Thanks to our most recent donors, we only need $700 more to reach our goal. Please join them in this final push to raise the $10,000 needed to update our curriculum. We are grateful for the support! This is our biggest update yet and we need extra resources to do it right. The new trainings [...]

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The community design world is going through a major change. Budgets are smaller, agency staff are being called upon to do more and high-tech tools are making it possible for people to connect and collaborate in new ways. In response, NCI is working on changes to our curriculum that will offer a broader range of [...]

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As a curriculum supporter you will get free access to a webinar on this content of the update including high-tech public participation tools, conflict resolution and approaches to shrinking budgets when you help support our major NCI curriculum Update. This is our biggest curriculum update in 6 years. We are revising our trainings to include [...]

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NCI is offering a 25% discount on in-house NCI Certificate Trainings for the week of December 5-9. This slot opened up unexpectedly so we are offering this last minute deal. The sale applies to both the 3-day NCI Charrette System™ and the advanced 1.5-day NCI Charrette Management and Facilitation™ Certificate Trainings. This is a one [...]

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NCI is about to undertake a significant curriculum upgrade. Our new courses will include hands-on learning in high-tech tools for distance participation and meeting facilitation including the use of touch-tables and keypad polling. We will also add a module on tools for pre-charrette conflict resolution/consensus building as well as a regional scenario planning case study. [...]

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Free Technical Assistance Available from NCI and Other Organizations NCI is a technical assistance provider working through a grant to the Project for Public Spaces from US EPA’s Office of Sustainable Communities under their Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities Program. This grant makes it possible for us and our partners at the newly formed coalition, [...]

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We’re excited to announce that NCI is a member of the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) team that has received a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency to provide technical assistance to communities seeking to implement sustainable and smart growth development and programs. Through this program NCI will be available to provide free technical [...]

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I just returned from a week-long charrette in the village of Al Aqaba in the Palestine West Bank to design new houses for very poor, displaced, and infirm families, some living as multiple families in a small home, and to develop a Village Plan for its long term growth from a tiny hamlet subject to [...]

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We will charrette debrief this afternoon, sequestered in a delightful old Danish House (DHIP) that a young Danish/US/Palestinian couple operate with their two children. I took an early morning run along a ridge line, partly lined with ostentatious homes that must belong to the wealthier Ramallahians. I found what could almost pass for park – [...]

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Day Seven (Friday) The charrette ended last night except for a final presentation of the Village Plan to the mayor and remaining team; the sensitive nature of planning in a militarily controlled area subject to be demolished, which, of course he really liked but would like control of the land even better. We included, besides [...]

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