Steps to prepare for Large-Group Intervention (LGI)

Mass participatory democratic fashion as of “Listening to the City” project is one of the largest of large-group intervention of its kind with over 5,000 participants. Hence, it needs extraordinary logistical demands (ARL, 2002), a huge pool of staff to organize the event and advanced technology to facilitate the process. In order to organize a successful enormous group meeting, a competent design team composed of different stakeholders is essential. The logistical needs were so extraordinary considering running a system of 5,000 participants, seated at 500 tables (10-12 at each table with a facilitator) all in the same hall (ARL, 2002).

The organizer America Speaks was enlisted by the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York and sponsored by Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. America Speaks, a nationally well-known non-profit organization in facilitating large-group meetings, sought and received support from several hundreds of volunteers to work as facilitators, “theme team”, and other supporting roles in preparation to the group meeting. In the hope of helping the city heal and recover, the facilitators came from each of the 50 states of the United States as well as far-away countries like Australia, South Africa, and Afghanistan (the Civic Alliance, 2002).

According to Waddell, Creed, Cummings & Worely (2014), there are generally three steps to conduct a large-group intervention – preparing for the large-group intervention, conducting the meeting, and follow-up on the meeting results. In brief, large-group intervention process includes:

(1) Preparing for the large-group meeting

(a) Require a compelling meeting theme

(b) Appropriate members to participate

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