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Want to Collaborate?

Let’s talk or, better yet, let’s discuss how we might collaborate. To do this important work of participatory discussion and civic engagement, we all need to help each other out and work together. In that spirit, we have collaborated with multiple organizations to help provide in-kind assistance in planning, organizing, and conducting a wide range of different participatory and exploratory discussion programs and initiatives. We continue to seek new partners to work with in developing more and better civil, civic discussion. If you are thinking about including some component of Exploratory Discussion in your program, we encourage you to contact us. We want to help.

Impact – By the Numbers

Since 2007, we have conducted approximately 600 different community conversations involving over  3,000 participants in Exploratory Discussions of over 40 different topics. Based on survey data from 2007-12 from about 1,000 of these participants and facilitators in over 200 of the community conversations, participating in an exploratory discussion—

  • Encouraged 90% of participants to consider alternate points of view; including a wide range of ideas and policy possibilities.
  • Led 75% of participants to change their view “somewhat” (68.3%) or “completely” (6.8%).
  • Made participants want to engage in more discussion:  87% of participants reported that they are more likely to participate in another citizen and/or public policy discussion.
  • Changed their likely political engagement and behavior:  more than 40% of participants reported that they were more likely to vote, contact an elected or other government official, and/or become actively involved with a club, public service group, or other organization.

See “Let’s Talk Politics” (Gundersen & Goodney Lea, 2013), chapter 4, pp 67 – 78.

Testimonials from our Partners

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Nancy Van Milligen

In 2016, we partnered with the Interactivity Foundation to train 42 citizens to facilitate community conversations, produce a video about our work and expand the scope of our public discussions. This support was just what we needed and when we needed it – and way beyond our means. The professional services Interactivity Foundation provided us were a great value-add to our team and definitely accelerated our work. Thank you!

Nancy Van Milligen President & CEO of the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque

Andrew Costanzo

The National Building Museum worked with the Interactivity Foundation on a suite of programming around our exhibition, Evicted, which explored the national implications of the housing and eviction crisis in America. . . We worked with staff at IF to run trainings for staff on facilitating discussions, plan a teaching guide for use in covering difficult issues related to eviction in the classroom, and help frame discussion questions for students as they explored the exhibition. The process of learning about IF’s approach to community centered discussion was adaptive and very meaningful for the institution. I especially appreciated the positive and collaborative process we cultivated as we planned and implemented programming. In the end we were very successful in engaging a wide variety of audiences in discussing the difficult and charged topic of eviction in rich, meaningful ways.

Director of P-12 Programs at the National Building Museum

Leslie Graves

Ballotpedia is proud to partner with the Interactivity Foundation. Together, we've been able to provide voters in Des Moines and Chicago with candidate information they need to feel confident about their decisions at the polls. The Interactivity Foundation's ability to engage citizens in substantive public policy discussions is best-in-class.

President of Ballotpedia

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