Carolyn Lukensmeyer

Dr. Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer, Ph.D., is a leader in the field of deliberative democracy, a public servant and social entrepreneur. She currently leads The National Institute for Civil Discourse. In 1995, she founded AmericaSpeaks, a non-partisan non-profit organization that strengthens citizen voice in decision making. Carolyn was Chief of Staff to Governor Celeste of Ohio from 1986 to 1991. She was Consultant to the White House Chief of Staff for nine months during the Clinton years.

Lukensmeyer was born on May 13, 1945 in Hampton, Iowa. Lukensmeyer grew up in a four generation family and they instilled in her a strong sense of values, including: a strong ethos of fairness and justice, outrage over injustice, and a belief in standing up for the underdog. From a very young age, Lukensmeyer was interested in learning how systems work. She wanted to know who makes the decisions, who holds the power, and how to keep expanding it.

Dr. Lukensmeyer was the President and Founder of AmericaSpeaks from 1995–2012, a national non-profit whose mission was to link citizen voice with the governance of the nation and to influence leaders in the nation's capital. After the election of 1994—which was known as the “angry white men” election year—Lukensmeyer was disappointed that women didn’t turn out in the same numbers that they did in 1992. Because only 13,000 total votes changed the majority in Congress in 1994, Lukensmeyer realized that the failure of the system was not because of partisan issues. The system failed because of engagement issues. Lukensmeyer was inspired to organize AmericaSpeaks. AmericaSpeaks works to identify and create new governance mechanisms and to design citizen engagement processes that combine face-to-face deliberation and electronic technology in order to support democracy. AmericaSpeaks projects have engaged over 200,000 people in over 50 21st Century Town Hall Meetings in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. AmericaSpeaks brings citizens together to deliberate about critical policy issues. The conclusions from these meetings are then brought to decision-makers so that citizen input can directly influence policy.

From December 1999 to July 2000, Lukensmeyer served as the interim Executive Director of Washington DC Mayor Anthony Williams' initiative to engage residents in the public policy process. Lukensmeyer coordinated a strategic planning process with an expansive citizen engagement initiative. Neighborhood Action culminated in an all-day Citizen Summit in November 1999. Three thousand citizens developed shared priorities for the District and their conclusions were directly reflected in the city's Fiscal Year 2001 budget and strategic plan. Neighborhood Action received the project of the year award from the International Association for Public Participation and also a Best Practice Award by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

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