Democratic practices extend beyond the ballot box. How can your student organizations, teams, and groups more fully engage with democracy?
single column table defining democratic practices
What do we mean by democratic practices?
Sharing power and responsibility equitably with others, recognizing that all people have knowledge and capacities to contribute to processes affecting them and their communities
With input from students in Civic & Community Engagement programs and organizations, we've created a list of 20 democratic practices you can incorporate into groups, organizations, and communities you're a part of at William & Mary.
one column table of democratic practices
Transparent Communication and Accessible Information
Ensure that processes, policies, records, and communication live in shared documents accessible to everyone
Use collaborative technology to create agendas for meetings that are accessible to all in advance of meetings; invite all to contribute to the agenda
Publicly share minutes and decisions made during a meeting as well as other documents
Create GroupMes or shared chats with everyone in the group on it, not just a few
Make executive board meetings open to all
Inclusive Input Processes
Invite all members to contribute feedback
Offer anonymous feedback processes
Facilitate judgement-free group brainstorming sessions
Seek feedback and ideas from individuals outside of the organization who have a shared interest (e.g. community partners, advisors, peers)
Expand opportunities for members to make choices (e.g. t-shirt design, schedule of events, focus for the semester)
Respond to and integrate feedback; tell everyone how their input is being used
Create a group agreement, discussing and explicitly naming how the group functions, ranging from how to manage conflict to how we foster connection with each other
Intentional Decision Making
Build in time for discussion after a proposal as well as a practice to engage everyone
Introduce a decision a week before it needs to be made
Ask, “are we at a point to make a decision?” rather than silently assuming everyone’s on board
Integrate different modes of decision making, such as voting, consensus, and deliberation
Collective Contributions
Begin meetings with a round-robin question that everyone is encouraged to respond to
Incorporate practices into your organization in which everyone contributes like a potluck or shared photo album
Take turns with roles and processes like facilitating, driving vans, etc.
Notice when someone disengages from a conversation or process and actively reach out to reengage them
Interested in having your group be better informed about voting this election season? We've got a page for that too: Voter Engagement.
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