Program:
Deliberative forums
- Budget:
-
$9,000
- Category:
-
Public, Society Benefit, General/Other
- Population Served:
-
General Public/Unspecified
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Adults
-
General Public/Unspecified
Program Description:
Consensus improves public policy decision making by engaging citizens in deliberative forums. In 2003, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation chose Consensus as the home for its KC Forums project. Since then, Consensus has continued offering deliberation to the local community and clients. Very quickly, Consensus became a national presence in deliberation, working with the Kettering Foundation, with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and AmericaSpeaks on deliberative events. We have attracted local co-sponsors including the Truman Presidential Library, the Kansas City Public Library and Johnson County Library, the local press club and a state legislator. events with national organizations, legislators, and libraries. Deliberation asks citizens to consider three ways of approaching a public policy issue. It helps people move past wishful thinking and work across boundaries to find solutions.
Program Long-Term Success:
Long-term success means fundamental changes in how public policy decisions are made in metro Kansas City. Those outcomes include: 1. Citizens move past wishful thinking and denial to make the hard choices that are inherent in public policy; 2. Policymakers seek citizen involvement early on, before decisions have been made; and 3. Initiatives are successful at the polls as a result of deliberative citizen involvement in decision making. The end result is a new collaboration between citizens and policymakers that results in a more thoughtful civil society and renewed respect for one another.
Program Short-Term Success:
Short-term successes focus on citizen and elected official attitudes: 1. Citizens know more about the issue, 2. Citizens better understand other points of view, 3. Citizens are more likely to take action. 4. The results of the forums have a significant impact on the thinking of elected officials.
Program Success Monitored by:
We administered evaluations after most forums during our first five years. We have also conducted surveys of past By the People participants and of elected officials who received forum reports. When we conduct deliberative projects for clients, such as the Scott County Libraries Together project, we track action that results.
Program Success Examples:
Participant evaluations from five forums found: 74% of participant had a better understanding of the issue and how it might be addressed; 65% better understood other points of view; 66% were more likely to take action. A survey of elected officials who received forum reports had a 10% rate of return. The survey showed that the reports had a significant impact on the thinking of 63% of elected officials who returned surveys. Sixty-three percent also said that the forum reports helped them understand what their constituents were thinking. An anecdote: KC Forums conducted a forum on Americans’ role in the world just days after the start of the war in Iraq. At the end, one participant said that he served in the defense department under the first President Bush. He said that, while group members had different viewpoints, they’d had a thoughtful, respectful conversation. He said it was his first experience being listened to respectfully by people who disagreed with him.
Program:
The Civility Project
- Budget:
-
$36,000
- Category:
-
Public, Society Benefit, General/Other
- Population Served:
-
General Public/Unspecified
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General Public/Unspecified
-
General Public/Unspecified
Program Description:
Consensus members watched in dismay as the health care town hall meetings just drove Americans further apart. We believed that what happened wasn't a people problem, it was a process problem. Using an antiquated "public hearing" process was entirely wrong for the task. That led us to wonder how local residents would like high-conflict issues to be handled. The c/three Consensus consulting team has conducted a dozen focus groups with everyone from Mainstream Coalition to the Tea Party to find out. Consensus worked with Nick Haines to hold a public forum on civility that drew 130 people and was broadcast 10/28. In the future, we will take the focus group findings to elected leaders and others to find out how public involvement might be transformed. We will work to make those changes real by holding a class on building civility into public meetings, as well as by educating elected officials in how to run a public meeting. So far, all work on this has been pro bono.
Program Long-Term Success:
Long-term success for The Civility Project would be for our local, state and federal governments to engage citizens in a way that actually solves problems. Public meetings would be less intimidating but more demanding in many ways, as citizens would be asked to listen to one another and work together with elected officials to come to agreement. Citizens would expect to do more than just say "here's what I want," and would welcome the opportunity for a thoughtful, sometimes passionate, discussion with others. Metro Kansas City would lead the nation in its ability to convene people across boundaries of political ideology, race/ethnicity and class while always holding to standards of civility. Elected officials would be proficient at process and would understand how to deal with conflict productively.
Program Short-Term Success:
1. Consensus understands how citizens want to be involved in public issues, based on 15+ focus groups with people from across the political spectrum.
2. Elected officials understand how citizens want to be involved in public issues, based on Consensus conversations with them.
3. Consensus understands how elected officials would be willing to change the process to accommodate citizens.
4. 50 persons per year complete a class on how to build more civility into public meetings, and 60% report using at least one new method.
5. 40 elected officials per year complete a class on how to deal with high-conflict public meetings, and 60% report using at least one new method.
Program Success Monitored by:
Evaluations of participants in training for elected officials and on civility.
Conversations with elected officials and others with whom we share focus group results.
Conversations among the Consensus board and c/three team.
Program Success Examples:
The project is still fairly young, but we do have two notable successes.
1. We have been able to fill 12 focus groups with people eager to talk with us about civility in the public square. The 12 include the KCMO Youth Commission, Mainstream Coalition, Tea Party, Coffee Party, KC Fair Tax, Sue Shear Institute, and others.
2. 130 individuals gave up a Sunday afternoon to attend a panel discussion about civility that was conducted with KCPT Public Television. Panelists included Congressman Cleaver, talk-show host Chris Stigall, former elected officials Lana Oleen and Ronnie Metsker, and the Missouri Tea Party chair Reed Chambers. KCPT found the topic important enough to tape it for broadcast.
Program:
Neighborhoods and developers study
- Budget:
-
$33,000
- Category:
-
Public, Society Benefit, General/Other
- Population Served:
-
Other Named Groups
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Adults
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General Public/Unspecified
Program Description:
Friction between neighborhoods and developers costs thousands of dollars and reduces the quality and quantity of development in Kansas City. It doesn't have to be like this. The dysfunctional dance between neighborhoods and developers can be made productive and respectful. But to do so requires a neutral convener like Consensus. We have gathered a 12 letters of support from major institutions like UMKC, some of the area's largest developers, and neighborhood leaders for a study that would recommend new processes and policies. The study would be based on a successful study conducted for the City of Gladstone, MO, by c/three partner Dan Blom. As a result of that study, the City changed how it did business to make it easier for both groups. Our study would focus on the 4th District in KCMO, which the expectation that changes would improve the situation for other council districts. The entire budget is $56,000. Phase One would cost $44K, of which $11K has been raised.
Program Long-Term Success:
The development process is sensible, productive and respectful. Friction between neighborhoods and developers has, with help from the City of Kansas City, Missouri, been significantly reduced through use of new policies and processes. Neighborhood leaders understand the development process well enough to be full partners. Developers expect to involve neighborhoods early on in finding workable solutions to problems. More often than not, the two are partners instead of adversaries. Developers report that they have saved thousands of dollars because they don't have to go back to the drawing board after neighborhood protests. Neighborhoods report that the quality of development in their neighborhoods has improved. City government reports that the whole process has become much more proactive and smooth.
Program Short-Term Success:
Developers report that they better understand the neighborhood perspective.
Neighborhood leaders report that they better understand the development process and the developer perspective.
City officials report that they better understand areas of friction between the two groups and how they can help reduce it.
Of the recommendations produced by this project, at least 55% are adopted by the City and by developers and neighborhood groups.
Program Success Monitored by:
Evaluations sent to participants from the City, developers and neighborhoods.
Monitoring of recommendations adopted over time.
Program Success Examples:
We are still raising funds to put this project in place. We do, however, feel very proud of the fact that 12 individuals and institutions, including some high-profile developers, have provided letters of support and pledged to participate in the project. Every letter was written by the individual who signed it, with no cookie-cutter letters, and almost every one included examples of why the project was needed.