Is this approach right for you?

At a 2007 action forum, residents of Warren County, N.C., select ideas to move forward on to help every student succeed in their district.

While there are many important issues and causes, not all of them lend themselves to large-scale community-wide dialogue and problem solving. Issues that work best for this approach…

• relate to the concerns and daily lives of many different types of people in the community – that is, they are genuinely public issues.
• capture widespread public attention because they are timely.
• are best addressed by many people through multiple forms of social, political, and policy change, including:
  • changes in individual behavior and attitudes
  • new relationships and networks
  • institutional changes
  • changes in public policy

Here are some questions to think about:

• What is happening in the community that concerns us?
• What are we trying to accomplish or change?
• Would public dialogue (sometimes called study circles) help us make progress on these issues?
• How can we describe the situation so that it will interest all kinds of people?