Taylor Willingham Legacy Fund

  • Taylor Willingham Legacy Fund
  • Taylor Willingham Legacy Fund
  • Taylor Willingham Legacy Fund
  • Taylor Willingham Legacy Fund

Grants are provided to individuals to enable them to develop an understanding of deliberative democracy and launch one or more deliberative dialogues in their communities and organizations in order to advance NIFI’s overall mission, which is to promote public deliberation about national issues and to coordinate the activities of the National Issues Forums network. Grants will be awarded and the Fund will be administered in accordance with the Grant guidelines which precede this application.

Taylor L. Willingham (1957-2011) was a pioneer in the public engagement field, and in National Issues Forums (NIF) work, including her service as a National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI) director. During her career Taylor designed, organized, and led numerous public engagement projects; taught university courses online; founded Texas Forums, along with her work with the LBJ Presidential Library; worked in the adult literacy field, and with the American Library Association; and wrote about public engagement, just to name a few of her many accomplishments.


Elizabeth “Libby” Kingseed Teaching with Deliberation Memorial Award

The Elizabeth “Libby” Kingseed Teaching with Deliberation Memorial Award recognizes the commitment that she had to civic education, especially her support of teacher networking, experimentation, and reflection on the use of deliberation in the classroom. 

This award is open to any K-12 teacher who is inspired to implement deliberation or deliberative pedagogy in the classroom and who is new to using the practices. The teacher should have a demonstrated commitment to fostering the civic development of students, though it is not necessary that they be a civics or social studies teacher. All K-12 teachers are encouraged to apply.