Real Talk for Change’s approach brings together age-old methods of facilitated small group dialogue, and community organizing with modern machine learning, data visualization, and social network design. Our technology enables communities to organize conversations across the full diversity of their population, identify patterns of what people share across these conversations, and channel these voices to influence decision making in a more grounded and direct way than ever before.

Our pilot program will recruit over 30 community organizations and trusted leaders across Boston to host over 100 small, recorded conversations in the lead-up to the 2021 Boston Mayoral and city council elections. Once captured, our Real Talk Fellows will use our online platform to highlight and summarize the conversations in a publicly viewable dashboard that displays patterns, themes, and insights from the neighborhood conversations. This platform will be made available to the public, in addition to candidates for Mayor and city council. We will then surface these voices and perspectives in the media, electoral debates, and our online platform to constructively shape the 2021 Boston election cycle.

In addition to helping to create a campaign that is generally more grounded in and responsive to Bostonians’ lived experiences, this system is designed to encourage cross-community listening as well as to provide improved visibility and accountability between the candidates and the public. A key role of the technology is to provide transparency to all participants. People who participate in a conversation can see how their voices are being used and – through public forums such as media interviews and public debates – see that community concerns are influencing the election process. We believe over time this kind of visible action will encourage new voters and build trust between historically underheard communities, local media, and local institutions.