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  • A Renewed Vision For A Renewed City

    Focus_MossPointRiverView.jpg
    When hurricanes strike, we think of loss of life, ruined homes, and devastated economies, and the push is for food, clothes, cash and help in rebuilding. That's all critical – but for a community to create a better future they can really rely on, something else may be needed. Lara Birnback, Public Agenda's senior public engagement project director, reports on public engagement in Moss Point, Mississippi – a city struggling with the impact of a plant closing and Katrina's devastation – where civic leaders are determined to transform their home into a world class river city.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT AT PUBLIC AGENDA

While always adapted to the task at hand, our work in public engagement revolves around three fundamental and interrelated practices:

First, we frame issues for public deliberation so everyone can enter the public dialogue and participate effectively.
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Choicework Discussion Starters
Learn more about Public Agenda's core approach to engaging the public.
Then, we work with communities to engage citizens and leaders for democratic problem-solving and change.
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Resources and Assistance
Explore our other tools for public engagement.
Finally, we build local, civic capacity for the long-term, beyond the lifespan of any project.
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Case Studies
Read brief descriptions of selected recent initiatives and what they accomplished.

CENTER FOR ADVANCES IN PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

The Center for Advances in Public Engagement was launched in an effort to engage citizens more fully in public life. CAPE takes a leading role in a field dedicated to promoting new and better ways for citizens to confront pressing public problems, and to close the gap between leaders, experts and the public in the search for solutions. It is dedicated to re-engaging the larger public on important public matters, to create the possibility for dialogue that gets beneath the "snapshot" or "knee-jerk" views of public sentiment.


THE LATEST FROM CAPE:

Public Engagement: A PrimerCAPE Working Papers
Transforming Public LifeReframing Framing


PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT IN ACTION

At Public Agenda, public engagement isn't just a theory - it's what we do. Here are some links to learn more about some of the fieldwork our engagers are doing right now:

Achieving The Dream: Community Colleges Count

Involving Faculty and Students in Creating a Culture of Success
Community Action & Engagement for Student Success
Regional METS Leadership Coalition
One KC Voice



PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT NEWS

How to get beyond the verbal battles, vicious polarizations and deadlocks that so often prevent useful dialogue on real solutions to public policy issues? Public Agenda's Will Friedman tackles the challenge in a CUNY TV interview.


THE ENGAGERS: FAVORITE LINKS

Our public engagement team, which works to help citizens, lawmakers and public officials get into real dialogue to achieve real solutions to public policy problems, is smart - very smart. But they're also very well-informed. Here are a few of their favorite sources for finding out the latest on the art, science and achievements in the field of public engagement:

Deliberative Democracy Consortium
DemocracySpace.org
International Association for Public Participation (IAP2)
Journal of Public Deliberation
Journal of Public Deliberation Practitioners Site
Kettering Foundation
National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation
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