AmericaSpeaks

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.[3] The method integrates recent technology with facilitated dialogue, and provides the tools to enable groups to examine important options and identify mutual priorities.

"Americans Discuss Social Security" was a 1998 non-partisan effort funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, that directly engaged a diverse sample of Americans in a dialogue about Social Security reform and recommended that the United States Congress support legislation that reflected citizen preferences. Over fifteen months, the project engaged nearly 45,000 Americans in every state in direct discussions on Social Security reform and reached more than twelve million through the project’s media and public education efforts.[1]

Beginning in 1999 and lasting until 2005, Mayor Anthony Williams partnered with AmericaSpeaks in an attempt to restore Washingtonians' faith in the government and gather recommendations for budgeting allocation. Over 13,500 citizens participated in seven 21st Century Town Meetings.[4] Because of the Citizen Summits, millions of dollars were budgeted to areas over which citizens voiced concern, including: an additional $270 million for education; $10 million for senior services; 1,000 new drug treatment slots; an additional $25 million for a housing trust fund; $2 million for citizen involvement; and nearly $20 million for more police and juvenile-related initiatives.[4]

Listening to the City was held at the Javits Center in New York City in July 2002 to involve 4300 local citizens, who closely reflected the demographic diversity of the region, in the planning process for Ground Zero's future.[1] Decision-makers from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Port Authority co-sponsored the meeting and incorporated it into their official public engagement process. After a day of intense deliberation, participants determined that the original plans for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center failed to meet the needs of the city. Within a week of Listening to the City, decision-makers announced that the plans would be redrawn in accordance with public priorities. A two-week online deliberation and dialogue reached another 800 New York City residents who reviewed the site options in small cyber groups.[5]

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.[6]

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.[1]

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 .

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 . 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 .

Nearly 3,500 Californians gathered in eight cities on August 11, 2007 in an interactive forum on health care priorities called California Speaks, and 82 percent advocated major changes.[7]

The AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy 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.

The preliminary results of the June 26 discussion differed from Baker's predictions. In a blog post, AmericaSpeaks President Carolyn Lukensmeyer detail the results presented to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform for its public meeting on Wednesday, June 30, 2010.