OUR MISSION
To equip, empower, and mobilize people to use deliberation to take action for the public good.
OUR VISION
We envision a participatory democracy where public problems are resolved through deliberation.
National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI), is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that serves to promote public deliberation about difficult public issues. Its activities include publishing the issue guides and other materials used by local forum groups, encouraging collaboration among forum sponsors, and sharing information about current activities in the network.
We also offer training opportunities and resources for moderating forums based on the National Issue Forums framework of deliberation. Moderators and conveners find our resources indispensable in organizing, leading, and advertising their forums for public deliberation. We also provide guidelines for those who wish to frame their own issues.
To keep the network and policymakers current, we publish reports about forum outcomes. The NIF newsletters also help individuals and groups learn about what is happening in the network.
The NIFI Network
The NIFI network is open to everyone interested in the practice of group deliberation. Here you’ll find conveners (those who organize forums), trained moderators, and participants from all walks of life. With the support of the institute, they self-organize into short-term groups, such as independent discussion groups and study circles, or ongoing larger groups created by existing community-based organizations.
National Issues Forums, organized by a variety of organizations, groups, and individuals, offer citizens the opportunity to join together to deliberate, to make choices with others about ways to approach difficult issues and to work toward creating reasoned public judgment. Forums range from small or large group gatherings similar to town hall meetings, to study circles held in public places or in people’s homes on an ongoing basis.
Forums focus on tense national issues. The forums provide a way for people of diverse views and experiences to seek a shared understanding of the problem and to search for common ground for action. Forums are led by trained, neutral moderators, and use an issue discussion guide that frames the issue by presenting the overall problem and then three or four broad approaches to the problem. Forum participants work through the issue by considering each approach; examining what appeals to them or concerns them, and also what the costs, consequences, and trade-offs may be that would be incurred in following that approach.
The FORUM and the FRAMEWORK… You can’t have one without the other.
The “Forum” part of the National Issues Forums is the place where democracy comes alive. It’s where the practice of public deliberation is learned by doing. It’s an event inspired by the concerns and viewpoints of citizens, which are not just respected—they’re put to work.
Forums are neutrally moderated in a way that encourages positive interaction between people who are not expected to agree, but are encouraged to find a shared direction.
A Forum typically begins with a “starter” video related to the issue you’ll be wrestling with. The unbiased facts and research in your Issue Book give you the knowledge you need for a deeper understanding of the problem.
For the next two or three hours, you’ll be led by a neutral moderator who encourages face to face discussion within the group. You’ll investigate several possible solutions to the issue at hand. You’ll never be forced to “pick sides.”
Solutions are examined through the lens of what’s important to the group as a whole—its shared values. Because today’s issues are so challenging, every solution comes with a set of costs and consequences that must be thoroughly measured.
Only then do you know which costs your group is willing to bear. This is the outcome that’s so valuable—the individual, the group, the community and to our leaders and policymakers.
The “Framework” was designed for neutrality. It’s a method of discussion that removes the kind of bias we find in political parties, special interest groups and the press. It doesn’t allow one-sided lecture, polarizing positions or citizen passivity. It begins and ends with you and your deepest concerns.
In other words, the Framework puts you in charge of the problem and asks you to help solve it. After all, who knows more about the effects of both the issue and the possible solutions better than those of us who are living with it, experiencing it, in touch with it?
Questions that frame the discussion:
- What is valuable to us?
- What are the costs and consequences of each possible solution?
- What are the tensions and conflicts in this issue that we need to work through?
- Can we detect any shared sense of purpose or ways our interdependence is grounds for action?
The Framework demonstrates the most powerful effects of deliberation. It alters our reactions to differing viewpoints, and creates new possibilities for acting together.
OUTCOMES
Organize
If you are interested in organizing Forums in your community:
Participate
If you or your group would like to take part in a Forum:
