About this project

What this is

The Citizens’ Assembly Directory tracks processes across the US in which a randomly selected, demographically representative group of residents is convened to learn about an issue, deliberate together, and produce recommendations for a government, institution, or community.

Why this exists

These processes are being run all over the country, by a wide range of organizations, with no single place to see them together. This directory exists so researchers, organizers, journalists, and residents can see where these processes are happening, who’s running them, what they cost, how participants were selected, and whether recommendations actually went anywhere.

A working research dataset

This is an actively maintained, imperfect dataset built from public sources, including assembly websites, final reports, news coverage, and government pages. Many fields are marked “Unknown,” “TBD,” or “Unconfirmed” where information isn’t yet public or verified. Entries are added and corrected on an ongoing basis. The underlying CSV is available on request.

Help Contribute!

If you know of an assembly, jury, or initiative review that’s missing, or you spot something inaccurate, email tina.zeng@yale.edu directly.

Note: More than “assemblies”

The name is a shorthand. The dataset is deliberately broader than citizens’ assemblies alone — it also includes citizens’ juries and citizens’ initiative reviews, along with closely related civic assembly and community assembly formats run by cities, counties, universities, and nonprofits.