In Slow Democracy, community leader Susan Clark and democracy scholar Woden Teachout describe how citizens around the country are breathing new life into their communities. Large institutions, centralized governments, and top-down thinking are no longer society's drivers. New decision-making techniques are ensuring that local communities-and the citizens who live there-are uniquely suited to meet today's challenges. In Slow Democracy, readers learn the stories of residents who gain community control of water systems and local forests, parents who find creative solutions to divisive and seemingly irreconcilable school-redistricting issues, and a host of other citizen-led actions that are reinvigorating local democracy and decision making.

The Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation is focused on developing policies and programs to accelerate economic recovery and create stronger communities. We do this by harnessing human capital and facilitating financial capital.

The Intersector Project is a non-profit organization that seeks to empower practitioners in the business, government, and non-profit sectors to collaborate to solve problems that cannot be solved by one sector alone. We conduct research in intersector collaboration and convey our findings to leaders in every sector to help them design and implement their own effective collaborative initiatives.

The Un-School of Disruptive Design is an experimental knowledge lab in New York City. We curate brain-activating events, classes, fellowship programs and knowledge transfer experiences. Our lab encourages people from diverse professional backgrounds to reorient the way they perceive and act in the world, learning how to maximize their capacity to influence and affect positive social and environmental change.  

The Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab) is a community -- supported by a 501(c)3 non-profit -- which develops and applies open-source tools to environmental exploration and investigation. By democratizing inexpensive and accessible Do-It-Yourself techniques, Public Lab creates a collaborative network of practitioners who actively re-imagine the human relationship with the environment. The core Public Lab program is focused on "civic science" in which we research open source hardware and software tools and methods to generate knowledge and share data about community environmental health. Our goal is to increase the ability of underserved communities to identify, redress, remediate, and create awareness and accountability around environmental concerns. Public Lab achieves this by providing online and offline training, education and support, and by focusing on locally-relevant outcomes that emphasize human capacity and understanding.

In order to better meet the Agency's responsibilities related to the protection of public health and the environment, EPA has developed a new environmental justice (EJ) mapping and screening tool called EJSCREEN. It is based on nationally consistent data and an approach that combines environmental and demographic indicators in maps and reports.

ABOUT THE COMMUNITY TOOL BOX The Community Tool Box is a free, online resource for those working to build healthier communities and bring about social change. It offers thousands of pages of tips and tools for taking action in communities. Want to learn about community assessment, planning, intervention, evaluation, advocacy, and other aspects of community practice? Then help yourself to over 300 educational modules and other free tools. Under continuous development since 1994, the Community Tool Box is widely used in teaching, training, and technical support. Currently available in English, Spanish, and Arabic and with millions of user sessions annually, it has reached those working in over 230 countries around the world.

Design Impact collaborated with the Tarsadia Foundation, Newport Beach, CA in 2013 to launch the publication Design and the Social Sector: A Guide to Partnering. Funded by the Tarsadia Foundation, the purpose of this guide is to provide practical insights, tips and tools developed specifically for designers interested in working with non-profits on social design projects. It includes a wealth of information on building healthy relationships, evaluating your own capacity, setting realistic expectations, and developing strong collaborative goals.

The Bootcamp Bootleg is an overview of some of our most-used tools. The guide was originally intended for recent graduates of our Bootcamp: Adventures in Design Thinking class. But we've heard from folks who've never been to the d.school that have used it to create their own introductory experience to design thinking.

WHO WE ARE Design Impact is a non-profit social innovation firm made up of designers, community development practitioners, social entrepreneurs, and educators. We collaborate with passionate people, bring design and innovation practice to the table, and work together to design a better world. Our mission is to: * INCUBATE projects that transform communities, * EQUIP leaders with social innovation tools, and * ADVANCE methods of creative community change.

Youtube account for Global21

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.

Climate Interactive is a not-for-profit organization based in Washington DC. Our team helps people see what works to address climate change and related issues like energy, water, food, and disaster risk reduction. For example: We're long-time partners with the U.S. State Department and analysts for the Chinese government. Our tools have helped them assess and communicate the impact of their government strategies. We've helped NGOs and businesses improve their thinking and communication in the UNFCCC climate negotiations. We're helping development agencies in East Africa design better strategies to reduce the number of people displaced by extreme events and slow onset disasters, like droughts. We work alongside the scientific community to build an understanding of what climate change means for society and the impacts our actions have on finding solutions.

The Smart Urbanism Research and Development Collaborative was established five years ago as an independent, free-thinking, open-source organisation. It focuses on what a better, appropriate 'new normal' for urbanism might look like in an increasingly complex, informal and local world. Massive Small is our way of showing how we can do this. Our team has collaborated on a number of groundbreaking publications from writing national policy, urban design guidance and a range of polemics on the subject of urbanism.

The Resource Guide showcases the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation's best collaboratively-created products (like the Core Principles for Public Engagement and the Engagement Streams Framework), as well as recognizing and directing you to a lot of the great work on public engagement that has been done by others in our field.

CivicSolve is a consulting firm with a focus on civic engagement, and a mission of "building better communities through civic engagement."  We believe in connecting people with their own power as citizens and the power that exists in communities. 

The Center for Active Design is a nonprofit resource for design professionals, policy makers, real estate developers and community advocates, committed to promoting and expanding the Active Design Guidelines published by New York City in 2010. We maintain a multi-disciplinary perspective in the translation of health research into design solutions that amplify the role of architecture and urban planning in improving public health and well-being.

Our ultimate vision is that local communities create and sustain public dialogue and problem solving. Such strong local democracies can form the cornerstone of a vibrant national democracy

NCoC's Civic Health Index elevates the discussion of our nation's civic health. We work with national, state, and city partners to measure how much people trust their neighbors, are active in their communities, and interact with their government. By measuring a wide variety of civic indicators, we educate Americans about our civic life and motivate people to strengthen it.  As civic health data becomes an increasing part of the dialogue around which policymakers, communities, and the media talk about civic life, the index is increasing in its scope and specificity to the state, city, and demographic levels.