyond.

Everyday Democracy was created as the Study Circles Resource Center in 1989 by The Paul J. Aicher Foundation, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. Since 1989, we have worked with more than 550 communities across the United States on many different public issues.

How our work has grown

In the early years, we focused on developing a better kind of public dialogue, drawing on the ways people talk in their everyday lives. Then, we championed the idea that public talk is for everyone, and helped communities organize to bring all kinds of people into the conversation. Now we’re helping people connect public dialogue to real solutions.

Our relationship to The Paul J. Aicher Foundation

Everday Democracy is governed by The Paul J. Aicher Foundation, an operating foundation known formerly as the Topsfield Foundation; it was renamed for the organization’s founder upon his passing in 2002. In addition to its endowment, The Paul J. Aicher Foundation receives regular funding from the Aicher Family Foundation, and is a regular recipient of grants from major foundations.