We’re international leaders in civic participation, deliberation, and engagement, driven to design the future of democracy.
As a nonprofit with over four decades of experience, we’re partnering with citizens, communities, and institutions to design and implement informed, innovative, and democratic processes to address today’s toughest challenges.
In 2021, we officially adopted the name, Center for New Democratic Processes. The Center was formerly known as Jefferson Center or Jefferson Center for New Democratic Processes.
Our Vision
The public’s trust in democracy and in their fellow citizens seems to be weaker than ever: corporate interests, suppression of free speech, fake news, silencing of the press, intense partisan polarization, and more have got in the way of democracy working as planned. But we envision a world where individuals can once again engage with…
- One another
- Their communities
- Public & private institutions
- Government & elected officials
… to shape the decisions that affect their lives.
What We Do
We strongly believe in the power of “everyday people” to restore democracy. That’s why we give individuals the knowledge, resources, and time they need to create innovative solutions to today’s biggest challenges.
Our process also provides decision-makers with an informed voice of their constituents, shrinking the current gap between the public and our leaders.
How We Do It
The primary tool we employ for education and deliberation is the Citizens Jury, and we are continuously designing, testing, and exploring new methods of high quality, inclusive public participation, deliberation, and engagement.
We pioneered the use of Citizens Juries in the United States and are the leading experts of this public participation method. Many similar models used around the world today, such as Citizens Assemblies and Citizens Panels, are rooted in our Citizen Jury process. We’re the oldest organization convening Citizens Juries in the United States.
Our Impact
Through cross-partisan dialogue and local action, we’re leading community-based democratic renewal across the United States and around the world. Our current projects include supporting extreme weather and climate change action in rural communities, creating a first-of-its-kind statewide media-community collaborative in Ohio, and guiding local government reform in small towns.
We’re showing that not only can we still talk with one another across ideological and social divides, but that unleashing our diversity is our best hope to make progress on the shared challenges we face.
Our Services
We help communities, governments, public and private institutions, and others engage with stakeholders, clients, and citizens to craft purposeful solutions to significant challenges.
We utilize a wide range of engagement processes, including the Citizens Jury, Citizens Assembly, and other deliberative methods to design customized engagement strategies for each initiative we undertake.
We Advise & Support
To help carry out an existing community, client, or other stakeholder engagement project, we can provide expertise on all parts of the process, including project design, research, creation of educational materials, facilitator training, and expert/participant recruitment.
Project spotlight: A Deliberative Approach to Develop Autism Data Collection in Massachusetts
We Design & Implement
If you need help getting an engagement project up and running, we can create an accessible and effective process from beginning to end. We can provide a process design, research and analysis, educational materials, facilitation, expert recruitment, participant recruitment, facilitator training, stakeholder outreach and engagement, digital engagement, event logistics and workflow management.
We Collaborate
If your community or organization works on a project that meets a joint goal in one of our key focus areas, Campaigns, Governance & Media, Patient Engagement & Patient Policy, or Climate & Community Resilience, contact us to see how we can collaborate.
Project spotlight: the Rural Climate Dialogues
How can we help you?
Tell us about your current engagement project and what kind of support you’re looking for!
Partner Testimonials
Our Network
We’re proud to be members of the following organizations dedicated to strengthening democracy: