Comparative Domestic Policy Program

Policy Brief
April 15, 2010

Summary: On both sides of the From Confrontation to Cooperation: Citizen Engagement

Atlantic, local jurisdictions have
increasingly sought to engage
the public through collaborative
processes in the making and
implementing of controversial poli-
cies. For European communities,
where the processes of consensus-
building and deliberative democracy
are relatively new, the American
experience provides some lessons.
As a CDP fellow, Iolanda Romano
spent four months asking American
mediators and facilitators how they
face the challenges of participa-
tory processes, with a particular
focus on how their practices and
outcomes relate to and influence
decision making processes in
public policies. She also observed
a number of public events that
utilized these practices. In this
brief, she describes the result of
that effort and then puts forth a
number of recommendations for
her fellow mediators as well as for
policymakers seeking to effectively
engage the public.
and Consensus Building in Public Policies
Lessons from the U.S. for Italy and Europe
by Iolanda Romano1
Introduction
A few years ago, in Italy’s Piedmont region,
a collaborative process was held to choose a
location for a solid waste incinerator within
the Province of Torino, a large region of
more than fifty municipalities.2 After one
and a half years of participatory processes,
the process itself was deemed a success, as
the entire 45-member advisory committee
unanimously agreed on the ranking of the
proposed sites. A common, shared solution
was at hand and it was ready for imple-
mentation. However, in the meantime, the
governmental agencies involved changed
their decision-making process and their
priorities on where to put the unpopular
incinerator, and had instead adopted a
different scenario on where to build it. This
meant that the former vice president of the
Province of Torino, who had pushed for
and publicly supported the 18-month long
participatory process, could no longer guar-
antee the implementation of the commit-
tee’s solution. Because of this change, he
suffered a big drop in credibility which did
lasting damaging to his reputation and
dissolved his store of political capital.
During my four-month long fellowship at
the German Marshall Fund, I focused my
research on how mediators face the peculiar
challenges of participatory processes in the
United States, particularly with regard to
controversial policy issues.3 In conducting
interviews with American mediators, I
highlighted this case as an example, trying
to understand what might have been done
to avoid this failure.
The lessons gleaned from this research can
be summarized by one of veteran mediator
Larry Susskind’s4 adages: “the reasons for
failure are always in the beginning of a
process.” Most of the time, agreements
negotiated through mediation aren’t imple-
mented because not enough care was taken
in designing the process, including selec-
tion of participants and joint development
of the group’s mandate, to ensure that a

1
Iolanda Romano Ph.D. is president and chief executive officer of Avventura Urbana, a company based in Torino, Italy that focuses
on public engagement and cross-sector collaborative processes on urban planning, environment, social policies, and related issues.
As a fellow of the German Marshall Fund’s (GMF) Comparative Domestic Policy Program, Dr. Romano spent four months exploring
how mediators and facilitators face the challenges of participatory processes in the United States, particularly on controversial
issues, with a focus on how these practices and outcomes relate to and influence decision-making processes in the public policy
arena. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of GMF.
2
Luigi Bobbio and Avventura Urbana, “Non Rifiutarti di Scegliere,” (“Don’t Refuse to Choose”) Participative process to site the waste
incinerator and landfill in the province of Torino.
1744 R Street NW 3
I would like to thank all my interviewees, 50 very smart practitioners in the Washington, DC area, as well as in California, Colorado,
Washington, DC 20009 and Massachusetts that have given me their precious time to help me understand how they face their challenges. A particular
T 1 202 683 2650 thanks to the person who has helped me most in shaping this research, who has turned out to be a key factor and a “lightening
interlocutor,” Prof. John Forester, from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
F 1 202 265 1662 4
Larry Susskind is the founder of the Consensus Building Institute and one of the most respected experts on consensus-building and
E info@gmfus.org mediation worldwide.
Comparative Domestic Policy Program
Policy Brief
solution will be enacted by the public agencies. Unfortunately, there
is not a simple and linear solution to this problem, but some of the
lessons learned from the American experience offer an enhanced
toolbox of techniques that could be adapted to the Italian context
and which, had they been employed, may have made a difference in
the case cited above as well as other similar scenarios.
Collaborative processes: A possible definition
There is no unanimous definition for the term “collaborative
process.” Instead, there is a broad range of processes which fall
under various headings, but in general, these processes have in
common 1) a complex and often controversial public issue; 2)
a decision-making process organized in a way in which all the
interests affected by the decision are represented; and 3) a struc-
ture designed to generate a commonly agreed-upon solution to
the problem through extended collaboration.
The town hall meetings on health care reform, held throughout
the United States during the summer of 2009, provide a clear
example of what cannot be defined as a collaborative process.
These meetings addressed a very complex issue of great impor-
tance to many people. The meetings were structured in a way
that encouraged argument and polarization instead of facili-
tating civil and constructive dialogue, and generally limited
people’s participation to just a “one shot” event instead of
engaging them in a process with a broader perspective over time.
Collaborative process techniques generally range across a spec-
trum: at one end, are processes aimed at creating a neutral space
for better interaction on a difficult public issue, by using tools
that allow deliberation among participants.5 At the other end
of the spectrum are those practices specifically aimed at solving
a problem through a mediated approach. Here, collaborative
processes have the goal of building consensus among opposing
parties in order to come to a common solution, by using an
alternative approach to dispute resolution than the traditional
litigation or lawsuit.
Lessons learned
Practitioners and policy makers in Italy (and indeed, in Europe
generally) use deliberative democracy in local policymakers in
much the same way as their peers in the United States, with the
same goals and to tackle the same challenges. More and more
governmental agencies at all levels feel that they can achieve better
5
The term “deliberation” means a decision-making process which develops through discussion.
policy results if policies are designed after a consultative process
designed to gain advice, input, and critical observations from a
variety of interest groups potentially affected by the decision.
In most cases, the efforts undertaken are aimed at improving the
decision-making process, but most do not get to influence the
implementation with their outcomes: no commitment is made
at the beginning of the consultative process as to how the result
of a dialogue might affect the policy makers’ final decision and its
implementation. Consequently, in both the United States and Italy,
this lack of accountability vis-à-vis the policy creates frustration
among both participants and practitioners.
Despite these similarities between the countries, public consensus
building is an area in which Italy, which still lacks a culture of
consensus building in governmental structures, has much to learn
from the United States. The American practice of public mediation
rests on a strong theoretical background and a sound educational
and training system. Public mediation practices rely on a juridical
and legislative base which provides governmental bodies, like
federal, state, or municipal agencies, with the structural framework
needed to make the application of collaborative practices possible
and their outcomes binding. American governmental agencies use
a variety of processes which offer a wide spectrum of applications
and potential that would be unimaginable in Italy at the present
time.
The main challenges in designing an effective collaborative process
are linked with three main conditions. First, design a process that
is truly representative and inclusive of all points of view. Second,
design a collaborative work process within the group to manage
the adversarial attitude of the people around the table and create
and hold a space for open constructive dialogue. And third, design
the processes so that they produce sustainable outcomes.
Lesson #1: Set Good Conditions to Start With
The first lesson is that there is no better way to address the
problem of achieving a sustainable outcome than focusing on
the process design from the outset. It is important to define in
advance, as much as possible, all aspects and conditions of the
collaborative process in order to troubleshoot potential pitfalls
that might arise both during and after the process is completed.
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Comparative Domestic Policy Program
Policy Brief
To Achieve Sustainable Outcomes, Get Clarity of Intentions
While inclusion of as many perspectives as possible can be critical
to a successful collaborative process, the U.S. experience in media-
tion has shown that a basic condition for success is “selecting the
stakeholder participants on the basis of their willingness to find
a solution to the problem.”6 On every policy issue, the stake-
holders are going to array along a spectrum with a center, which
represents those with a “centripetal pull” toward the search for
common ground, and the fringes, which represent those with a
“centrifugal pull” in all other directions, generally away from a
common solution. The fringes tend to have very little interest in
discussion and don’t believe that a common solution is even a
remote possibility. Where mediators can be effective is in creating
a “political center” on the issue at hand and to create the opposite
centripetal politics by choosing stakeholders who can “withstand
the pull from the end of the spectrum.”
To Achieve Sustainable Outcomes, Build Support around
the Process Itself
As to what a mediator can do to reinforce the outcome’s long-
term sustainability, mediation expert Frank Blechman7 calls for
a focus on soliciting “feed-forward” (rather than “feedback”), in
order to build overall political support for the process. That is,
mediators must confront head-on all “behind-the-scenes” conver-
sations which accompany every process focused on an important
public policy challenge, either at its very beginning or throughout
the course of the process. In doing so, mediators must try to link
these disparate views actively into the process, by creating a clear
and direct connection between the participants in the deliberative
process and those who have a vested interest and an institutional
commitment to the same issue.
One typical tactic is the choice to allow a representative of these
institutions to have a seat in the stakeholders group, as mediator
Susan Podziba8 did with the Chelsea (Massachusetts) Charter
project. When she formed the advisory committee tasked with
writing a new city charter for Chelsea, a city of 40,000 north of
Boston, after years of corruption and receivership, she suggested
that it should have three seats reserved for members of the
municipal council. A wise decision, as many of the attempts to
6
Quote from Peter Adler, President of the Keystone Center, a leading American organization
engaged in public mediation.
7
Frank Blechman, an experienced mediator in the Washington, DC area, formerly directed the
George Mason University Institute of Conflict Analysis.
8
Susan Podziba is a mediator with significant experience in regulatory negotiation in
Massachusetts and at the federal level.
disrupt the deliberative charter process during its course came
from within the city council itself. And the response was that, after
every attack, a group of five committee members would attend
municipal council sessions to defend the process, and it worked.
If You Want Sustainable Outcomes, Set Feasible Goals
In conducting a conflict assessment, mediators generally ask the
people who are deeply familiar with the problem, or who have
a stake in it, what specifically the deliberative process should
address. The scope of the process is something with which all
important stakeholders must agree, but this is not an easy goal to
reach, as an example cited by mediator Juliana Birkhoff9 illustrates.
In this example, a Canadian province brought in Birkhoff to guide
them in developing a Forest Management Plan. In the early stages
of the process, Birkhoff investigated the possibility for a consensus
building process, but quickly realized that it would not be possible
in the current climate. The most extreme environmentalists
refused to sit at the same table with the forestry company repre-
sentatives. So she sought a more feasible alternative, and formed
a smaller group which included the forestry company and those
environmental groups which were willing to participate. They in
turn focused their attention on the conservation area maps which
delineate the lands off-limits to forestry extraction, following
provincial criteria, and discovered that there were large areas of
preservation which contained species which were not particu-
larly endangered, while the most endangered species were in very
small sections of conservation areas. In essence, if their aim was
to conserve the environment over the long-term, they were not
protecting the right pieces of land. The group then began negotia-
tions to make tradeoffs between the forestry company’s property
and the conserved land, and developed new maps with a more
targeted and thus more effective conservation strategy.
Perhaps most importantly, the deliberative process led to much
better relationships between stakeholders.
To Engage Stakeholders, Narrow the Definition of the Problem
In addressing value conflicts, most mediators warn that it is
critical to be especially careful in framing the purpose for the
9
Juliana Birkhoff is senior associate mediator at Resolve (www.resolv.org), an organization based
in Washington, DC engaged in environmental disputes across the United States.
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Comparative Domestic Policy Program
Policy Brief
suggested conversation. Particular attention must be paid to the
high degree of sensitivity of participants with regard to values
which are deeply entrenched in their identities. A straightfor-
ward request to face head-on the value conflicts which divide two
parties can produce a negative reaction. Oftentimes it is more
worthwhile to simply create a space for conflicting parties to get to
know each other and to develop the will to begin a conversation.
When mediator Mike Hughes10 facilitated a dialogue focused on
the very sensitive issue of physician-assisted suicide between pro-
life and pro-choice representatives, at the beginning of the process
he was asked by the parties “to agree on what they would not want
to agree” – this was in fact the very core of the dispute. Once this
was agreed, it was much easier for them to engage in an open and
truthful discussion, because both parties felt that they didn’t have
to deny an important aspect of their values and related identi-
ties. This initial condition helped them to find several other areas
of common ground on which to build the basis for agreed-upon
solutions.
To Engage Stakeholders, Broaden the Definition of the Problem
When a conflict resolution process is stalled, it is most often
because the definition of the problem is too narrow. A frame-
work in which each party always wins at the other party’s expense
generally prohibits anything other than continuous conflict.
Mediator Todd Bryan11 emphasizes helping conflicting parties
to come to agreement on what the problem actually is. Using
the example of a process he led in Boulder, Colorado to find a
suitable location for a homeless shelter, Bryan explained that he
started by asking participants their thoughts on a sentence that
he wrote on a board: “How can we accommodate the home-
less population, while also preserving and maintaining property
values and avoiding an increase in crime?” He asked whether they
thought that that sentence had really captured the problem, or
if they could add other dimensions. For example, were they also
concerned about traffic congestion or losing customers? Partici-
pants contributed by adding other concerns to the sentence on
the board until they thought that it best defined the problem.
By enlarging the vision the stakeholders could then accept the
problem, as reframed, as a common goal.
10
Mike Hughes is Vice President and Director, Center for Science and Public Policy of the Key-
stone Center.
11
Todd Bryan is Senior Associate Mediator at the Keystone Center.
Lesson #2: Understand Who Should Be Involved and How
The second lesson learned from this research is to acknowledge
that every process has different criteria regarding who should be
involved and how; there are many different ways to think about
what may be appropriate in one context and not in another. This
is a step that must be very carefully planned and agreed upon
before the start of the process.
To have an Inclusive Process, Ensure All Voices Are Heard
When there is a wide spectrum of interests and communities
potentially affected by a policy decision, it is very important that
the mediator ensure that all voices with a stake in the issue be
heard and taken into account, beyond the necessarily limited
number of representatives who can have a seat at the stake-
holders’ table. When the number of competing interests exceeds
the number of seats available at the table, many mediators create
different spaces and times in which to solicit the views of all
other representatives, using what seems to be a “creative geom-
etry” of group composition.
In addition to the problem of different levels of knowledge,
skills, or interest in an issue, other obstacles exist which prevent
some from voicing their concerns or opinions. Most recurrent is
the problem of access—psychological, cultural, or physical —to
the deliberative arena. The question of how to involve weak or
disadvantaged groups in a process is commonly faced by
mediators as a challenge, and sometimes as a frustration. This is
most often a matter of capacity-building, as mediator Don
Edwards12 explains. In order to obtain a fair representation of
these interests, without being perceived by other stakeholders
at the table as biased, he works on the subtle line of “coaching.”
That is, Edwards creates a particular vehicle for that voice,
coaching them on how to be at that table and how to work with
their constituencies.
To Ensure a Representative Process, Identify the Right Stakeholders
Whatever the geometry of the process, there is a point in its early
stages when the mediator focuses on selecting which stake-
holders should participate. Most mediators adopt a sophisticated
outreach process which starts with a core group of key stake-
12
Don Edwards is founder and President of Justice and Sustainability, an organization primarily
focused on the creation of collaborative processes that are just and fairly representative of all
interests—with particular regard to disadvantaged stakeholders, such as those living in poor and
deprived neighborhoods.
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Comparative Domestic Policy Program
Policy Brief
holders and then reaches out to a larger number in a “snow ball”
progression.
One approach is based on self-selection: mediators establish
a set of criteria to identify and select candidates, who are then
recruited via a public application process. The choice of criteria
allows mediators to clarify requirements for the group, and by
so doing, to emphasize the “public dimension” of the arguments
that should be used during the discussions.
Another approach is more centered on the role of the intervener,
and relies on his accountability as a “confianza” mediator.13
Mediator Bill Potapchuck14 uses this approach when he needs
to create trust among disenfranchised communities or skeptical
stakeholders. A “confianza” mediator uses very informal negotia-
tion methods through individual contact and interviews until
he can identify a number of people representing a variety of
perspectives- who have developed a mutual trust.
To Ensure a Legitimate Process, Look for Shared Information and
Data
Projects dealing with complex issues commonly require support
from experts who can envision the trade-offs involved in the
various options under discussion. “Joint fact-finding,” a method
employed by mediator Scott McCreary15 among others, is an
effective way to build shared information within the group. The
joint fact-finding method is aimed at “mapping areas of scien-
tific agreement and narrowing areas of disagreement and uncer-
tainty.” Thus it is critical that the experts chosen to support this
delicate phase are widely perceived to be reliable and balanced.
The ways in which experts are selected and appointed is of
crucial importance to the integrity of the work and the account-
ability of results. The self-selection approach to choosing stake-
holders, mentioned above, can also be applied when selecting
experts.
Lesson #3: Prepare the Group on How to Work Together
Effectively
Before even thinking of building a process to seek a solution to
a particular policy challenge, it is of fundamental importance to
13
The term is borrowed from multi-track diplomacy and indicates someone who has the confi-
dence of the people he wants to involve, due to previous experiences or personal connections.
14
Bill Potapchuk is president and founder of the Community Building Institute.
15
Scott McCreary is principal and co-founder of Concur, a company engaged in environmental
dispute mediation in the West Coast.
have built some basic conditions for stakeholders to be able to
work together. In order to create a space of trust, recognition,
and ability to listen to each other, mediators must focus on what
they have in common.
Choosing an Approach: Directive versus “Elicitive” Facilitator
A very important factor in determining the success of group
work is the role of the mediator, which American practitioners
engaged in conflict transformation agree is a very complex task.
Directive mediators, who explicitly direct the group during
the conversation, tend not to be the most effective. It is very
important for participants to feel they own the process and that
they are committed to it. A directive facilitator can push them
too much in situations they are not ready to face, leading to a
boomerang effect. Empowerment of participants and mutual
recognition within the group are two of the most critical factors
in coming to a situation where they learn from each other
instead of fighting. This only happens when participants sense
that they are responsible of the process, not the mediator.
In essence, as many mediators affirm, ninety per cent of media-
tion work happens before the process actually begins, and that
ninety per cent is focused on effective preparation of the group.
During a meeting, mediator Bob Stein16 assumes an elicitive role,
“putting himself in a de-centered position”, limiting himself
to shepherding the group, and responding to their requests
by reflecting, like a mirror, what they are already able to see
(example: “here’s what I see; and here’s what you said your goals
were; what do you want to do about it?”).
To Effect Change, Agree on Ground Rules
Much of what a mediator can accomplish during the process
depends on a set of ‘ground rules’ upon which participants in
the process must agree from the outset.
Agreement on the ground rules which govern how the group
will work together allows the mediator a foundation on which to
build a relationship of trust with the stakeholders. Mediator Lisa
Beutler, before designing the process, asks the people in indi-
vidual conversations or caucuses prior the meeting, what kind
of a process could offer them a chance “to see their interest met”.
16
Bob Steins is Vice-President of the Public Conversation Project, in Watertown, Massachusetts.
17
Meggie Herzig is founding associate of the Public Conversations Project.
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Comparative Domestic Policy Program
Policy Brief
For Meggie Herzig,17 this is an opportunity for the mediator to
clarify with participants which behaviors and approaches would
be acceptable and which would be perceived as damaging to the
process. It is also an effective method for clarifying the group’s
sense of purpose.
Some of the most important ground rules focus on the group’s
interactions. For example, in the Chelsea project, participants
negotiated the rule that decisions would be made on the basis
of full consensus, with the agreement that only if consensus
was not reached would they fall back on a voting mechanism
requiring a majority of eighty per cent. Susan Podziba credits
this decision as one of the key factors for the success of this
particular process. The rule led to more discussion than usual
on each point of contention, because each participant had to
understand how to meet other participants’ needs without drop-
ping their own interests. This ground rule forced participants to
listen very carefully and helped Podziba, as the mediator, to act
as a “midwife” to the process by helping participants to clarify
and solidify their thinking.
To Enable Change, Ask the Right Question
Much of the elicitive role of the mediator develops around the
questions she/he poses to the people participating in a dialogue,
both before and during the meetings.
Mediators must focus on ways to encourage participants to
remain as open-minded as possible toward the issue under
discussion, as well as the other participants in the dialogue.
This focus on broadening participants’ perspectives is used by
mediator Bob Stains in the rehearsal work that he conducts
with participants in advance of the actual dialogue. He asks
them to imagine what they think it will be like to meet with the
other stakeholders—those they consider to be opponents - once
they are “in the room.” Then he guides them to remember - to
call back from their experience - which internal resources they
already have at their disposal to face this situation constructively
(i.e., think of a similar situation which occurred in your past
where you succeeded in reaching across a similar divide. How
did you handle that?)
Another mediator and psychotherapist of the Public Conversa-
tions Project, Sallyann Roth, asks participants to develop a list of
questions that they think would increase understanding among
the group. Participants must formulate the questions without
naming the issue -as it is framed differently by each stakeholder.
When the list is completed, it is distributed to all participants
for review. This process undergoes several more rounds until the
language of the questions is considered appropriate by all. The
result is the foundation on which the mediator can then build a
very structured agenda for the dialogue.
To Enable Change, Search for Common Ground
The various methods described above are aimed at laying the
groundwork for a more productive conversation among partici-
pants in a participative process. That is to say, they occur before
the process even begins. What happens in the “deliberative
arena” has much to do with improvisation and the dynamics
generated by the interaction within the group. Most of the time
the quality of interaction is determined at the outset: in order
to launch a productive discussion, many mediators open the
first meeting with some activity which helps to identify or build
common ground among the people in the room.
One of the most effective tools is storytelling. As mediator Nike
Castarphen puts it after many years of experience in conflict
management, storytelling is a highly effective method for
helping people to “humanize the enemy”. In a mediation process
Castarphen led with a group of police officers and youth gang
members in a Virginia suburb, she asked all participants to talk
about violence, describing how they had been attacked. What
happened when the gang members realized that the police
officers feared for their own lives was a big shock to the gang
members. In fact, each group heard for the very first time the
other side of the story. They had learned to listen to each other.
All in the room, police officers and gang members, discovered
they had something in common, and that led to the group devel-
oping a common hope for the future.
Conclusion
Many of the lessons learned during this research could well be
applied in future efforts to resolve public controversies in Italy in
the near future, even though the Italian context is less favorable
both culturally and institutionally.
In the United States, the White House issued a memorandum
(8 December 2009) which directs executive departments and
agencies to take specific actions to implement the principles of
transparency, participation, and collaboration set forth in the
President’s previous memorandum issued on January 21, 2009.
This order opens a new phase in which a change in govern-
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Comparative Domestic Policy Program
Policy Brief
mental culture, open to participative process, is sought with
unprecedented determination from the top institutional levels in
United States.
Even within this promising new framework, mediators and the
communities they work in continue to face a number of key
challenges. First, they must ensure a stronger link between the
solutions developed as outcomes of the process and the subse-
quent actions taken by policy makers to implement change.
Likewise, much work still must be done to ensure better integra-
tion of the two often competing priorities of ensuring a manage-
able group of stakeholders and ensuring a group of stakeholders
which includes a broad spectrum of the public, especially weaker
and more marginalized populations. Third, a better and deeper
understanding of the value of social reconciliation should be
promoted. In a modern society in which identity and value
conflicts generate more and more barriers and divisions, media-
tors and policy makers must focus on building greater capacity
for civilized and non-violent communication even, or espe-
cially, on highly polarizing issues. Fourth, mediators and policy
makers must work together to implement alternative ways to
resolve disagreements over many of the environmental disputes
which generate impasses and frustration in the public domain,
including where to locate undesired public facilities like waste-
water treatment facilities.
Last but not least, mediators and policy makers must remember
that public mediation and facilitation demands an optimistic
approach, trust in citizens’ abilities, and a strong conviction that,
as Mike Hughes says, people “can get along, can solve the prob-
lems, can make things good ... always.”
About CDP
At the turn of the 21st century, metropolitan regions are home to
nearly three quarters of the population of the United States and
Europe and are projected to continue growing. The major economic,
environmental and social transformations shaping these nations over
the next century, as well as the severe economic crisis facing them
today, will necessarily play out in urban contexts. Thus, the
metropolitan built environment, its impact on the natural
environment, and the resources available to citizens will be crucial
for successfully meeting the complex challenges facing the
transatlantic community.
While cities in the United States and Europe face similar policy
challenges in related post-industrial contexts, individual
communities that attempt to implement creative strategies have
limited opportunities to learn from one another’s experiences.
Recognizing the necessity for communities to collaborate in crafting
approaches to local problems that have global implications, GMF’s
Comparative Domestic Policy (CDP) Program provides a framework
for dialogue between individuals who make, influence, and
implement urban and regional policy on both sides of the Atlantic.
At the core of the CDP program is the Transatlantic Cities Network,
a durable structure for ongoing exchange among a select group of
civic leaders representing 25 cities in the United States and Europe.
About GMF
The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is a
nonpartisan American public policy and grantmaking institution
dedicated to promoting greater cooperation and understanding
between North America and Europe. GMF does this by supporting
individuals and institutions working on transatlantic issues, by
convening leaders to discuss the most pressing transatlantic themes,
and by examining ways in which transatlantic cooperation can
address a variety of global policy challenges. In addition, GMF
supports a number of initiatives to strengthen democracies. Founded
in 1972 through a gift from Germany on the 25th anniversary of the
Marshall Plan as a permanent memorial to Marshall Plan assistance,
GMF maintains a strong presence on both sides of the Atlantic. In
addition to its headquarters in Washington, DC, GMF has seven
offices in Europe: Berlin, Bratislava, Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Ankara,
and Bucharest.