DESCRIPTION:
Grantmakers everywhere are looking for meaningful ways to engage diverse community members in important decisions. But many have struggled to engage new voices in deep, well-informed conversations. For the philanthropic sector to be truly community-driven in its programs, funding areas, and policies, new tools and tactics are needed.
Lottery-Selected Panels are gaining traction worldwide as a way for governments to engage their residents in collaborative and inclusive policy decisions deeply. This 50-year old panel style model is a democratic innovation that puts a diverse cross-section of everyday people at the heart of complex decisions. Utilization of this model has resulted in more inclusive and collaborative community engagement in communities across the globe.
Here’s how it works:
- Participants are selected using a democratic lottery, also known as a representative random sample or sortition. This ensures that many different diversities are represented – a sort of “community in one room.”
- In-depth deliberation sets a new standard for productive collaboration, proactive inclusion, fairness, and respect across differences.
Join us for this info session to explore the transformative potential of this model in the philanthropic sector. After the information session, participants can choose to take a more in-depth, participatory two-part training series later in the fall to begin putting these concepts into practice.
Facilitators: Alex Renirie, Program Co-Director at Healthy Democracy & Grace Taylor, Operations Director at Healthy Democracy
When: September 19, 2023 1:00 pm – 2:00pm
This program is open to members and nonmembers.
About the facilitators:
Healthy Democracy
Healthy Democracy is a nonpartisan nonprofit that designs and coordinates cutting-edge deliberative democracy programs across the US and beyond. As a leading innovator in the field of deliberative democracy, Healthy Democracy’s processes radically expand who participates in our democracy and set a new standard for collaborative decision making. These Lottery-Selected Panels, also called citizens’ assemblies or policy juries, are a tested democratic innovation that tackles difficult questions by radically transforming both who participates in our democracy and how decisions are made. We partner with governments, nonprofits, and other organizations to convene Lottery-Selected Panels that tackle our most difficult public decision making.
Alex Renirie, Program Co-Director
Alex co-leads program development and process design at Healthy Democracy, a US-based nonpartisan nonprofit that brings together everyday people – selected by democratic lottery – to tackle tough policy questions. She co-coordinates HD’s complex public processes and manages partnerships with deliberative democracy practitioners in the US and abroad.
Since 2019, Alex has served on four Healthy Democracy projects in various capacities, including as a moderator, process designer, and project manager. She holds dual Masters degrees in Conflict & Dispute Resolution and Environmental Studies from the University of Oregon and a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Prior to joining the Healthy Democracy team, she worked for over a decade in public policy advocacy and organizing.
Grace Taylor, Operations Director
Grace manages finances and operations for Healthy Democracy. She brings close to three decades of experience in nonprofit management and organizational leadership to the team, having served as a strategic planning consultant for numerous Portland-area nonprofits and managed operations and finances for Rural Organizing Project and Vibrant Village Foundation. Earlier in her career she was a grassroots social justice organizer and international solidarity activist. She holds a Masters degree in Organizational Leadership from Pinchot University and a BA in Political Economy from Lewis and Clark College, and she studied civic engagement after apartheid as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. She’s parenting two teenagers, and loves hiking, backpacking and live music and dance.
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