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AmericaSpeaks was a Washington, D.C.-based non-governmental organization that operated from 1995 to 2014. Its mission was to engage citizens in discussing and influencing public decisions and serve as a counterweight to special interest groups.^[1] It introduced the concept of the "21st Century Town Meeting", a format that attempted to take the traditional New England town meeting to a larger scale through the use of modern technology.^[1] Widely cited as an example of deliberative democracy, its methodology relied on mini-publics, defined as "the randomized selection of citizens to discuss public matters in small groups".^[2] It also applied the concept of expert publics, recognizing that members of the general public can develop knowledge and expertise through their own experience of an issue or problem.^[3]

The NGO was founded by activist and author Carolyn Lukensmeyer.^[4] Forums organized by AmericaSpeaks included "Our Budget, Our Economy" (2010), a public deliberation about the national debt involving 3,000 people in 19 communities across the United States.^[5] In 2007, AmericaSpeaks worked with city government officials to conduct a series of town meetings on rebuilding New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, involving citizens who had been displaced via telecasts and online.^[6] Other issues discussed by AmericaSpeaks included Social Security reform, as well as the redevelopment of ground zero in New York City.

History

AmericaSpeaks was founded in 1995 by Carolyn Lukensmeyer. During its time as an active organization, AmericaSpeaks engaged over 130,000 people in numerous large-scale forums across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.^[7] AmericaSpeaks aimed to bring citizens together to deliberate and discuss critical policy issues in America with conclusions from these meetings then brought to the attention of policy-makers allowing them to hear citizen input on government-related issues.

In January 2014, AmericaSpeaks closed its doors.^[8] Deliberative democracy researcher John Gastil critiqued the approach of AmericaSpeaks after its closing.^[9]

21st Century Town Meeting

AmericaSpeaks’ 21st Century Town Meeting framework's goal was to create engaging, meaningful opportunities for citizens to participate in public decision making. This process attempts to update the traditional New England town meeting to address the needs of today's citizens, decision makers and democracy. Unlike most of New England's town meetings, however, it is not a formal legislative body, and therefore none of the decisions made by participants are binding.

The 21st Century Town Meeting marks a departure from traditional public participation methods, such as public hearings. The 21st Century Town Meeting focuses on discussion and deliberation among citizens rather than speeches, question-and-answer sessions or panel presentations. The purpose of these meetings is to gather diverse groups of citizens who will participate in round-table discussions (10-12 people per table) and deliberate in depth about key policy issues. Each table discussion is supported by a trained facilitator to keep participants on task and participants receive discussion guides that present further information about the issues under consideration.

Special technology collects individual table discussions and the results are compiled into a set of collective recommendations. Each table submits ideas using wireless groupware computers and each participant can vote on specific proposals with keypad polling. These two pieces of technology allow for real-time reporting and voting. Results from discussions are presented to participants within minutes and polling results within seconds. The entire group votes on the final recommendations to submit to decision makers. Before the meeting ends, results are put into a report, which is distributed to participants, decision makers, and the news media.

21st Century Summit

The 21st Century Summit was created to help organization leaders tap into the collective wisdom of their constituents and stakeholders through large-scale meetings. During discussions, participants identify shared priorities and develop recommendations on essential policies and plans. At the meeting, AmericaSpeaks attempts to help attendees explore key issues, weigh critical trade offs, and deepen their connection and commitment to next steps. AmericaSpeaks has more than a decade of experience with engaging large numbers of members, employees or stakeholders – 50 to 5,000 at a single meeting – in a strategic, outcomes-oriented discussion.^[10]

Notable examples

AmericaSpeaks meetings address local, state and national decisions.

Voices & Choices

AmericaSpeaks partnered with the Fund for Our Economic Future to organize a series of town meetings and public forums across northeast Ohio to enable thousands of people to come together to create a strategic plan for revitalizing the region's economy. One of the largest public deliberations convened, Voices & Choices combined a variety of approaches for mobilizing the region's citizenry, including one-on-one interviews, online forums and two large-scale 21st Century Town Meetings. Over 20,000 participants identified the region's strengths, identified and prioritized its most important challenges and brainstormed solutions.^[11]

Unified New Orleans Plan

AmericaSpeaks partnered with the Unified New Orleans Plan to bring together nearly 4000 New Orleanians in two large-scale public meetings to develop and review elements of a citywide-plan for recovery.^[7]

Community Congress I (October 28, 2006) was held in the Morial Convention Center. AmericaSpeaks did not assist with the outreach for this meeting. The agenda for the meeting was to brief attendees on the state of city recovery. The first Community Congress drew attendees who were 75% white, and 40% of whom had incomes above $75,000, while the pre-Katrina demographics the city were 67% African-American and only 2% of New Orleanians had incomes above $75,000. The meeting was criticized for its unrepresentative participants and for some of its conclusions, which included backing a smaller footprint, and advising that funding should be concentrated on already recovering neighborhoods [1].

Community Congress II (December 2, 2006) and Community Congress III (January 20, 2007) were both held simultaneously in New Orleans and other American cities with the large numbers of Katrina evacuees (New Orleans diaspora). AmericaSpeaks partnered with the Unified New Orleans Plan to design, recruit participants and implement these meetings. When polled at the meetings, the participant groups closely approximated the pre-Katrina demographics of New Orleans: In pre-Katrina New Orleans, 67% were African-American and 37% had household income under $20,000; at Community Congress II, 64% were African-American and 25% had household income under $20,000; at Community Congress III, 55% were African-American and 24% had household income under $20,000. Renters, however, were significantly underrepresented - prior to Hurricane Katrina, 54% of the population were renters, while they made up only 29% of the participants [2]. The meetings connected New Orleanians at home with friends and neighbors who have not yet made it home through the use of Internet webcast technology or closed circuit television. Unfortunately, ambiguously worded scenarios at the second Community Congress, particularly those that pertained to "areas of greatest need," caused some of the discussion results to be disregarded [3].

Our Budget, Our Economy

The AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy event was politically neutral, which they tried to accomplish by assembling a diverse group of funders, a diverse National Advisory Committee, and selecting participants that were demographically representative in terms of race, age, income, and political orientation. Despite this, the event received criticism from both the right and the left. Dean Baker, a left-leaning blogger, wrote that Our Budget, Our Economy materials would "guarantee" large cuts to Social Security and Medicare, while Fox News reported that the event was slanted toward raising taxes. There was also support for the national discussion, including this post from Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, as well as a piece from Harvard Professor Archon Fung.

References

^ ^a ^b Lukensmeyer, Carolyn J.; Brigham, Steven (March 2005). "Taking Democracy to Scale: Large Scale Interventions-for Citizens". The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. 41 (1): 47–60. doi:10.1177/0021886304272656.
^ Šaradín, P.; Soukop, M.; Zapletalová, M.; Zogata-Kusz, A.; Ganowicz, E. (2023). "Democratic Innovations in Three Countries". Challenging Citizens: Democratic Innovations at the Local Level. Central and Eastern European Perspectives on International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-43674-1_4.
^ Lees-Marshment, Jennifer (2015). "Collecting Public Input". The Ministry of Public Input. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 87–113. doi:10.1057/9781137017789_4.
^ Gross, Thomas (2014). "[REVIEW] Bringing Citizen Voices to the Table: A Guide for Public Managers". Gestalt Review. 18 (1): 65–69 – via EBSCOHost.
^ Levy, Dena; Orr, Susan (January 2014). "Balancing the Books: Analyzing the Impact of a Federal Budget Deliberative Simulation on Student Learning and Opinion". Journal of Political Science Education. 10 (1): 62–80 – via EBSCOHost.
^ D'Agostino, Maria J.; Kloby, Katherine (2011). "Building Community Capacity to Engage Government: Reflections of Nonprofit Leaders on Post-Katrina New Orleans". Administration & Society. 43 (7). doi:10.1177/0095399711413733.
^ ^a ^b http://www.americaspeaks.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=483&parentID=471&nodeID=1^{[permanent dead link]}
^ "AmericaSpeaks Closes Down | Participedia". Archived from the original on 2017-05-23. Retrieved 2014-02-11.
^ "John Gastil and Katherine Knobloch on Citizen Initiative Review". Democracy Paradox Podcast. 44:33 - 48:55. August 16, 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
^ http://www.americaspeaks.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=735&parentID=472&nodeID=1^{[permanent dead link]}
^ http://www.americaspeaks.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewpage&pageid=585&grandparentID=473&parentID=688^{[permanent dead link]}

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-'''AmericaSpeaks''' was a [[Washington, D.C.]]-based [[non-governmental organization]] that operated from 1995 to 2014. Its mission was to engage citizens in discussing and influencing public decisions and serve as a counterweight to [[Special interest groups in the United States|special interest groups]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Lukensmeyer |first=Carolyn J. |last2=Brigham |first2=Steven |date=March 2005 |title=Taking Democracy to Scale: Large Scale Interventions-for Citizens |journal=The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=47–60 |doi=10.1177/0021886304272656}}</ref> It introduced the concept of the "21st Century Town Meeting", a format that attempted to take the traditional [[New England town meeting]] to a larger scale through the use of modern technology.<ref name=":0" /> Widely cited as an example of [[deliberative democracy]], its methodology relied on mini-publics, defined as "the randomized selection of citizens to discuss public matters in small groups".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Šaradín |first=P. |title=Challenging Citizens: Democratic Innovations at the Local Level. Central and Eastern European Perspectives on International Relations |last2=Soukop |first2=M. |last3=Zapletalová |first3=M. |last4=Zogata-Kusz |first4=A. |last5=Ganowicz |first5=E. |date=2023 |journal= |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |chapter=Democratic Innovations in Three Countries |doi=10.1007/978-3-031-43674-1_4}}</ref>
+'''AmericaSpeaks''' was a [[Washington, D.C.]]-based [[non-governmental organization]] that operated from 1995 to 2014. Its mission was to engage citizens in discussing and influencing public decisions and serve as a counterweight to [[Special interest groups in the United States|special interest groups]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Lukensmeyer |first=Carolyn J. |last2=Brigham |first2=Steven |date=March 2005 |title=Taking Democracy to Scale: Large Scale Interventions-for Citizens |journal=The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=47–60 |doi=10.1177/0021886304272656}}</ref> It introduced the concept of the "21st Century Town Meeting", a format that attempted to take the traditional [[New England town meeting]] to a larger scale through the use of modern technology.<ref name=":0" /> Widely cited as an example of [[deliberative democracy]], its methodology relied on mini-publics, defined as "the randomized selection of citizens to discuss public matters in small groups".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Šaradín |first=P. |title=Challenging Citizens: Democratic Innovations at the Local Level. Central and Eastern European Perspectives on International Relations |last2=Soukop |first2=M. |last3=Zapletalová |first3=M. |last4=Zogata-Kusz |first4=A. |last5=Ganowicz |first5=E. |date=2023 |journal= |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |chapter=Democratic Innovations in Three Countries |doi=10.1007/978-3-031-43674-1_4}}</ref> It also applied the concept of expert publics, recognizing that members of the general public can develop knowledge and expertise through their own experience of an issue or problem.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lees-Marshment |first=Jennifer |title=The Ministry of Public Input. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership |date=2015 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn= |pages=87–113 |chapter=Collecting Public Input |doi=10.1057/9781137017789_4}}</ref>
 The NGO was founded by activist and author [[Carolyn Lukensmeyer]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gross |first=Thomas |date=2014 |title=[REVIEW] Bringing Citizen Voices to the Table: A Guide for Public Managers |url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=109147915&lang=en-gb&site=eds-live&scope=site |journal=Gestalt Review |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=65–69 |via=EBSCOHost}}</ref> Forums organized by AmericaSpeaks included "Our Budget, Our Economy" (2010), a public deliberation about the [[National debt of the United States|national debt]] involving 3,000 people in 19 communities across the United States.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Levy |first=Dena |last2=Orr |first2=Susan |date=January 2014 |title=Balancing the Books: Analyzing the Impact of a Federal Budget Deliberative Simulation on Student Learning and Opinion |url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=94003819&lang=en-gb&site=eds-live&scope=site |journal=Journal of Political Science Education |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=62–80 |via=EBSCOHost}}</ref> In 2007, AmericaSpeaks worked with city government officials to conduct a series of town meetings on rebuilding [[New Orleans]] following Hurricane Katrina, involving citizens who had been displaced via telecasts and online.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=D'Agostino |first=Maria J. |last2=Kloby |first2=Katherine |date=2011 |title=Building Community Capacity to Engage Government: Reflections of Nonprofit Leaders on Post-Katrina New Orleans |journal=Administration & Society |volume=43 |issue=7 |doi=10.1177/0095399711413733}}</ref> Other issues discussed by AmericaSpeaks included [[Social Security (United States)|Social Security]] reform, as well as  the redevelopment of [[World Trade Center site|ground zero]] in [[New York City]].