Do you often hear stories of angry, frustrated citizens who feel they have little power to influence important decisions affecting their lives? 

Politicians and media pundits often reassure themselves by characterizing that frustration as apathy instead of looking deeper at the desire of regular people to express their views on public issues but who believe they do not have the venue to do so.  

Deliberative conversations provide a safe, nonpartisan space for citizens to struggle with challenging issues facing their communities. These conversations are based on the idea that in a democracy, citizens have a responsibility to get together to talk through their common concerns, to weigh possible alternative actions to address these problems and eventually contact officeholders and others about the desired direction for public action.  

Making choices about how to deal with public issues is necessary because people see issues from their own unique perspective and favor different approaches, where the options for action may conflict. Any strategy to public action will have consequences that should be anticipated. Consequences will have a range of concerns that pull people in different directions, individually and collectively. Community works best when people work through these conflicts and deal with the trade-offs until they have a shared sense of direction for moving ahead and some idea of what fellow citizens are willing to do to solve the problem.  

Public deliberation. Moving citizens to common ground often requires a positive catalyst: public deliberation. Public deliberation is a means by which citizens make tough choices about basic purpose and directions for their communities and their country – a way of reasoning and talking together. It is polite civility.