The Link to Government group (LTG) was formed to identify opportunities and develop strategies to promote and support citizen deliberation in government decision-making.
At present LTG is working to bring together civic engagement resources for elected officials and government agency practitioners.
The Link to Government group has four objectives:
Champion DD before government
Build knowledge around existing practice
Raise level of awareness within DDC, elsewhere of government views and practice with regards to citizen engagement and deliberation.
Raise level, quality of practice of DD in government
The Link to Government group is currently developing specific proposals to meet its objectives. These include:
Develop a "federal network for deliberation" that will share information about the state of practice within various executive and legislative insitutions.
Create a "best practices in deliberation" award for federal managers and others.
Identify research questions that are compelling for federal public participation practitioners.
The growth of democratic governance has been a grassroots phenomenon. The promise of the Democracy Helpline, a project of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and its Partners, is to enable a broader array of people to make use of these powerful democratic strategies and principles.