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The Interactivity Foundation works to enhance the process and expand the scope and health of our public discussions by bringing people together in small group discussions of broad topics of public policy concern. Our Fellows conduct Project Discussions that engage separate panels of selected generalists and specialists on a public policy topic for a year or more of private (or "sanctuary") discussions to develop and explore multiple policy possibilities, which are then worked into a Discussion Report. We also conduct and sponsor shorter series (3-4 sessions) of small group Public Discussions, which are open to all interested participants and use the possibilities from our Discussion Reports as the starting point for further exploration and development. Finally, we collaborate with certain college faculty to develop and support facilitated, student-centered Classroom Discussions.

Welcome to our Social Impact Bond pages.

Social Finance is keen to support others to develop Social Impact Bonds. These Social Impact Bond pages are a place where commissioners, service providers and investors can collaborate, discuss and analyse Social Impact Bond structures and applications. The pages provide an open discussion platform, webinars to take you through our current thinking, technical guides and research that may be useful for developing Social Impact Bonds.

Social Finance is currently looking into new Social Impact Bonds in the fields of criminal justice, chaotic families, looked-after children, health and drug rehabilitation with support from the Big Lottery Fund. We have had considerable interest in the Social Impact Bonds from across the US, Canada, Middle East and Australia, and are keen to see other partners developing these.

A potential danger in a systems approach is that there is a risk of overjargonizing and getting lost in complex terminology, maps and paralysis by analysis. One of the key themes that emerged from the discussion is that many people are starting to experiment with systems thinking but that it can be daunting or confusing to explain, operationalize or find common agreement. Does system thinking imply a rigorous and dynamic mapping of key actors, power relationships and other factors in a community (Yes)? But then how does systems thinking differ from a solid context analysis (still needs more explanation)? A potential danger in a systems approach is that there is a risk of overjargonizing and getting lost in complex terminology, maps and paralysis by analysis. One of the key themes that emerged from the discussion is that many people are starting to experiment with systems thinking but that it can be daunting or confusing to explain, operationalize or find common agreement. Does system thinking imply a rigorous and dynamic mapping of key actors, power relationships and other factors in a community (Yes)? But then how does systems thinking differ from a solid context analysis (still needs more explanation)? 

The Interactivity Foundation ("IF") engages citizens in small group discussions to develop and explore multiple and contrasting possibilities for long-term public policy and democratic governance. IF is non-partisan and does not engage in advocacy on behalf of any of the public policy possibilities developed by its projects or discussion processes. IF is an operating foundation and does not make grants.

Online discussion forum

Kialo cuts through the noise typically associated with social and online media, making it easy to engage in focused discussion.

We build tools to get cities on the path to better technology, help citizens get the responsive government they should expect, and scale up small discussions to city-wide change. We are an impartial, informed guide to civic technology, incorporating technology, transportation and city planning, an open-source approach, and the standards knowledge necessary to deliver valuable tools to our clients.

Whether we are struggling to generate fresh ideas or staring at problems with no solutions in sight, the spark of creative genius often seems out of reach. In this audio lecture from Stanford Social Innovation Review's Nonprofit Management Institute, Stanford Professor Tina Seelig discusses how we can unlock our creative genius through a set of tools and conditions we each have in our control-our "innovation engine." Based on real-world examples and a dozen years of experience teaching courses on creativity and entrepreneurship in the Stanford School of Engineering, Seelig challenges traditional assumptions about creativity to show us how we can seek out the right resources and environment to fuel our innovation engines. She contends that just as the scientific method demystifies the process of discovery, there is a formal process for unlocking the pathway to innovation.

Code for America hosted Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu for a discussion of their recent book, "Gardens of the Democracy." In it, they challenge Americans to approach the world not as a machinery that needs to be perfected but as a garden that needs constant attention, discretion, and periodic weeding. The book argues that since society and technology have fundamentally changed, so must our notions of citizenship and democracy: turning "the machine" into a garden. 

In this webinar Simon Robinson, co-author of Holonomics: Business Where People and Planet Matter, will discuss with Fritjof the importance to global brands of developing their own systems view of life, and what guidance and inspiration change agents working with brands can learn.

Solve for X is a place to hear and discuss radical technology ideas for solving global problems. Radical in the sense that the solutions could help billions of people. Radical in the sense that the audaciousness of the proposals makes them sound like science fiction. And radical in the sense that there is some real technology breakthrough on the horizon to give us all hope that these ideas could really be brought to life.

Involve are public participation specialists; bringing institutions, communities and citizens together to accelerate innovation, understanding discussion and change. Involve makes a practical difference by delivering the highest quality public participation processes possible as well as undertaking rigorous research and policy analysis into what works.

Heartland Democracy engages directly with Midwestern youth, independent thinkers, centrists, and folks who are uninvolved in their community and politics.  Using shared values and critical issues as the bases and sparks for discussion, Heartland Democracy targets specific participants, institutions, demographic segments, and geographic areas for exchanges in which we weave together a coherent set of values, stories, history, facts, and ideas to reach the emotional factors so decisive in the shaping of mindsets. 

During a panel discussion at The Economist's World in 2012 festival, former U.S. Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, Morgan Stanley CFO Ruth Porat and Brookings Institute fellow Eswar Prasad agreed that 2012 would be the year that defines the path that the U.S., European Union and emerging economies for the next decade.

This article is about power structures in society and how they interact. Specifically it is a guide to seeing who has power when important decisions are being made. It is quite old, but never-the-less of great value to anyone interested in issues of citizen participation. The concepts discussed in this article about 1960's America apply to any hierarchical society but are still mostly unknown, unacknowledged or ignored by many people around the world. Most distressing is that even people who have the job of representing citizens views seem largely unaware, or even dismissive of these principles. Many planners, architects, politicians, bosses, project leaders and power-holder still dress all variety of manipulations up as 'participation in the process', 'citizen consultation' and other shades of technobable.

Governing People is an editorially independent, online community for a new kind of government leader. Creating open and thoughtful dialogue is a crucial step towards the modernization of government and Governing People looks to play a central role in aggregating interesting content, connecting involved parties and facilitating discussion on all aspects egovernment.

Welcome to NatCAN, the National Community Activists' Network. Join us to get advice and support with anything you're trying to do to make the world, or just your part of it, a better place. Meet other people trying to get things done in your area by joining your Regional Discussion Group.

In GlobalNet21 we bring people together both online and off.  We hold many meetings from those in the House of Commons to online webinars and from larger meetings and presentations to smaller study circles. We work with others to create events that people want to engage in. In creating this virtual "public square" GlobalNet21 has emerged now as a vast social networking system that brings new audiences together to discuss and seek solutions for critical issues of the day - issues that divide and threaten the stability of our society and our planet. We also create space at meeting and online for people to connect and collaborate so that they can take further action whether that is expressing their views through our networks, learning more from others or linking with others to take action in order to make a difference.

Democracy made Athens a dynamic, creative force 2500 years ago. Even then, however, democracy was fragile, sometimes stupid, and short-lived. Plato held it in low esteem and Aristotle likened it to "mob rule." Why, then, do we want to create 21st Century Agoras. What we want to create are communities energized by vibrant participative democracy. In our Information Age as old hierarchies prove dysfunctional, it is imperative that human communities have flexible ways to tap their wisdom and power. We do not believe that unstructured discussion on the Athenian model is adequate for dealing with the complexities of the Information Age. It was not adequate even for the simpler (by an order of magnitude as determined by a metric called Situational Complexity Index) situations of that bygone age. The Information Age challenges us to make participative democracy a liberating force in the world today. Research and proven methodology, aided by networked computing, has resolved at least one basic dilemma of democracy:   How can we hear perspectives of all the stakeholders, make collective sense of them, and reach decisions and act on pressing issues? The approach that overcomes this dilemma and multiple other hindrances to dialogic democracy is called the Structured Dialogic Design (SDD). The Agoras Institute convenes these dialogues as Co-Laboratories of Democracy. This process is a fusion of the theory of Generic Design Science and the consultative practice of Interactive Management, both developed over the last 30 years by Dr. John Warfield and our founder, Aleco Christakis.

GlobalNet21 is the leading forum in the UK for discussing the major issues in the 21st Century. We share a common concern for the sustainability of both our planet and the people on it. With almost 20,000 network members in the UK and abroad, we are making the debate, and democracy, more accessible by enlarging the Public Square and using social networks.