About

A NH Listens event taking place at Huddleston Hall.

NH Listens log of woman holding sign.

We design facilitative practices with state and local partners to achieve equitable decision making.

NH Listens is a community engagement initiative of the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. We are committed to being fair-minded in our mission of creating and sustaining an inclusive process for public engagement. We partner with public officials, organizations, and leaders in all sectors to build relationships, talk about difficult subjects, build coalitions, and gather broad input that can lead to improved practice and policy. Read our mission statement.

Since 2010, we worked at the local and state level to support respectful conversations of complex issues affecting New Hampshire residents' everyday lives. Our work supports community-led action and change.

We believe engaging all voices in a community can have transformative effects:

  • Increasing effectiveness of decisions that get made

  • Adding legitimacy to the work of public leaders

  • Increasing equity as more voices are included

New Hampshire Listens is a proud anchor partner with Everyday Democracy, a national organization supporting everyday people working to strengthen local democracies through dialogue, engagement, and action with a racial equity lens. NH Listens has been an anchor partner with Everyday Democracy since 2015.