The Consensus Council, Inc.

History, Mission, and Values

Services

Convening and Inter-meeting Diplomacy

Organization and Logistics

Consensus Council Model

The Consensus Council provides a variety of services to support building public policy agreements from assessing the issues at the beginning to implementing, evaluating and presenting the agreement at the end.

Custom - Design: Council facilitators help to custom-design an appropriate consensus building process for the specific situation. Through this discussion of history and present dynamics, recommendations are given to participants to evaluate how they wish to proceed.

Convening and Inter-meeting Diplomacy: Council facilitators work to bring all affected parties to the table and to ensure their participation throughout the process. Inter-meeting diplomacy is also provided to further identify issues, prepare for relevant deadlines, provide liaison services and relationship building.

Organization and Logistics: Council facilitators work to ensure all parties are informed well in advance of upcoming meetings and events, they also provide logistical services such as preparing meeting rooms, preparing speakers and ordering meals.

Facilitation: Council facilitators keep the discussion comfortable for dialogue among all participants, yet focused on the issue at hand. Additional meeting facilitation services including fact finding, drafting documents to begin productive discussions, and working to establish the ground rules.

Documentation: Council facilitators provide expert documentation for the development of agreements. Examples of documentation include meeting summaries and tools for legislative, executive, judicial, and private-sector consideration and implementation.

Implementation: Council facilitators work to ensure that when an agreement is built, it is clearly understood who does what by when. Practical vehicles for implementation may include products such as legislation, documents, rules, projects or other tools.

Four Essential Ingredients to Successful Implementation (Adapted from www.policyconsensus.org)
1.	Horizontal Commitment: Everyone who is responsible makes a joint commitment to action.
2.	Clear Assignments: Answers to the test, "who does what by when."
3.	Early Success and Celebration: Do something, then celebrate. Do something, then celebrate again! Immediately achievable action steps create positive momentum that influences people to stay engaged.
4.	Public Attention: For example, a public agreement signing event gives visibility to an achievement for which all parties can take credit together.

Program Evaluation: Council facilitators can assist an organization in evaluating a current program, in monitoring for progress and creating suggestions for existing institutions, services or structures.

Presentations: Council facilitators can prepare participants for presentations including preparing documents and providing support when speaking. This support is throughout the consensus process and when participants present the agreement to outside groups.

The Consensus Council, Inc.
1003 E. Interstate Avenue, Suite 7
Bismarck, North Dakota 58503-0500
Phone: 701-224-0588
Fax: 701-224-0787
info@agree.org