Lessons from the Oregon Model: How Are Collaborative Conflict Resolution Models Used Strategically to Meet the Needs of State Government?
Since 2013, Akordi has been working closely with the National Policy Consensus Center (NPCC), which serves Oregon’s government, businesses, and civil society. The Oregon model is an interesting, well-established state-level approach in which the government actively and proactively seeks solutions to issues such as natural resource conflicts, with the assistance of a professional facilitator party. The center receives approximately 20% of its operating expenses from the state budget, with the remainder coming from project funding.
Collaboration between Akordi and the NPCC has included, among other things, regular visits between the United States and Finland. Last week, we were joined by Kristen Wright (Interim Director of Training and Academic Services & Project Manager of the Oregon Solutions program, NPCC), who contributed to the panel discussion during our second Environmental Mediation Afternoon by sharing insights from her work at the NPCC and perspectives from Oregon, where collaborative conflict resolution models are strategically utilized to meet the needs of state government. You can read more about the event and watch the recording here.
The Oregon model and NPCC’s work generated a lot of interest at the event, so we’ve compiled some additional resources below that we recommend anyone interested in the topic check out!
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During the NPPC’s previous visit to Finland in 2024, a training session open to the public was held, along with a lecture titled “A New Role for Political Decision-Makers: Elected Officials as Conveners – The Oregon Model,” which you can read more about and watch a recording of here.
At our event last week, Kristen and Lasse mentioned the Oregon forest wars; the long journey toward partnership linked to the various stages of those conflicts was the topic of an Akordi webinar in 2020, which you can read more about and watch the recording of here. The link also leads to the podcast series mentioned during the discussion.
In 2015, the Institute for Deliberative Democracy organized a research and development day on “The Open and Crowdsourced City,” where Laurel Singer introduced the Oregon model in her presentation titled “Building a Public System for Collaborative Problem Solving: Lessons Learned from Oregon.” You can read more about the event here, and watch recordings of all the morning presentations here and the afternoon presentations here.
In addition, the Oregon model has been discussed previously in Finnish in the following articles, among others:
- In Oregon, the State Adopted Mediation as a Tool for Problem Solving (2020)
- The Oregon Model – “The Role of Government Is Not to Implement Policy Agendas but to Solve Problems” (2019)
- At the heart of the Oregon model is an understanding of interdependence (2019)
- Flagship projects, Oregon-style (2015)
You can read more in English here:
