May 30 at 2:30 ET/11:30 PT

Democracy globally is under threat from multiple actors and backsliding is unfortunately underway in many countries. Cities and local governments around the world are crucial sites in resisting efforts to reverse gains in more inclusive governance. In the United States cities are also important actors in creating a more welcoming country for refugees and immigrants.

Drawing from his experience as a former Senior Advisor to the U.S. Department of State and in Minnesota state government, Hamse Warfa, a current Open Society Foundations Leadership in Government Fellow and SNF Agora Visiting Fellow, is working at the intersection of these critical issues by working with cities across the country to strengthen democracy.

Click here to register.

March 28, 2024

Conversation featuring Roberto Torres with the Institute for Local Government will join Cody Hooven and Rita de la Fuente from Evolution Affairs to provide an overview of effective tools to engage communities most impacted by climate change. Learn about best practices to make climate action more community-driven and democratic, through a case study on San Diego's pioneering Climate Equity Index.

February, 28, 2024

Featuring special guest Liz Barry, COO & Head of Partnerships at The Computational Democracy Project, we’ll deep dive into Pol.is, an open-source online conversation platform maintained by CompDem that is hosted for free for nonprofits and governments.

Learn about the real-time system for gathering, analyzing, and understanding the collective thoughts of large groups of people facilitated by advanced statistics and machine learning.

Take a scroll through our past conversations…

November 29, 2023

This conversation will feature Lyana Cuadrado, Stephanie Reid and Gabriela Raczka from the City of Philadelphia, as well as Cleo Hirsch, who led Wes Moore’s gubernatorial transition and is a Senior Fellow to the Effective Government Transitions Project, and Sam Novey of the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement (CDCE).

October 17, 2023

Featuring Michael Baskin, Chief Innovation Officer for Montgomery County, MD to discuss how design thinking can be an effective tool to empower local governments in identifying and pursuing opportunities for innovation at all levels.

September 27, 2023

Conversation featuring two dynamic presenters working closely to advance youth engagement everyday. Allyson Cook, Chief Programs Officer, Generation Citizen, a national civic education organization and Taylor Moody, Special Projects Manager for the City of Dallas, TX leading exciting work with the Dallas Youth Commission.

August 24, 2023

Conversation focused on voter engagement and local government's role. Featuring guest speakers Claire Woodall-Vogg of the Milwaukee Election Commission and Walter Ley of Branch, an organization that provides voter education and awareness.

July 25, 2023

Featuring three dynamic guest speakers for this session, discussing strategies they’ve undertaken to promote effective civic engagement, as well as specific language to use to motivate residents to particiate:

Aarati Cohly, Chief of Staff to the Chief Engagement Officer of the City of New York; and Yazmany Arboleda, NYC's inaugural People's Artist at the Civic Engagement Commission; and Amy McIsaac, Managing Director for Learning and Experimentation at PACE (Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement)

Thursday, June 22, 2023

Featuring Katie Harbath, a global leader at the intersection of elections, democracy, and technology, who spent ten years at Facebook as director of public policy.

2024 Democracy Conversations!