Crossing silos to advance healthy democracy
The SHIFT Action Lab is a collective for learning and action on democracy. It has been co-designed with practitioners who hold a desire to collaborate across typically siloed fields:
Bridging
to build trust and repair across differences through dialogues
Organizing
for ethical and responsive government through issue-based and electoral campaigns
Governance
to include people in policy-making and reimagine democracy for the 21st century
Action Lab members
United Vision Project
Make It Work Nevada
WV Can’t Wait
Essential Partners
Horizons Project
The People
Braver Angels
Braver Angels
Participatory Budgeting Project
Action Lab Design
SHIFT empowered the Action Lab to allocate $150k in seed funding toward collaborative projects that would advance their collective exploration and learning. The Action Lab designed the following projects in 2023, which are now being implemented in 2024:
- A Place-based Pilot to measure whether there are indeed synergies unlocked when bringing together the bridging, organizing, and governance approaches. The Lab selected Parkersburg, WV as the site for the pilot.
- Funder Engagement to invite more funders to learn alongside us. We are currently seeking feedback on our concept for a Funder-Practitioner Action Lab.
- Democracy Resource Hub to make the best tools from the many democracy-related fields more accessible. The Hub is already live at democracyresourcehub.org and is housed on the Commons Library.
- Training Fund to enable Lab members to engage in inter-field training and observation opportunities.
How we got here
Starting with a year of research and 150+ conversations in 2021-2022, SHIFT connected with organizations bringing people together across lines and modeling a more participatory politics. We met bridgers who are holding dialogues that invite people to see each other’s humanity; we met organizers who are reaching “beyond the choir,” creating people’s platforms, and electing new leaders; and we met democracy innovators who are enacting reforms and new models for how we govern together. We noticed that many were naming challenges that others were potentially well positioned to address.
To explore this, we brought together curious and visionary practitioners from the bridging, organizing, and governance fields, through an in-person Convening in the hills of eastern Kentucky in 2022. Glimpsing the potential at the intersections of their work, participants called for our support to continue digging in together. To that end, we worked with those participants to co-design this Action Lab, which launched in March 2023.
In addition to providing the $150k in seed funding, SHIFT has provided additional support to make this project possible, including:
- Stipends to compensate for Action Lab members’ time.
- Convening capacity: compensating a Lab Convener at 20 hours/week to facilitate meetings, connections, and support Lab strategy.
Get in touch
SHIFT welcomes opportunities to learn about related work, to share information about what we are doing and compare observations, concerns, and curiosities. Please feel free to contact Laura Rigell, Lab Convener, at laura@shiftcommongood.org to connect.
SHIFT 