Report by Claudia Chwalisz and Sammy McKinney: “Citizens’ assemblies and other democratic innovations are spreading around the world. But they do not spread by themselves. Behind every successful scaling story sits a constellation of organisations doing the essential, often invisible work of building capacity, establishing networks, advocating with decision makers, and ensuring quality standards.
These are what we call scaling catalysts: organisations that intentionally drive the expansion of democratic innovations in their regions.
In this paper, we make three core contributions to the field:
1. We distil six features of effective scaling catalyst organisations, aiming to elevate the important role they play.
2. We examine critical tensions and trade-offs these organisations face, and how they can navigate these.
3. We identify five frontiers of future practice that can further accelerate the scaling of democratic innovations and promote more deliberative cultures beyond the work of individual catalyst organisations.
This paper is for three key audiences: We offer insights for practitioners building similar organisations, for funders seeking to support this vital work, and for researchers identifying knowledge gaps…(More)”
