Common Sense California Malibu, CA
Pete Petersen, executive director
$25,000 (first half of a two-year $50,000 grant)

Common Sense California (CSC), the only statewide citizens organization using a deliberative democracy approach to resolving significant public problems and building trust between citizens and government, serves as a bridge between the citizens of California and its elected officials. Founded in 2004, it aims to increase citizen participation in the democratic process, inform and amplify the voice of citizens, and ensure that policy leaders hear and heed that voice. Assisted by a bipartisan board of directors and an organizing committee composed of leaders representing a broad spectrum of professional disciplines, perspectives and sectors, CSC is organizing and launching statewide town meetings on improving and extending health care in California; identifying, promoting and supporting local and regional efforts to find answers to critical problems using deliberative democracy techniques; and encouraging the formation of Citizens Initiative Reviews, in-depth studies of specific California initiatives.
www.commonsenseca.org



Center for Sustainable Change Palo Alto, CA
Ami Chen Naim, executive director
$10,000

Launched in 2006 by psychologist Dr. Roger Mills, the Center for Sustainable Change applies the principles of health realization psychology to its work with educators, youth-service workers, communities, and families. Building on a two-step process, it teaches adults how to engage and strengthen their innate resilience (the natural human capacity for learning, creativity, compassion, common sense, and well-being) so that, in turn, they can be models of resilience for the youth they teach and care for. The Center will produce and disseminate introductory materials on maximizing resilience in children for school administrators and teachers; develop comprehensive training, supervision, and support services for communities; create written materials for adults involved with youth in juvenile justice and foster care programs; and design and implement research and outcome projects to demonstrate the efficacy of interventions based on health realization principles.
www.healthrealization.com/csc/counseling.shtml



Institute for Health Solutions San Raphael, CA
Laurel Mellin, executive director
$25,000

The Institute for Health Solutions (IHS) provides developmental skills training for the prevention and treatment of common and serious bio-psychosocial problems in children, youth, and adults. The training program, based on the Solution Method™ developed through 25 years of research, equips participants with the developmental skills they need to nurture and set limits from within, improve clarity of thought and decision making, and achieve a state of balance. Originally created to treat childhood obesity, it is used to relieve stress in a wide range of behaviors, including overeating, overworking, smoking, drinking, depression and relationship problems. Through its nationwide network of health providers, IHS offers Solution training through classes, retreats, private coaching, and introductory groups. To disseminate Solution tools more widely, IHS offers a mentoring program to assist Solution graduates in setting up small group training programs in their communities and publishes Solution training packages and kits for individual use and for health practitioners.
www.thepathway.org

International Convention on Human Rights Research Project Berkeley, CA
The Center for Global Challenges and the Law
University of California at Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law
Kirk Boyd, founder and executive director
$50,000

Kirk Boyd, a lawyer and academic, established the International Convention on Human Rights (ICHR) in 2001 to initiate a dialogue process leading to the creation of an international human rights document that elevates economic and social issues to the level of civil and political rights. Inspired by the European Convention on Human Rights now enforceable in 46 countries, ICHR envisions a human rights document ultimately adopted by the United Nations and enforceable in courts worldwide. Adopted as a project of Boalt Hall’s Center for Global Challenges and the Law in 2006, ICHR is presently educating legal scholars and the general public about the evolution of international human rights documents and developing a process for involving individuals, organizations, and governments in drafting a new document. ICHR is constructing an interactive Web site to invite people around the world to contribute their thoughts on the document, and in February 2008 will convene the first interdisciplinary drafting conference of international lawyers, scholars, and human rights activists in Berkeley.
www.ichr.org

Just Think San Francisco, CA
Elana Yonah Rosen, co-founder and executive director
$25,000

A national leader in media education, Just Think trains young people and educators to analyze, evaluate and produce print and electronic media. Since its founding in 1995, it has created and delivered in-school, after school and online media arts and technical education locally, nationally, and internationally. Just Think’s programs integrate critical thinking about the media into the curricula of core school subjects such as math, science, and language arts. By tying content and methods to the real lives of young people, Just Think inspires students to use different media to tell their own stories. Students have contributed to Just Think curricula Flipping the Script: A Hip Hop Guide for the Classroom, Hidden Heroes, and Senior Year. Besides its school programs, Just Think also reaches out to the community at large through film screenings, community events, and its Think Salons, public gatherings designed to encourage people of all ages to think critically about the media.
www.justthink.org



LeaderSpring Oakland, CA.
Cynthia Chavez, executive director
$25,000 (first half of a two-year $50,000 grant)

LeaderSpring is a leadership development program for executive directors of community-based non-profit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through its two-year fellowship program, it furthers its mission of fostering high-performing organizations by strengthening and connecting the people who lead them. Each year LeaderSpring competitively selects 15 fellows—a majority women and people of color--to participate in its training. The program includes opening and closing weekend retreats, monthly leadership circles, customized professional coaching, and a one-week individual study trip to observe and learn about an organization in another city chosen by the fellow. While LeaderSpring focuses on individuals and their organizations, its ultimate goal is building strong communities. With its emphasis on authenticity, reflection, dialogue, and peer support, LeaderSpring is building a cohort of leaders connected by trust, respect, and friendship and a shared commitment to improving the lives of people living in poverty.
www.leaderspring.org

Mediators Foundation Boulder, CO
Mark Gerzon, founder and president
$50,000 (first half of a two-year $100,000 grant)

Guided by its overarching goal of fostering global leadership for a peaceful, just, and sustainable world, Mediators Foundation identifies, supports, and connects visionary leaders from around the world to address critical social issues of national and global importance. An incubator for innovative projects for the past 20 years, it recently launched the Conflict Transformation Collaborative. Working in partnership with the United Nations Development Program’s Bureau of Conflict Prevention and Recover, it will convene a core group of international conflict resolution practitioners to form an independent, cross-institutional learning community. This past year, Mediators celebrated the publication of Leadership is Global: Co-Creating a More Humane and Sustainable World. The book, a product of Mediator’s Global Leadership Network project, contains contributions from 22 international senior leadership practitioners on the need to increase dialogue and collaboration across countries, cultures, disciplines, and sectors.
www.mediatorsfoundation.org



Mobilize.org Berkeley, CA and Washington, DC
David B. Smith, founder and executive director
$25,000

Mobilize.org is an “all-partisan network” of young adults dedicated to increasing young Americans’ participation in politics and civic matters. To educate youth about the impact of public policy on their lives and, in turn, how they can have an impact on public policy, Mobilize published and disseminated widely the Mobilizer’s Guidebook, a 10-step handbook on organizing and advocacy. In 2005, it launched a dedicated Web site, www.youthpolicyactioncenter.org, an information clearinghouse that includes updates on state-specific programs and political tools for contracting media and politicians. This past April, Mobilize convened top civic leaders to discuss drafting a Declaration of Our Generation, a statement calling for a new citizen-centered approach to democracy. This fall it will convene a Democracy 2.0 Summit, the culmination of a five-month process of gathering ideas through a series of dialogues, focus groups, online chats and research to create the final draft of the Declaration. Mobilize is also planning youth workshops to coincide with the presidential primaries.
www.mobilize.org



On The Move Napa, CA
Leslie Medine, co-founder and executive director
$50,000 (first half of a two-year $100,000 grant)

On The Move (OTM) seeks to build strong communities by developing a new generation of young people who have the desire and capability to be leaders in the public sector. It works on multiple fronts promoting excellence in leadership through coaching individuals and organizations, initiating projects to develop new leaders, and increasing collaboration among agencies operating in the same locale. VOICES, OTM’s foster youth center in Napa, offers one-stop services to young people transitioning out of foster care. Launched this year is OTM’s Educational Equity Initiative to increase civic engagement and academic success among youth and adults in Napa, in particular, Latinos. Also underway is its Reach Institute for School Leadership that includes credential programs for new and experienced teachers and coaching academies for teachers and school administrators. Meanwhile, OTM’s professional and organizational development program, On the Verge, continues to prepare young people working in the nonprofit sector to move into leadership positions.
www.onthemovebayarea.org



PassageWorks Institute Boulder, CO
Rachel Kessler, founder and executive director
$50,000 (first half of a two-year $100,000 grant)

PassageWorks Institute aspires to motivate, prepare, and support educators to implement its model for nurturing the inner lives of students and cultivating their social and emotional intelligence throughout an entire school district. PassageWorks’ brand of Social and Emotional Learning incorporates a variety of principles and practices based on experiential learning and dialogue. Working with eight partner agencies, PassageWorks recently launched a multiyear demonstration and research project in the Poudre School District in Fort Collins, Colorado that has a large, diverse student population. It is also now starting a secondary demonstration and research site with a school district in Missouri. In addition to developing its training and curriculum and documenting its practices through research and evaluation, PassageWorks is also currently implementing an outreach program. Through publications, keynote speeches, and parent education, it will promote discussion and learning among educators, youth development specialists, and parents regarding the relationship between students’ inner lives and their academic performances.
www.passageways.org



RockRose Institute’s Youth Dialogue Project San Francisco, CA
Deborah Goldblatt, director
$25,000

Founded in 2004 by four women attorneys, RockRose Institute seeks to promote the art of non-violent conflict resolution at local and global levels. This past February, the Institute was the primary organizer of a three-day World Forum Conference, Facing Violence: Justice, Religion and Conflict Resolution in San Francisco. A tandem project of the World Fourum is the Youth Dialogue Project, a year-long training program for 36 young people, ages 18-25, from youth groups in Cyprus, Denmark, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States. Each group operates under the umbrella of a community-based organization that promotes innovative learning. The purpose of the Youth Dialogue Project is to build a global web of youth leaders trained in conflict resolution to lead discussions in their home on implementing action plans developed by youth on how to break patterns of violence. Collaborating partners in the Youth Dialogue Project are the organizations Just Think and Global Nomads.
www.rockroseinstitute.org



Reuniting America Ashland, OR
Ana Mick and Michael Ostrolenk, co-directors
$25,000

Reuniting America is a network of organizations, associations, and individuals engaged in transpartisan dialogue. It seeks to restore civility and respect to our national political dialogue, develop transpartisan coalitions to advance solutions to pressing national concerns, and to empower citizens to set the national agenda and generate policy options. Since 2004, Reuniting America has convened facilitated leadership retreats that encourage dialogue between heads of national memberships organizations and leaders from different political and ideological perspectives. They operate on the assumption that once trust is established, individuals from across the ideological divide can form transpartisan coalitions. Among its successes are bringing together MoveOn.org and The Christian Coalition on the issue of net neutrality and Common Cause and Americans for Tax Reform on an election integrity initiative. Reuniting America is also exploring how to design, test, and evaluate models for effective citizen participation at the local level.
www.reunitingamerica.org

The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation Boiling Springs, PA
Sandy Heierbacher, co-founder and director
$50,000 (first half of a two-year $100,000 grant)

The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) is a membership organization providing resources, networking opportunities, and programs for an expanding community of practitioners, scholars, artists, and educators dedicated to solving organizational and social problems using dialogue and deliberation. Founded in 2002, NCDD and its 700 members operate on the shared belief that honest talk, quality thinking, and collaborative action can advance the values of justice, innovation, and democracy. Besides convening a biennial national conference, NCDD’s Web site, an information clearinghouse on dialogue, deliberation and public engagement, serves as a nexus for scholars and practitioners seeking and sharing ideas. NCDD has recently launched a mentorship program to match young, aspiring dialogue and deliberation practitioners with experienced professionals. It is also assisting members in establishing regional networks of dialogue and deliberation practitioners and researchers.
www.thataway.org

The Society for Philosophical Inquiry Williamsburg, VA
Christopher and Cecilia Phillips, co-founders and executive directors
$50,000 (first part of a two-year $75,000 grant)

The Society for Philosophical Inquiry (SPI) is a grassroots member organization that promotes the use of Socratic Dialogue as a means of cultivating independent thinking, civility, and active civic engagement. Since 1999, SPI has inspired more than 350 Socrates Cafes in countries around the world. The Cafes, composed of people of all ages and backgrounds, meet in venues ranging from coffee houses and bookstores to senior centers, homeless shelters, and prisons to explore personal and social questions that concern them. In 2006, SPI began delivering in-service workshops to train elementary and middle-school teachers on how to infuse SPI’s approach in their classroom and after-school activities. It also introduced Socrates Cafes to high schools and is currently developing a survey for the teachers and students to evaluate their experiences using Socratic inquiry. Besides its quarterly print newsletter, SPI maintains a Web site that allows users to download facilitation guides, access contact information for Socrates Cafes, and exchange ideas.
The Society for Philosophical Inquiry (SPI) is a grassroots member organization that promotes the use of Socratic Dialogue as a means of cultivating independent thinking, civility, and active civic engagement. Since 1999, SPI has inspired more than 350 Socrates Cafes in countries around the world. The Cafes, composed of people of all ages and backgrounds, meet in venues ranging from coffee houses and bookstores to senior centers, homeless shelters, and prisons to explore personal and social questions that concern them. In 2006, SPI began delivering in-service workshops to train elementary and middle-school teachers on how to infuse SPI’s approach in their classroom and after-school activities. It also introduced Socrates Cafes to high schools and is currently developing a survey for the teachers and students to evaluate their experiences using Socratic inquiry. Besides its quarterly print newsletter, SPI maintains a Web site that allows users to download facilitation guides, access contact information for Socrates Cafes, and exchange ideas.
www.philosopher.org



The Touchstones Discussion Project Annapolis, MD
Howard Zeiderman, co-founder and president
$50,000 for California program

The Touchstones Discussion Project develops discussion programs that encourage collaboration, build community, and foster dialogue leading to change. Founded on the belief that all students benefit from the listening, speaking, thinking, and interpersonal skills gained by active, focused discussions of brief landmark texts from history politics, math, philosophy, and natural science, it developed curricula and instructional materials to be used in public schools. Touchstones works in partnership with other organizations to brings its programs into grades K-12. In California, an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 students uses Touchstones each year. Its effort to train trainers has created a largely self-sufficient teacher development network that promotes and sustains seminar-based teaching and learning. Touchstones’ curriculum materials and instructional materials have also been adopted for use with adults in senior centers and prisons and in discussion groups with corporate executives and government officials.
www.touchstones.org

Taos Institute Taos, NM
Ken Gergen, executive director
$25,000

The Taos Institute is an educational institution composed of a community of noted scholars and practitioners focused on the ways that shared perceptions anchor individuals’ professional, public, and personal conduct and decisions. Founded in 1992, it locates, creates, and disseminates forms of dialogic practice that promote reasoning and collaboration within families, communities, and organizations around the world. Taos has positioned itself at the interface between the scholarly community and a wide spectrum of societal practitioners from communities of mental health, social work, counseling, organizational change, medicine, gerontology, and community building. To further its educational mission, it started a Ph.D. program offered in partnership with Tilburg University in the Netherlands and a Continuing Education Distance Learning Program for therapists. Besides organizing conferences and workshops, it publishes a book series on social constructionist practice and theory. To reach the widest possible audience, it allows users of it Web site to access all of its resources free of charge.
www.thetaosinstitute.net

Threshold 15/10 Foster City, CA

Greg Greenway, executive director

$25,000

Threshold 15/10 aims to engage 1,500 San Mateo County residents and stakeholders in a series of dialogues on the dramatic housing shortage in the region for middle and working class families. The project proposes civic engagement as an effective strategy for building a constituency for change countywide and as a mechanism for overcoming the barriers to building 15,000 houses over the next 10 years. To discover the elements of a shared vision among residents on how to address housing shortages, offer ideas and support to leaders to take action, and connect engaged residents to opportunities for further participation in dialogue and solutions, Threshold has planned three distinct methods of civic engagement for this year: Deliberative Polling to engage 400 citizens over one weekend; Online Dialogue to engage 1,000 citizens in group discussions, and Meeting in a Box, a kit instructing community leaders, political representatives and local organizations on how to conduct a two-three hour dialogue on housing.



Western Justice Center Foundation Pasadena, CA
Najeeba Syeed-Miller, executive director
$25,000 (first half of a two-year $50,000 grant)

The Western Justice Center Foundation (WJCF) strives to create a more civil society through a process of engagement and education that enables individuals and institutions to be partners in building and sustaining peace. Non-partisan and non-ideological in its approach, it works on local, regional, and national projects with children, communities, schools, courts, and governments to achieve peaceful conflict resolution and improve access to justice. As a local and national resource, it provides services and tests new models of mediation and dialogue in the greater Los Angeles area and then communicates the results to a growing national and international constituency. Two of WJCF’s community engagement programs planned for 2007 are The Pasadena Model, a partnership with the Pasadena Police Department to hold dialogue sessions on high-school campuses on preventing violence, and ECO, to research and identify a local government partner in assessing processes used in dealing with conflicts over environmental issues.
www.westernjustice.org



YES! Santa Cruz, CA
Michelle Robbins, co-founder and president
$25,000

Founded in 1990 by two American teenagers, YES! connects, inspires, and empowers the next generation of social changemakers through its “Jams,” week-long retreats for young leaders from around the world. Each Jam brings together 30 talented international changemakers between the ages 15 and 35 to share their knowledge and skills, network, and build alliances. Yes! also initiated Leveraging Privilege for Social Change, gatherings to explore how global issues might shift if resources were shared strategically, and Leveraging Alliance to create opportunities for participants to stay connected and to use their connections to be more effective in achieving their desired outcomes. To date Yes! has held more than 90 Jams attended by thousands of young people from 60 countries. Besides speaking at conferences and on campuses, YES! distributes books, articles, and organizing manuals written and produced by Jam participants.
www.yesjams.org