Too often in public life, discussions become polarized debates, framed in ways that leave citizens out. Progress is stalled as conflict reigns and the political will to create change is lost. Consensus frames issues in public terms, in ways that draw people in. It provides a neutral space where people with different points of view can find common ground for action. Through KC Forums and other civic engagement efforts, Consensus helps to solve public policy problems.

To do this, Consensus builds on expertise in various processes for involving citizens in decision-making. For example, we have joined with KCPT Public Television and MacNeil/Lehrer Productions to convene By the People events, part of a national effort that engaged randomly selected citizens in a day of deliberation. We have conducted brainstorming and visioning sessions with more than 100 groups around the metro and held several future search conferences, including the first ever community-wide search conference.

No matter which process Consensus uses to engage the public, we focus on creating a safe space where people can share their thoughts and feelings with one another. As one participant wrote after a deliberative forum, “There is so much value to really listening to diverse opinions that happens by virtue of the way the sessions are moderated.” We build on the skills of about 25 expert facilitators who work with Consensus.

Seven Core Principles
Consensus affirms the seven core principles for public engagement, which include careful planning and preparation, inclusion and demographic diversity, collaboration and shared purpose, openness and learning, transparency and trust, impact and action, sustained engagement and participatory culture.
     Download the principles and supporting information.

KC Forums

KC Forums uses a deliberative process developed by the Kettering Foundation in which citizens discuss the tradeoffs and consequences of several different ways to approach an issue. The Kettering Foundation built the process around research conducted by renowned public opinion pollster Daniel Yankelovich. It is designed to move citizens past wishful thinking and denial and towards informed public judgment.

KC Forums, which is guided by a team of leading nonprofit organizations, has brought citizens together to discuss both local and global issues. KC Forums’ first effort was several series of forums on issues from the citistates report – healthy neighborhoods, economic development, regionalism, race relations, and transportation. The project also worked with the Kettering Foundation to conduct research on the action teams that formed after each forum.

Evaluations showed that the forums had an impact:

• 70% said they better understood the issue and how it might be addressed;
• 69% said they better understood other points of view;
• 70% said they were more likely to take action as a result of the forum, and twice as many participants joined an action team as said they had expected to when they decided to attend the forum; and
• 63% of elected officials who responded to a survey said that reports on the forums had a significant impact on their own thinking about the issue.

Along with the By the People deliberation events, KC Forums has engaged citizens in conversations on Americans’ role in the world, the role of the media, health care cost & access, and medical research.

KC Forums was begun by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which moved the project to Consensus in 2003.

Click KC Forums for more information.

Regional vision

In the late 1980s, a feeling was growing that Greater Kansas City lacked a common vision for the future. Civic leaders asked Consensus to identify a vision powerful enough to unite a divided community.

Consensus named the visioning process COMPASS. It formed a steering committee and conducted a two-year visioning process that involved more than 100 organizations and thousands of citizens from 1990-1992.

Volunteer facilitators conducted brainstorming sessions all over the metro area, asking people to identify the community’s strengths and needs, their values and vision for the future. Then Consensus held public meetings where citizens sorted through the needs and identified the seven they considered most important: education, jobs, crime, human relations, governmental cooperation, the urban core and affordable housing.

After citizen work teams conducted research and presented their findings, the steering committee searched for a common thread. The committee placed children at the center of the vision, reasoning that it would lead us into a larger vision of the kind of place where we all can lead secure, productive and harmonious lives.

The vision of making metro Kansas City the Child Opportunity Capital: Where the quality of our children’s future is the measure of our success was embraced by many organizations metro-wide. FOCUS Kansas City incorporated the vision and five related goals into its strategic plan for Kansas City, Missouri, and the Heart of America United Way used it to guide its own planning. The vision encouraged resources for new initiatives, like the Partnership for Children and YouthFriends. It was cited in successful applications to make Kansas City a site for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Urban Health Initiative and for Public Private Ventures’ Community Change for Youth Development project. It led many nonprofits to decide to add young people to their boards of directors.

Consensus conducted a future search conference in 1993, called Aligning for Action, which brought together groups and individuals, including young people, who wanted to work together to achieve the vision. Over the course of three days at Arrowhead Stadium, participants identified common ground for action. One theme was youth empowerment, and the team working in that area asked everyone to stand and repeat this pledge: “I make a commitment today to involve the voice of youth in every decision-making process that affects youth.”

That pledge became the basis for the Promise Project and later Kids Voting. The Promise Project provides training and support to organizations that want to give young people a voice in decision making and Kids Voting gives young people the chance to go to the polls on election day. Consensus and the Junior League of Kansas City, Missouri, got the Promise Project started. It is now housed at HarmonyNCCJ and Kids Voting is housed at the YMCA of Greater Kansas City.

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