 Wonderful. Thank you all so much for joining us. This is an extremely exciting conversation, and we're very grateful to all of you for taking the time during your lunch hour or wherever you are to really hear from some of the leading practitioners, helping understand what it means to revitalize civic engagement in our democracy. This is a time of unprecedented change, divisiveness, effective polarization in the United States, low levels of trust in institutions, our politicians, our elections, and this is more important than ever that we rethink about what it means to be engaged in democracy, what it means to participate in our civic, social, and communal lives, how we think about, you know, the loneliness epidemic and the challenges that we're facing. So much of it requires people coming together in their communities and starting to talk to one another to build civic voice and civic power and to connect with their elected officials. Sometimes I call this hooks and levers in my most recent books, Civic Power with Seville Rahman. We talk about building these positive feedback loops so that everyday people have the ability to exercise their voice and political power in the process. This is essential for building a multiracial, multi-ethnic democracy that is inclusive, that is equitable, and people feel like their voice matters. This is not easy to do, and so we are so lucky today to be joined by three practitioners who are really leading cutting-edge examples of these models. Sometimes I think about Sherry Arnstein's latter of participation, how we move residents along, not just for tokenism or manipulation, but to have genuine voice and civic power. And looking at the field very broadly, there's a lot of actors, there's a lot of momentum, and I think about a spectrum of sort of, you know, bridging, pluralism, civic infrastructure, how we give people the pre-political skills to be active in their democracy, to be able to come together across lines of discourse, be okay with conflict. And then I think about how we channel that for more opportunities for people to engage in their democracy. I think we need to be asking more of everyday residents, not less. And if we're going to be asking more of people, we also need to have institutions that we can plug people into, where they feel energized, they feel excited about the practice of democracy, they feel like their voice matters. That's where we're going to hear from Marjan and all of the momentum around citizens assemblies and learn from people around the globe. And finally, we're going to hear about a very innovative model, people's assemblies that are happening in Newark, they're also happening in other parts of the country, including in Jackson, Mississippi, and they're a very powerful model for building civic voice and civic power. I could not be more honored to have our panelists here today. I want to give a quick thank you to all of them and also to the New America events team, Sarah, Mark, Marisa, our own team at Political Reform, and all of you out there. I think this is a very exciting topic and from the demand and the amount of people who have chosen to spend their hour with us, we want to be really thoughtful. Please put your questions in the chat and we're going to have a very rich conversation. So I want to turn it over to Emma to hear a little bit about the work that she is leading. She is the co-executive director for Mormon Women for Ethical Government. They have membership organization in over 49 states in the country. And I think it's a really powerful model on some of those pre-political skills of how you really train people sort of in the classic to Tocqueville laboratories of democracy. How do we give people those skills so that then we can move them along this conveyor belt or ladder, pick your metaphor of choice so that people have those civic muscles to engage in a citizen's assembly or a people's assembly. So Emma, I'm going to turn it over to you. Thank you so much, Holly. And thanks to everyone. That's wonderful to be here with you today. I'm just really excited about this topic. I think at our core, the mission of Mormon Women for Ethical Government or MWAG as our acronym is to empower women to be independent political actors. We do have a piece of our organization that does work directly on advocacy. And those two things really work well together because women come to our organization. Again, we have women as Holly said in 49 states, 7,000 members across the U.S. concentrated in the Intermountain West, but throughout. And they come to us because not only do they want to kind of advocate alongside us, but they want to learn all the skills and get kind of have a community in which to practice them. So I'm so glad that you mentioned conflict upfront because really at the heart of our work is what we call from a faith-based frame, peacemaking, and that's the frame that I think that works best for our women in our community. Most of our members, our members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, though we're not officially affiliated or endorsed by that organization. So we're working as independent actors and our women are interested in being peacemakers in their homes and their families and their communities and in their states and in the nation. And that frame is a motivating one for them. Now, if you're asking someone to be a peacemaker, you're assuming conflict. So therefore you're assuming difference. And so we're normalizing that conflict and we're normalizing the difference and we're actually inviting it in. So at every kind of layer of our work, we're acknowledging and inviting is perhaps a strong word for conflict. I don't know that any of us invite it in, but I think it's more that we're developing the skills and the courage to walk into spaces of conflict and then do our very best to help resolve it in a way that maximizes the positive impact for the most people. And so that kind of happens at a micro level. We do a lot of work around conversation building. We use living room conversations. We use in-person events. We do that sort of work. We have a lot of women who have family group text chats and they've put some of these skills into action there kind of all the way leading up into writing opinion pieces and meeting with legislators and involving themselves in conversations in the public sphere in which they can use these skills. So I think that in the context of this conversation, I think our women are doing exactly what Holly said in kind of learning those pre-political skills that then lead them, lots of metaphors here. I think we kind of look at it as a web of engagement. We're actually giving permission for women to step in and out in different ways as their time and circumstances permit. We're trying to build a model that's additive to their lives and not extractive. So they feel as though being involved in the civic sphere, being involved in the public conversation is meaningful. It brings richness to who they are, brings richness to their family and doesn't feel like they're constantly being pulled in directions they don't wanna go. And so at every layer of our organization from membership through volunteers through leadership, we've built in structures that actually invite diversity of opinions that push back and ask when we're choosing, for example, in a state legislative session, wouldn't it take a position on a bill? We have it built into our system. Well, why would someone else take a different position? And that is very much considered and discussed and we try to find someone who feels differently. And then internally, we build, we normalize conflict and disagreement and tension in our day-to-day practice. So I think that's, I'll stop there. That's kind of an introduction to how I think we fit into this conversation. I look forward to talking some more with the rest of you. That's fabulous, Emma. Thank you for joining us from very freezing Omaha. So we are lucky to have you. Marjan, I'm gonna turn it over to you. You are with Bregruen and also working on Fide and North America. I would love to hear from you and how you're seeing sort of citizens assemblies and play out in the US. Thank you so much, Holly. Hi, everyone. Thank you first of all to New America for hosting this. It is really an important time to be talking about civic muscle. Holly, as you mentioned, and also just how do we give our citizens more agency and that sense of consequential voice, which really is important and is lacking in our societies just generally. Thank you to Mark at New America. I also wanna thank Sarah, who's been very helpful and I'm really excited to be here and to hear more about Emma, the work that you're doing, which sounds fascinating and also, Serendia, hear from you about the great work that your organization is doing. So just to give a little context, I'm kind of new to the American scene, my work, just to provide a little background. I come to this work after 15 years of doing international development work, always in governance and rule of law work. I've worked for the World Bank and the National Democratic Institute kind of working on designing and implementing citizen engagement and participatory kind of models around the world. And for me, it was 2016. I really felt like I didn't want to invest my time abroad and I really wanted to turn my lens to the United States. And so I kind of did this pivot. And since then, for me, the problem statement and it really echoes what Emma, you were saying in Holly, your wonderful framing of our conversation today was really the issue of citizen disengagement and really stemming from what I think are sort of three themes that very much overlap, which is one, how do we help citizens hold government accountable in between elections? How do we create that space in between elections for citizens to be able to hold government accountable by providing them meaningful platforms to exercise their vote, their voice? And that really for me meant working around policy. How do we bridge that gap so that citizens don't feel so disconnected and that they feel slowly, hopefully, that policies are really sort of reflecting their preferences? I have had in the past five years since I've made this pivot the incredible privilege of really working on a number of citizens' assemblies around the world. I've been a researcher. I've been on the oversight committee, helped with the design of citizens' assemblies in France, in Belgium, in Canada, and also the researcher of one that we had in Petaluma, California, that was sort of a first of its kind for the United States. And I'm issue-agnostic, so I've worked on homelessness, democratic expression, we've worked on the end-of-life issues. So the issue is really not one that I'm focused on. I'm much more focused on how do we design these things for legitimacy? So what is a citizens' assembly? I'll just take a minute to just sort of maybe talk about some of the key features. And citizens' assemblies aren't for every situation, of course, but when they are sort of right for that context, they can truly be transformative if we're designing them well. I usually talk about some non-negotiable features of citizens' assemblies, what really makes them distinct, because I also believe in sort of those principles and I don't think that we should dilute them. If they're right for that framework, we should use them the way that I think they have been sort of used by practitioners who've been doing this for decades now. First is that we need to have a government partner. So these need to be led and championed by government. And it has to be a government body at the local level, at the village level, at the national level. It's intent on really involving citizens in solving a public problem. And so there has to be a sense that government is willing to move the needle on a policy issue, right? So that has to be the entry point. And then what we do, which is quite unique is the way we select citizens to participate. And so we usually use democratic lottery or sortition to sort of bring together what we call a broadly representative sampling of a population. Given that these are still voluntary, they're not perfectly representative, but we really try and make them as representative as possible. And that makes it really unique. And then the other pieces, there are three phases. There's learning phase, there's a deliberation phase, and then there's a writing of proposals phase. And the learning phase is really, really key, especially at a time when we're all dealing with such polarization in our societies. It really allows citizens to come and learn about an issue together. And it is absolutely formidable, the way that their opinions do change on those subjects when they sit together and they learn together. And then obviously the drafting of the proposals, which is a really important piece. So this is not about sort of giving your idea on programs. It's really co-writing a set of proposals and recommendations that then finally we ask that same government body to consider. And so here we kind of built in a sense of accountability as well as follow-up. So I am really, really a stickler for having really, really serious follow-up mechanisms that are in place so that citizens actually have a sense of what's expected of them and what they can expect of government. So I don't know if, should I, do you want me to stop there? I'm happy to stop there. That's a great, yeah, that's a great overview. And then I think, well, yeah, let's bring Serenthi in and then we'll get to all of this. I mean, this is such a rich group. Thank you, Marjon, that is so helpful and it's just a great distillation of citizens' assemblies and why they matter. I want to introduce Serenthi, who's the manager of the Newark's People Assembly. I have been so intrigued about people's assemblies for many years now, working closely with folks in Jackson and really inspired by the model. And I'd love to hear sort of about the model and sort of how you all in Newark thought about doing this. I think it's very interesting for this conversation. Hello, everyone. Thank you for having me. My name is Serenthi McElroy. I'm the manager of the Newark People's Assembly. I'm new to the position, but I am ready to go and get things going. Newark People's Assembly may have a rocket created the office for the community to help them engage. The purpose of the office is bridging a gap in communication between the community and city hall and the departments and agencies. Also, it allows the communities to have input on decision-making based on what's in needs of the community. The mayor of Baraka feels like North has a voice and it needs to be heard. So we have community meetings throughout the city on decision-making that we have anything dealing with decision considering stakeholders, considering programming projects, initiatives, and development to inform the community of what's going on. So we work closely with our stakeholders, the individuals who will live, play, work in North and have a word, because their voice needs to be heard. So the goal is to bringing them all together and to work together as one and also communicate effectively and make, excuse me, have regular communication throughout the city. We have an office which is located in our city hall which the community can call, they can send emails and we pretty much act on what they need. If it's something that needs to be addressed to the mayor or the administration or either the departments, we act on it. So we are the voice of the people and we make sure that they feel, they know that we are there for them. We're trustworthy in them and we make sure we see whatever needs to be happened, gets done or their voice is heard and we're working on it. Pretty much, that's what we do. We host community meetings throughout the city and we also send out email blasts as well to make sure our community know what's going on. We wanna change the narrative and we wanna change this saying you live in our community, you don't know what's going on. So we want them to be aware of what's going on and share the information so whomever can use it. I think that's pretty much it. That's amazing, Cynthia. And it's so great to have someone from nonprofits and really thinking about the governance structure and then a government official. So we know there's a lot of pressing issues at Newark so we're very grateful to you. Maybe I'll just double click and we'll go the other way. If there's one example, sort of if there's a topic that you all recently held at People's Assembly on Newark, that was sort of very illustrative to you. I would be curious sort of if there is one that you think would be good to share with this group and then we'll kind of go back down the group. So I thought I had some notes together which I was gonna use but I'm just gonna kind of freestyle off it. So lately, an issue with the homelessness being in Newark and the residents, they were kind of resistance but Newark People's Assembly, we had different community meetings and let them know that we're here for the homeless, we wanna work to them. So we recently just opened up our Hope Village too. So we have Hope Village, One and Hope Village too and it's a transition for the homeless in the city of Newark where we bring them in and we give them resources and we work with them until they go to another level of care where they can live independently. So we had meetings throughout the city because we will be having more of those Hope Villages throughout the city. So it was good for the residents to know where we're at with our homeless rates and how we're working on to move them forward and also the resources that they can get. That is such a powerful example. And I think one of the things that I'm also excited to talk with all of you is like lessons for cross fertilization and cross learning. So many communities around the country are dealing with this homelessness crisis and it's so powerful Cynthia. Thank you so much for these words to hear the thoughtful, really community-centered approach that Newark is taking. I hope this can be a model that others can learn from. So we're really grateful to have you. Marjan, maybe I'll bring you in and we'll go back down. Is there's, you mentioned Petaluma as you're thinking about this moment in the US where there's a lot of attention on citizens assemblies if there's an example or something that is top of mind for you, that would be great. Sure, Holly. And yes, Petaluma was a great example and I'm really, really thrilled to hear already that we are likely going to have three or four at least as far as I am aware of citizens assemblies in the United States this year. And that's really exciting. But I think maybe just as a model and I understand that what I'm going to say is a national citizens assembly and hopefully we'll have one of these at some point in the United States. But it was a very interesting model and one that we can draw from lessons from at the local level as well. But the last citizens assembly that I was involved with last year was the French Citizens Convention on the End of Life. And that was a really, really powerful case. And again, it's at the national level. So it's a little bit different than having a citizens assembly at the local level. But the president of France in his second campaign had promised that he would address the issue around the end of life and assisted suicide to understand what citizens really felt about that and whether they wanted to change on the law. And so we over the course of nine weekends we had 185 and I say 185 because we started with 185, we lost one person and only one person over the course of nine weekends spread over four months, which was really extraordinary and remarkable because these were citizens who weren't in the same city. They were coming from all parts of the country and they were all so committed. And so over nine weekends, we brought them together for learning. They met with experts and then they deliberated and then they finally drafted and 76% of the 184 at the end of the day were in favor of some kind of a legal framework that would allow for assisted suicide and euthanasia. And 24% were against. And what was really remarkable and this is something that I'd love to highlight here is the social cohesion that was created. So what we did is we really started with issues where there was common conviction. So we tried to bring the group together and so the first sessions were really built around hospice care, palliative care, all of that that we knew they would really kind of coalesce around. And once they had built the trust that they needed to build we then got into issues that were more contentious. And the level of civility and the deliberation that was going on was just absolutely beyond this world. And one of the people who was part of the minority the very last session said we wanna thank the majority for giving us 50% of the time. And so it was just a really beautiful experience of how you can bring people together who have very different and a very emotional issue had very different opinions and just have them kind of come together and build a community. And they now have started an association. And the other last piece that I'll just talk about because policy is generally discussed and policy impact of citizens assemblies. So the president at the last session met with all of the citizens, 184 and he made a commitment that there would be a change in the law. The commitment initially was that there would be some framework introduced at the end of the summer then it became the end of the year but we understand that there will be a change. And if you think about it, policy changes generally very slow. So hopefully if we do have some change by the spring or the summer even I think that that will still be hugely successful. And so it's also, this was a consultative mandate that can still demonstrate that there is real consequential voice at the end of a citizens assembly. These are really powerful examples. Wow, Emma, I would love to hear from you if there's one or two illustrative examples. I mean, I think these points of sort of how do you find that right issue, the homelessness, pivotal issue, end of life. These are things that are very essential to people. And so I think that's something also I'm taking away from this. You're not shying away from going for the tough issues to ensure that this engagement is more than lip service but it's really tied to these core policy outcomes. So Emma, welcome any examples from you. Yeah, I think I'm gonna continue on with a real tough issue because I think sometimes those really tough issues can be vehicles for building relationships and kind of humanizing each other. I think sometimes if we go right in on the tough issues it gives us an opportunity to really kind of figure out how to work together. So an issue that is I guess parallel, end of life, beginning of life. Clearly within the US abortion is a very hot topic. Is one that is I think dividing us in extraordinary ways. And as an institution we have chosen not to take a position on it and in fact in the very beginning we didn't even allow women to talk about it because it was just so difficult for anyone to have a conversation about. So we kind of took it off the table completely. And our position was partly that it's being used as a political wedge issue and we wanted to remove it from the conversation. But over the last couple of years we felt clearly like we needed to use that issue as a way to build skills for conversation. So this past year did screenings of a movie called The Abortion Talks which is actually not a movie about abortion. No one believes that's because it has abortion in the title but it's a movie about growing to see people as fully human and understanding them. And so it's a very powerful movie about the aftermath of a shooting at a Boston abortion clinic where there was some death and there had been a great deal of escalation in the community before and after that. And the women from two sides from very pro-life, very pro-choice were gathered together in the basement of a church for years to talk to each other in secret until no one knew about it. It was such an issue that was so volatile that they couldn't even be known that they were having conversations with the enemy. And this documentary was made about those conversations. So we had in-person screenings in Utah and then we did a series of in-home screenings across the US where we would zoom it out and women could invite friends and family into their home to watch the movie and then followed by a session where we did kind of skills building and talked about what they had learned and again never really diving into the actual issue itself but focusing on building the skills to be able to have difficult conversations. And the beautiful thing about this event and about this movie is I hosted one in my home and I had friends there who were absolutely on polar opposite sides and I had a lot of trepidation about hosting them but they both were able to see themselves represented in the movie in a way that they felt seen and heard and that set the table for a conversation about how we need to kind of at minimum in order to have productive conversation be able to humanize one another. And as we did pre and post surveys across hundreds of women across the United States who attended these and we saw a significant decrease in an increase in humanization and pluralistic norms and a decrease in effective polarization and anger. So sometimes the actual process of putting something together in a structured setting as Marjan said so it can't just be a free for all. You can't just say, hey everyone go in a room and talk about this topic. There needs to be some sort of a guide, a framework, a methodology and honestly a setting of tone that is open and in our case full of peacemaking is the way we would phrase it. And so I use that example as one that I think is again back to my early introduction it's walking right into a complex zone. It's kind of having that identity of a peacemaker as one who sees a conflict that is entrenched seemingly impossible to resolve and is choosing to enter into it in order for the greater good and to kind of set aside personal animosity or kind of learn how to, to unlearn some of that to do it. And I would, from the examples that both Serentie and Marjan have given my guess is this is kind of a prerequisite and or a skill that is gained in the process. And so the beautiful thing about the topic that we're discussing is that certainly it can impact on policy and it can and should and meaningful pragmatic efforts and practical efforts should come out of it but there's also a change that occurs in the participants that extends far beyond any one event or any one interaction that I think is really representative of the spirit of this democratic republic that we're all seeking to grow and have flourished for all people. So that's I think why I feel so one of the reasons I feel so passionate about this and appreciate this conversation. Yeah, I mean, this is so powerful and I'm grateful to all of you for not shying away from the difficult conversations. And I want to talk a little bit about the sort of dealing with the politics dealing with the conflict. Serentie, I would love to hear from you has there been any pushback to this? Has Mayor Baraka had to justify this approach or have there been moments that really surprised you in this process? I would say pushbacks. No, Mayor Baraka, he's really transparent and he's always at the meeting. So anything that's, you know, addressed to the meeting address at the meetings the concerns he's straight on for hands boots on the ground to answer questions. And it also helps the community and I see for myself the way they may have misunderstood something or wasn't clear on something it changed the narrative and it clearly understands so then they become in support. So it helps empower the people in their questions or concerns. So I think it's good. I think it's a good thing for us to have the community meetings and it's really helpful. So it's not a pushback because they have a clearer understanding by the time they leave the community meetings on what it is that the initiative is or the understanding or the policy. Yeah, I mean, I think it really underscores how important that leadership is, right? Like having that mayoral air cover is so essential. Just one other follow-up on that Cynthia. Yeah, is there something that has really surprised you? Sort of just, you know, it's always interesting when you come into a process and you see it like was there something kind of unexpected to you? The whole, so if I can be honest the whole position and how, you know we're working together, you know, usually you see like there's a lot of naysayers but then there's also a lot of people who are in support. So I think the surprising and understanding how many people really care about their city and they take North People's Assembly as a great opportunity to build a trust and engage and this is what we do and this is how we move in our city forward. So the surprise and the support and people embracing North People's Assembly. That's amazing. And do you all talk with the folks in Jackson working on this? Just curious, like the cross-pollination aspect. Since I've been here, I wanna say no but I'm sure the previous manager, Andrea she did a lot of, you know, visiting and talking in conversations. I'm sure there's conversations. I just didn't have my chance yet but I'm looking forward to it. So yes. Absolutely. And I think this is such a powerful model. Thank you so much for sharing. Marjan would love to hear from you and I wanna also tee up the audience. We're getting a lot of really good questions. I'm gonna be turning to the Q and A from the audience in a few minutes. How you've seen people navigate that opposition to citizen assemblies? Like if there's an example or just sort of one of the things that you've seen emerge that is useful for this conversation. I mean, when you say people do you mean leaders, electives? Yeah. I mean, I think like, you know one of the things we're seeing here, right? And you mentioned it as one of the five is like you need that government support. So how do you get over that hurdle to then get the government support? So I think there are a couple of things. First of all, I think it's really important the way that we message citizens assembly. So one of the things that we make sure that we do is so that it's less threatening because obviously we're asking officials to cede a little bit of their power to citizens. Is that message of this is not meant to replace our representative democracies it's really meant to strengthen. And I think that message really needs to be sent very clearly. The other pieces to be honest with you I mean, we're still relying even internationally we're relying on leaders as you mentioned Holly who have courage and who are bold and who have vision. Once they see it in action, they are sold. It is fascinating how just spending a couple of days at a citizens assembly changes the views of any elected official. And so, you know, I think that those things the more we can experiment, I mean, especially as they're hopefully we're going to have more in the United States being able to bring elected so that they can see and observe what's going on during a citizens assembly I think will be a huge seller as well. But I will say one of the things that I also think you know, the way that we talk about this and I really appreciated Emma's comments around sort of this transformative potential and the impact on participants is that, you know I think that, you know we talk about our democracies very often the strength of our democracies in terms of trust and I think the trust is really important but one of the things that I have really appreciated is in the course of all of my surveys there have been citizens assemblies where, you know as I mentioned before, government makes a promise and it doesn't keep its promise or it doesn't set expectations the way that citizens are expecting it to. And so we actually do see with citizens assembly sometimes trust in government drops. And that's okay because the other impact which is so important is that their sense of agency over their democracy is forever changed. And I think that is worth so much. And so I would love for us to actually start talking about the strength of our democracies more around the sense of empowerment that we're giving our citizens in being able to actually be involved in their democracy trust will always be important confidence in political institutions will always be important. But I think that those messages also and they do speak to good leaders. You know, it's so interesting because I feel like there's a big schism like should we be talking about the word democracy, right? I feel like there are many people I work with who say we can talk about other things that we want to get to those aims but actually the word democracy is alienating to people. Emma, it's really interesting that you could have trust go down but that would be a sign that people feel a sense of agency. That's very, very interesting. Yeah, so I think one way to look at it and is through the eyes of the lens of temperament of those who are involved. And I think one of the reasons that agency goes up and we've seen this experience with our women is that it gives a space and a way and a methodology for people to engage who otherwise might be hesitant to jump in because of the nature, the highly polarized nature of the public conversation. The reality that oftentimes it is the loudest, most extreme voices who are not just grabbing the mic but then holding it and using it and that those voices are the ones that have often the ear of those in power. And so I see this as a process of building up, supporting, providing community and support for those who would normally perhaps disengage but maybe their trust, we see this a lot, we do see this quite a bit, will encourage women to engage with elected officials meaning for the first time and they will see that they're not being heard and it's frustrating. And then we're there to push them over the hump and say, well, have you considered running for their seat? And so people who did not even see themselves in that role before are now feeling, I think the frustration can be harnessed into an energy for greater, more meaningful participation. And so if this does nothing else than to empower and energize a new group of citizens who felt left out of the conversation because they maybe weren't the loudest or the strongest voice, then this is I think worth the effort and this is a long-term play in that respect. Yeah. Cynthia, what do you think about the democracy frame? Just curious your thoughts. The democracy frame, I think when it comes to North People's Assembly, we really act on building trust in the community, the transparency and being consistent and reliable. We also get the community engaged. So it's saying, hey, we have community ambassadors. How about coming on our team and being a part of the community ambassadors? I see that you're really passionate about your community. So once you become a part, and they see that what we do and it helps change and it also builds further trust where they can go back and talk to their different neighbors and residents and say, hey, look, North People's Assembly is really trying to build a democracy and working with the community. So I think you should be a part of this or come out to more meetings, express what you have to say because if we don't know, you know, how do we act on it? And there may be a concern that you have, but other people, and they may be afraid to say it. So in these community meetings, we're opening it up to a larger scale to making sure and following up. It's fascinating. Can we just double click on the ambassadors? Like how that program works just would be curious about that. So we have community ambassadors in the city of North, which is, I wanna say right now, we have FEDD, but we're currently growing and people sign up and basically what they sign up for is helping engage in the community more help getting out the information. Also, their job is to actually let us know what we don't hear. What some people feel like they can't come to us and say, so they're comfortable with telling the neighbor. So then we come back and we meet on a larger scale to say, hey, this is a meeting that we need to have. We present it to the administration and the departments and then we have communities to address it and move forward to resolve in the problem. So we have community ambassadors, our residents in the community from the whole entire city of North and they work well with us. That's so interesting. That's such a fascinating example and thinking of that co-governance like the inside outside, right? How do we wield the power externally but do it in a way that has teeth, right? So you're building that connective tissue. There is that feedback mechanism. I think that's really powerful. We have a lot, oh, sorry, please. And I just add to also within a part of the community ambassadors, we also include the Senate associations and block associations as well. That's great. That's great. How many are there in New York? I'm just curious, probably a lot. There is a lot. Yeah, there is a lot. Sorry, I can't tell you a number. No, no, no, no, that's fantastic. Because we try to get away from breaking up in wars but we do have five wars in this large one. So we have so many. So they're really active and they're growing and you do so COVID, a lot of them are starting to regroup and get back into the swing of things. Yeah, that's really interesting. I'm going to turn to the Q&A and please audience, Sphere, we're so grateful to you for joining, I think, this riveting conversation. I could talk with you all experts all day long but in the interest of time, we won't. I'm going to synthesize and I'm actually going to pick up from what we were talking about, Sorenthea, on the sort of existing structures that are in place. A lot of the questions we're getting, I'm looking at Marjan, are about citizen assemblies. And so thinking about, I have one question here. If a citizen assembly is viewed as redundant to what the government is already doing, how do you make the case for it? And another question about, if the government agrees to sponsor a citizen assembly, do they also commit to implementing the recommended policy change? So I see a lot of questions that are around sort of, how do we get over that hump? And then there is the ever present question of the funding. We've talked about how the citizen assemblies model, it requires work. And so designing things right is expensive as so many of us know, stipends, childcare, accommodations, I think design really matters. That costs money. And so we have one of the questions about, they've hosted assemblies in rural Hawaii. It's exhausting and a lot of work. How do I get funding? So maybe we'll just, we'll take a few, Marjan, if you want to cluster some of those citizen assembly questions and then we're going to zoom out to some of the other questions for the rest of the panelists as well. Sure. I mean, I'm happy to answer the question. I think I'll put the sort of, are these redundant to what government's already doing and does government commit to then implementing the proposals? I think that we really need to be careful, right? I think we want to make sure that these are not seen as paying lip service to what government is already implementing. And I think that's really important. And so one of the things that I do talk about quite a bit is I think that, especially in Europe where we've had this experience, it's a much more, a longer experience where the OECD, I think there are about 600 citizens assemblies that they've recorded over the past, I think 15, 20 years maybe, and they're really exploding. I think it's time for us to really think about this as a true way to give more power to citizens, sort of following on the themes that we've talked about. So one of the things that I've often thought about is that we generally don't see, there are a few citizens assemblies that allow residents to choose the topic. So I think in a perfect world, we would have government, of course, as a champion, as an initiator say, these are the three areas that we're thinking about moving the needle off, right? Because you have to have that openness and policy because otherwise we're going to ask citizens to write policy and then there will be no change and that's a very frustrating experience. So asking government to give us two, three different topics and then have those topics be voted on by residents has a couple of different impacts. One, it gives power to residents at large and that's one of the things that we talk about with citizens assemblies is how can we make the connection between the select few that are chosen to be part of the citizens assembly? How do we make the connection sort of stronger with the broader public, right? So those are ways to kind of engage with the broader public that may not be sitting on that panel. So that's one way. In terms of commitment, though, and I just want to be really clear here. So my experience, my survey suggests that citizens don't necessarily want their proposals to be binding. They are so happy to be consulted with and in my in-depth interviews and my book will be published this summer, citizens actually say, we have not heard from government in years. We're just so excited to come to learn to sit with other residents. We are happy if our proposals are reviewed by the government. And so I think what we really need is to have a robust system of follow-up. So government commits to look at those proposals and come back in six months and say, we're adopting 5%, 10%, 20%, we're not adopting this many, we're rejecting these up and this is why. If we could build in an appeal process into that so that then residents can say, well, wait a second, I'm really curious about this proposal. I think that would be ideal. But so I'm not sure that we should criticize citizens' assemblies and that I hear this quite often because the proposals of citizens are not necessarily binding. I'm not sure that citizens themselves think of themselves as, they see this as one other source of information, if that makes sense. So, and then the other question about funding, I mean, that's a really big one, right? I will say a couple of things. I'm guessing that the audience is mostly US-based. Our colleagues in Europe are able to raise this funding for it. I'm not sure why a country like the United States were very resource rich. If we make a commitment to really bringing in more democratic platforms that engage citizens in a meaningful way, I'm not sure why we can't find the funding. I think it's pretty startling to me as I turn my attention to sort of the US to hear that between one and maybe 1.5% of the funding from philanthropy is going into democratic reform. I think that needs to change. So I push back on that. Yes, they are very kind of costly, but also the kind of the results that you get are phenomenal. So I do think that we can kind of try and figure things out. A colleague of mine and myself have also created this process called the Democratic Action Fund, which asks government to set aside a certain percentage of the money that's already being spent on elections to create a democratic action fund so that different levels of government from the local to the national can apply for funding to then be able to set up a citizen's assembly or another participatory sort of vehicle. So I do think that, yes, they're costly, they're incredibly labor intensive, but I think we can try and figure out the cost somehow as a country. That's so helpful. And I think it's really powerful to have the three of you in an election year, right? We know this is very powerful, but Emma, I think you were the one who told me that we can walk into gum at the same time. There's anything you wanna share on that topic about why we need to be laying down this infrastructure maybe more essentially during an election year. Yeah, I think it's important that we both be doing the short-term work of shoring up democratic guardrails or in some cases, soldering them back on as they've been shaken loose or torn off. It's important that we be responsive to anti-democratic moves by government at all level. It's important that we be preserving, for example, the citizen valid initiative process and be heavily involved in our legislative sessions as there are attempts in many places to kind of erode the citizen authority. That is all really important, but at the same time, I am very committed to the sort of long-term work that we're talking about here. And I don't see them as being in competition, kind of coming back to that idea of agency. That's something that we talk a lot about from a faith perspective. That's kind of, in many ways, that's why we see our purpose here on this earth is to learn how to make choices for ourselves and to be fully developed humans and have divine worth. And so the process that we're talking about through Citizens' Assemblies is a process that accrues, helps accrue greater goodness to the people who are participating in it. And I see a lot of frustration amongst our members and amongst our public with leadership in Washington, for example, a lot of frustration with the way that they're behaving, with the lack of movement on such. And I experienced that personal frustration myself, but I think what we have to do is use that frustration as a motivation to engage rather than a reason to disengage and complain. And so these long-term experiments that we're doing, we've always experimented in the United States. That's what it is. It is the American experiment. We've assumed from the beginning that we were trying something that no one else was able to do to build a pluralistic, multi-ethnic democracy. So just because something isn't working exactly how you hoped it would the first time, don't take that as a bad thing, take that as an iteration towards something better. And I think these Citizens' Assemblies are one more step in the direction. And I have no doubt that they will evolve. I have no doubt that some of the barriers that we're hearing about will be turned into actual points of tension that can be used for creative good. I believe in our ability as a people to care about these things and to wanna make the changes and to keep working at it. And so just, I guess, if anything, I feel a great deal of optimism despite the struggles that I think we all encounter right now in the field that we work in. But I see so much good. That was so powerful. I would be tempted to end right there where we have so many questions from the audience. So, Cynthia, there's one question. Has the mayor from New York seen more political support because of this outreach to the People's Assemblies? And are there any metrics that you're using? I don't know if this is something that you all are talking, but be curious your thoughts on this. So I would say yes, the mayor has received more support with North People's Assembly. He's out, he's communicating. He's getting pretty much understanding of what's going on in the community. Also, with him being really adamant in North People's Assembly as well about making your voice heard. So the community feels like their voice is being heard when we're having these meetings and this different gatherings and working on it. It's not just the mayor's, what he wants is what the people want. So working with the people, understanding and taking back their thoughts and putting it into how it can work for the whole city. So I think it's a good thing and the support is growing in our city. That's awesome. I'm gonna synthesize and also take the moderator, Lirudi, to ask you all one final big question because a lot of the questions we're getting are can these efforts be scaled? Is the ultimate vision to have public funding and actors organize assemblies? Is the ultimate vision, Marjon, you did mention there is sort of a lack of philanthropic funding that goes to democracy, quad democracy. I wanna ask all of you, I wanna answer that question but then I'll ask all of you in sort of closing remarks, what's your vision? Five, 10 years out, what do you feel like the world has changed? Or if you could wish one thing, I would just be curious to hear, is it everyone across the country is doing People's Assembly, Citizen Assembly is doing the kind of really innovative grassroots work that you all are doing, Emma. You know, what is your vision and who's funding that vision maybe is another question. Emma, why don't we start with you? I was hoping you would wait. Because that's okay. No, I'm good. Can you wait? Yeah, no, I think part of the work that I do is a lot of kind of building and riffing on what other people are saying and doing. So I was gonna add to whatever your other panelists have to say that's wonderful. I think that, I think that, I'll reiterate I think maybe the vision that I have expressed I think throughout this call. And it's not just a vision. I think that's maybe the best way to say it. It's actually the reality of the work that I am seeing happen with our women every single day. You know, someone had asked me a while ago, how do you feel help? How do you not get discouraged? And I said, it's just really hard to be discouraged when you wake up on a Tuesday morning and I check the Salt Lake Tribune or the Deseret News in Utah, for example, and one of our members has written a beautiful opinion piece about a topic that we had been discussing internally and weren't quite sure if we were gonna write on and we don't need to anymore because she has stepped in and just done it. You know, I see examples of women in family group text chats who are guiding their family members towards better sourcing in their news media. That they recognize that the kind of at the foundation of good policy decisions is good information that we can't work together to solve the problems we have unless it's based in facts. And so she's working to kind of help her children, her teenage children navigate TikTok. And then this child is now an 18 year old voter and he has through home conversations in the home learned how to navigate what's coming at him day to day. I have examples of women who never in their life ever considered them self, someone who could call up a legislator or interact with a person in power. And they now have their state legislator on speed dial and they're texting with them regularly. And not only that, they're bringing with, she is bringing with her to meetings other than her community. So she's not striking out and just doing it on her own. It's very much something that is a community event. So I think that is, I think my vision that is occurring right now within our work and what I'm hearing from what Marjan and Serentia are doing is this empowerment of citizens collectively to do something wonderful. That's really powerful. I think it was me who asked you how you don't give up hope. Serentia and then Marjan. So my vision and my goal is for everyone to have people's assembly in their community because it's working in work. So we know it can work. Wherever it happens that we just have to make sure that the government or the administration is in support of the vision in the community and what the community wants. Every day I go to work and it's a good thing knowing that I can help people. Listen to their problems or their concerns. I try not to say problems but their concerns and knowing that I can assist them and help them and get some type of resolution for them. And it's not just because it's my job but it's knowing that there's people out there who really, they go through some things and they look forward to someone helping them and we can work together as a community to have a support system and also engage in other different community-based organizations, tenant associations, the community ambassadors and the block associations and we're all working together to move our city forward. So that's what it would be for me. That is so powerful and thank you. I'm always so impressed with any people I meet in New York City government, in New York, you all are amazing and such an inspiration. Marjahn, wanna close us out. Well, I was just gonna say, can we stop there because I'm feeling so scared after hearing Emma and Serentia both speak. I guess what I will add is, I mean, this has been an incredible conversation and I love to hear about everything and of course I am incredibly excited about Citizens' Assemblies but hearing about all the work that everybody else is doing is really inspiring. The one thing I will add is I think we're talking a lot about tools, right? The tools that we can use and the piece that I feel sometimes is missing and so if I step back and I say what my goal is, my goal is that, yes, we have access and sort of to all of these different tools and we find a way to fund them but ultimately my long-term goal and my hope and my dream for the United States is that the American experiment becomes a true democratic culture and a real practice. I feel like we've lost just our sense of process, our respect for democratic process and so I would love to see a place especially in this election year, when I speak to youth, it breaks my heart to see them so uninterested and so disengaged. I would love for us to be in a place in America where every person in this country feels like they can hold government accountable in between elections and that they really have voice. I think it better than all of you. We're so grateful to you for joining us and thank you to all of you for listening and to the events team and Mark, Sarah, Marisa. Thank you so much.