Partnerships & Initiatives

Here is a sample of Everyday Democracy’s many partners:

• Centers for Disease Control asked Everyday Democracy to be one of several co-sponsors of the 2005 Vaccine Policy Analysis Collaborative. This initiative engaged citizens and scientists in deliberations about which subgroups in the population would require the earliest vaccine protection against influenza in the event of a pandemic. Everyday Democracy Senior Associates Jon Abercrombie and Matt Leighninger played key roles in designing discussion materials, developing participant recruitment strategies, and facilitating a day-long citizen dialogue for a diverse collection of 100 citizens in the greater Atlanta region. Other sponsoring organizations included the Lounsbery Foundation, the Keystone Center, the Institute of Medicine, the National Immunization Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Vaccine Program Office in the Department of Health and Human Services.
• DemocracyWorks partnered with Everyday Democracy in 2004 on its “Deliberative Democracy Project,” a campaign to engage Spanish-speaking groups in discussions about whether or not they vote and why. DemocracyWorks – whose mission is “to make democracy work fairly, inclusively and vibrantly in Connecticut and nationwide” – invited Everyday Democracy to develop discussion materials, train meeting facilitators, and assist with evaluation and program development. The initial discussions took place in Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury, Willimantic, and Bridgeport, Conn. The project continued in 2005-2006, renamed  Votando en la Baranda (“voting on the porch railing”), with Everyday Democracy again playing a key role in revising the discussion materials and assisting with program evaluation. Other sponsors of the initiative include the Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission, the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, the Hispanic Health Council, and Junta.
• The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation invited Everyday Democracy to partner with Demos and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium to convene a meeting of more than 30 leaders of the deliberative democracy and electoral reform fields. Participants met on June 26-27, 2004, at the Pocantico Conference Center in Tarrytown, N.Y. where they learned about both movements, and explored ways to establish better working connections between the two.
• The League of Women Voters invited Everyday Democracy to make presentations at its national meeting, as well as at numerous meetings of state and local leagues. In turn, we shared information about several League initiatives with Everyday Democracy's national network. The early years of this partnership led to large-scale civic engagement initiatives in Minnesota, New York, and Oklahoma. In 2005, The League’s Education Fund asked Everyday Democracy to be a partner in the national initiative Local Voices: Citizen Conversations on Civil Liberties and Secure Communities. In collaboration with the League, Everyday Democracy developed a discussion guide, provided advice to local leagues as they prepared for 10 local forums, and trained local discussion facilitators. Our work with the League also informed the content of Citizens Building Communities: The ABCs of Public Dialogue, a how-to guide outlining different public engagement models. Everyday Democracy Senior Associate Matt Leighninger wrote Citizens Building Communities.
• NeighborWorks® America has partnered with Everyday Democracy since 2002 to develop, market, and teach courses for students attending its national Training Institutes “Issues and Problem-Solving: Community-Wide Dialogue as Part of Your Revitalization Strategy” introduces community development practitioners, resident leaders, and local public officials to the principles and practices that make study circles an effective approach to civic change. NeighborWorks® America is a “national nonprofit organization created by Congress to provide financial support, technical assistance, and training for community-based revitalization efforts.”
• The Northwest Area Foundation made a grant to Everyday Democracy to develop a study circle discussion guide to help communities address poverty. For its part, Everyday Democracy contributed technical assistance to organizers in over two-dozen communities who conducted field tests of the materials. The result is Thriving Communities: Working together to move from poverty to prosperity for all, a five-session discussion guide that helps people look at poverty in their community and discuss what it looks like, why it exists, and what can and should be done about it.
• The Southern Poverty Law Center’s award-winning educational programs, Tolerance.org and Teaching Tolerance asked Everyday Democracy to help develop the dialogue phase of its national Mix It Up initiative. Launched in November 2002, Mix It Up aims to help young people identify, question, and cross social boundaries in their schools and communities. Everyday Democracy played the lead role in developing discussion materials for middle and high school students, drawing on focus group research with hundreds of students from around the United States. During the 2003-2004 school year, over 1,500 schools and 15,000 students used the discussion guide, Reaching Across Boundaries: Talk to Create Change.