2015 IAP2 North American Conference,
Sept. 9 – 11, Portland Oregon
Organizers of the Fourth Annual IAP2 North American Conference are thrilled with the response for the call for presentations. More than 75 session proposals from around the world were received and are now being reviewed.
Have you taken a look at the keynote presenters? If you haven’t, take the time to review the experience and talent that you will have the opportunity to learn from.
Dive Deeper Into Successful P2!
2015 IAP2 USA Skills Symposium
Wednesday 27 May through Sunday 31 May, 2015
Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
The event will involve a wide range of workshops of varying duration and topics exploring skills, tools and techniques that support effective public participation. This training will be undertaken in a rich learning environment, with activities building a creative and supportive space for participants whether they spend a day or the whole week at the event.
Briefly introduce yourself. Who are you, and what do you do?
I am the Director of Strategic Accounts for GovDelivery. I started with GovDelivery way back in February of 2015 :-). My job at GovDelivery is to consult with its different teams (Sales, Marketing, Product, Implementation, Customer Service, etc.) to help drive more new partnerships with local and state government. So, essentially what that means is that I help government public information officers, communications directors, public participation professionals and others leverage the internet (the cloud, the web, whatever you wanna call it) to execute their successful communications strategies.
You might hear someone in your organization, community, or neighborhood talking about Buffering….but, what does that mean? I use it all the time as a noun and a verb. For example, “I love Buffer”…or….”just Buffer that!” Buffer is an application – free to download and accessible from your pc/tablet/smartphone.
Buffer is a great tool that will help you in two main ways. First, you can write a bunch of posts at one time, and choose which social profiles to send them to, and then Buffer will spread them out throughout the day or week so that you don't have to be at a computer all the time in order to have a social media presence.
Citizen Engagement in Cities, Evaluating P2, highlight upcoming IAP2 Webinars
Following up on the popularity of our December webinar on how engaged cities involved their residents and communities, we are pleased to continue the conversation. Citizens in Melbourne, Australia, are regarded as some of the more engaged in the world, and in our April Learning Webinar, we’ll find out how that came to be, and how it can be done in your own P2 projects.
Plan To Participate – The IAP2 USA Annual General Meeting, April 22
IAP2 USA’s Annual General Meeting will be held Wednesday, April 22, 9:30 – 10:00 AM Pacific. Your Board of Directors will reflect on the exciting initiatives that were undertaken in 2014 and share plans for a very busy 2015. The AGM will be held via webinar. Learn more about your IAP2 and plan to attend.
Save the date for Frontiers of Democracy 2015, which will take place June 25-27 in Boston. While powerful forces work against justice and civil society around the world, committed and innovative people strive to understand and improve citizens’ engagement with government, with community, and with each other.
Every year, Frontiers of Democracy convenes some of these practitioners and scholars for organized discussions and informal interactions. Topics include deliberative democracy, civil and human rights, social justice, community organizing and development, civic learning and political engagement, the role of higher education in democracy, Civic Studies, media reform and citizen media production, civic technology, civic environmentalism, and common pool resource management.
Devoted to new issues and innovative solutions, this conference is truly at the frontiers of democracy. The DDC is one of the organizers of Frontiers, which is hosted annually by the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts. Parts of this year's conference will draw on Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy, by Matt Leighninger and Tina Nabatchi, which will be released by Wiley-Blackwell this spring.
Help organize Text, Talk, Act events on April 14 and May 7. Thousands of people, in all 50 states, have participated in previous rounds of Text, Talk, Act, which combines text messaging, social media, and face-to-face discussion to help people decide how they can strengthen mental health in their families, on their campuses, and in their communities. Text, Talk, Act was developed by the Creating Community Solutions alliance, which includes DDC; see www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org/texttalkact. There will be a special contest connected with this round: if you organize Text, Talk, Act events on April 14 or May 7, you could win one of five $1,000 prizes for your school or community organization.
Get Ready to Apply for:
A Celebration of Excellence in Public Participation: IAP2 USA Core Value Awards
You and your team worked hard to deliver a great P2 project: now it’s time to make sure it gets due recognition. The application process opens April 20 and continues through June 1. Remember that it takes time to write an application, so plan ahead and learn from last year’s winners.
The categories are:
Research Project of the Year
Organization of the Year
Project of the Year
The winners will go on to compete against other Core Values Award winners from around the world at the Federation level (last year, the St Vrain Valley School District in Colorado won Research Project of the Year from both IAP2 USA and the IAP2 Federation!). If you need inspiration, click here to find out more about last year’s winners and watch for more news about the application process!
Special Free Webinar, March 31 – IAP2 for Students
More and more today, students want to be involved in things that better our world. Being a part of IAP2 provides excellent opportunities to do just that. So we want to hear and learn from you: what do students want to do with IAP2? How can you help? How can things change? What are the opportunities that are available?
How many people in the U.S. have a professional interest in public participation? Share your best guess and add to the conversation on our member-only LinkedIn group. More than 200 members of IAP2 USA are already there, request access now!
Governments are more effective when they work with citizens to solve problems and development challenges. For this reason, the World Bank, in partnership with the London School of Economics (LSE), the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Participedia, and CIVICUS, has developed a free 4-week course on Citizen Engagement hosted by Coursera.
Matt Leighninger of the DDC and Tina Nabatchi of the Maxwell School for Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University are two of the contributors to the course. Leighninger and Nabatchi drew on material from their forthcoming book, Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy.
Taught by a global faculty of experts and practitioners, the course provides a holistic overview of citizen engagement through interactive videos, resources, and activities. It explores underlying theories and concepts of citizen engagement, examines the role it can play in improving policymaking and public service delivery, and investigates the impact of new technologies, particularly in developing countries. Participants can contribute their own insights and connect with others through online forums, dedicated social media channels and Google Hangouts.
It's come to our attention that not everyone is receiving all of the IAP2 USA emails, and it can affect whether or not you receive your membership renewal notice! Email service providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Comcast, Hotmail, and AOL, to name a few) are always updating their filters to reduce spam. This is beginning to affect email delivery for many non-profit organizations.
Please check your trash and spam folders! If you find emails from IAP2 in them, it's time to whitelist our domain - iap2usa.org. How to do that varies by provider. Search for "how to whitelist a domain in [your system]" to find guidance specific to your email account. If you work for an entity that provides its own email system, you may need to check with your IT folks.
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