tension , allowed participants to get to know each other better , and helped people see how our policy opinions are often based on our personal experiences . This initial conversation also established a level of trust within the group .
4- Using a written guide to help structure the sessions proved beneficial . Groups tended to be more effective when they followed a guide that provided discussion questions , background information on the issue , and suggestions for managing the sessions . Some of the guides also presented viewpoints that mirrored the main arguments being made about race ; these views were intended to present a sampling of the ideological spectrum , so that participants could analyze different ideas and options and relate them to their own experiences . These guides were sometimes written by local organizers but more frequently supplied by national organizations specializing in race dialogues or public deliberation .
None of these techniques for successful small-group discussions were entirely new . They had been used , in one combination or another , by dialogue efforts and organizations well before the 1990s ; in fact , they can be traced back to the civil rights movement fifty years ago , the Chautauqua adult education methodology of a century ago , and other precedents in other eras . And just as some organizers were employing these techniques to address race , other leaders were using them on other issues . But the dynamics of race as an issue , along with the sheer scale of public engagement on race in the 1990s , meant that these tactics were reinforced and disseminated more than ever before ; they set the template for public engagement at the beginning of the 21 st Century . How we learned to move from talk to action , on race and other issues There was another key realization that emerged from this work : holding a few small-group dialogues would not be enough . In order to make sufficient progress on any of these issues , it was clear that large numbers of people , and many different kinds of people , had to be participating in the discussions . The best way to fight racism , boost volunteerism , or develop trust between citizens and government was to involve a critical mass of citizens in the effort . Local organizers also learned that no single group or organization would be able to recruit the large numbers and different kinds of people that would make the project credible . Outreach through the media or by public officials would help to legitimize the effort , but citizens would be much more likely to participate if they were approached by someone they already knew . The only way to accomplish this kind of largescale , one-on-one recruitment was to reach out to all kinds of community organizations — businesses , churches , neighborhood associations , clubs , and other kinds of groups — and ask the leaders of those organizations to recruit their own members . Together with the small-group discussion techniques , these recruitment tactics became key ingredients of public engagement . Organizations with missions that focused explicitly on race , such as the National Conference for Community and Justice , the YWCA of the USA , and state and national associations of human rights workers , began to popularize and promote these strategies , as did civic groups like the Study Circles Resource
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