Philadelphia Zoning Reform Commission, Common Ground Project, 2010-11 |
WHYY Public Media, NewsWorks.org launch, 2010 |
Laurel Hill and West Laurel Hill Cemeteries, 2018 |
Great Expectations: Citizens Agenda for Philadelphia, 2007 city elections |
A Civic Vision for the Delaware Riverfront, for Penn Praxis, 2006-2007 |
Philadelphia Inquirer, suburban zoning strategy, 2004 |
Charrette on public school design, Franklin Principles project, 2004
Join PPCE
By offering the following products, the PA Project for Civic Engagement (PPCE) works with your organization and stakeholders to create a space of dialogue across differences.
For more information, contact Linda Breitstein at ppce@seventy.org or 215-557-3600.
Products
Strategic Visioning
An array of techniques to help an organization invite and capture the distilled expertise of internal and external stakeholders. Used to inform a new direction or the launch of a program or product.
Can We Talk?
A dialogue process to help a diverse group of people hold a productive dialogue across differences of belief, position or partisan allegiance.
University of Pennsylvania-Cairn University. dialogues, 2017-18 |
Southeast Delaware County Interfaith Council dialogues, 2018 |
PEN America student dialogue, New York University, 2018 |
Constructive Conversations Initiative, Jewish Community Relations Council of Philadelphia, 2018-19
The Budget Game
A novel, gamified format that enables a broad cross-section of the public to offer useful, actionable input to leaders who face difficult budgetary choices.
Tight Times, Tough Choices: City Budget Workshops, 2009 |
Upper Darby School District, 2015 |
Rose Tree Media, 2017
Community Input
An array of techniques to help an agency, nonprofit or business operating in the public sphere to gain granular qualitative insights into what a given community thinks about its brand, its services or a specific proposal.
Merriam Theatre Revived, community forums, 2018 |
Bicycle Coalition, community forum on bikes and gentrification, 2018 |
Listening Tour, new Philadelphia School Board, 2018 |
Ready for Next Time?, community forums on Jersey Shore post-Sandy, 2013 |
Smoke Signals, community forum on tobacco ban/taxes for Phila. Health Dept., 2010 |
City that Works, input into a city of Philadelphia 311 system, 2008 |
Kimmel Center Redesign, community forums, 2007 |
Great Expectations, 2007 |
Civic Vision for the Delaware, 2006-07 |
The Franklin Principles, advising Philadelphia school system on new school design, 2004
Crisis Intervention
Rapid deployment to help a community in the midst of a fast-developing controversy to hold a productive, clarifying conversation among multiple stakeholders.
Unionville-Chadds Ford School District, school mascot controversy, 2018
The Un-forum
A unique event design that breaks away from the stale panel/Q&A format and allows your audience to a fresher, deeper, more interactive experience. (We also offer versions aimed at fostering a more informative candidate or election forum.)
Various WHYY events, 2011-2015 |
Philadelphia Strategic Impact Collaborative, workshops, 2016-17
Election Dialogues
Events designed to help voters name, frame and discuss the issues they would like the election to be about. Candidate forums where voters get to ask questions that grow out of that voter-driven deliberative process.
Philadelphia city elections, for WHYY, 2015 |
Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, for WHYY, 2014 |
Philadelphia city council elections, for WHYY, 2011 |
Philadelphia city elections, mayor and council, for the Philadelphia Inquirer, 2007 |
Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, for the Philadelphia Inquirer, 2004 |
Philadelphia mayoral election, for the Philadelphia Inquirer, 1999 |
New Jersey gubernatorial election, for the Philadelphia Inquirer, 1997 |
Congressional mid-terms, for the Philadelphia Inquirer, 1996
Meet the PPCE Team
Chris Satullo
Chris Satullo is co-director and co-founder of PPCE. He is a consultant on media and civic engagement, doing business as Keystone Civic Ventures LLC. He serves as a consultant to the Committee of Seventy, running the Draw the Lines PA initiative and hosting and executive producing its 20 by 70 and Draw the Lines podcasts. Previously, he was vice president for news and civic dialogue at WHYY public media in Philadelphia, where he started the NewsWorks.org website and radio programs such as the Pulse and NewsWorks Tonight. Before WHYY, he worked nearly 20 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he served as editorial page editor and a columnist, among various positions. He founded the paper's Citizen Voices program of civic dialogues on public issues. He has won more than 60 awards for columns, editorials, reporting and civic engagement. He is a graduate of Williams College and a Fulbright Fellow.
Harris Sokoloff
Dr. Harris Sokoloff is co-director and co-founder of PPCE. He runs the Center for School Study Councils, a professional development program for school administrators at the Graduate School of Education of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as GSE's Community Catalyst Conversations program. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Temple University, a M.Ed. from Temple and a Ph.D. in education from Syracuse University. With his PPCE role, he has designed and implemented community engagement projects locally, nationally and internationally. The PPCE sponsors the Civic Engagement Institute, a summer institute at Penn GSE that focuses on teaching the theory and practice of deliberative democracy. He has worked on national initiatives such as the National Summit on School Design for the American Architecture Foundation, and international ones such as the Best in Class project for the Energy Regulator of the province of Alberta, Canada.
Linda Breitstein
Linda Breitstein is project manager and outreach coordinator for the PA Project for Civic Engagement. In that role, Breitstein brings her expertise in community outreach to engage a wide range of stakeholders - from parents in beleaguered school districts, to taxpayers in financially strapped municipalities. Her success at building connections with disenfranchised or disaffected groups by bringing them to the table when they might just as easily have walked away, has been a key part of PPCE’s success at turning civic dialogue into innovative action plans. She also serves as Eastern region coordinator for the Draw the Lines PA project
Prior to joining PPCE in 2008, she worked as public relations director for WSBK-TV in Boston and media consultant to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She also has worked as an editorial assistant for CBS’s “60 Minutes” in Paris and as a special-education teacher in Israel.
Germaine Ingram
Germaine Ingram is a consulting associate for the PA Project for Civic Engagement. She is also a performance artist, choreographer, songwriter, vocal/dance improviser, and cultural strategist. Through choreography, music composition, performance, writing, production, oral history, and designing and leading artist learning environments, she explores themes tied to history, collective memory, and social justice. Current projects include excavation of the evolution of Yoruba-rooted performative practice in Philadelphia from the mid-20th Century to the present; an exploration of social/cultural environmental factors that produced an “inspired circle” of jazz innovators in North Philadelphia in the 1950s to 70s; and helping build a global infrastructure for the field of art, culture, and conflict transformation. Before pursuing an arts practice full-time, she had a 30-year career in the law as a litigator, law professor, and general counsel for a big-city school district. She serves on philanthropic and nonprofit boards dedicated to arts and arts for social change, including the Leeway Foundation, the Picasso Project of PA Citizens for Children & Youth, ArsNova Workshop.
