Starting with a well-crafted question about personal connections to the river, the conversation ranged from the minutiae of commercial and sport fishing to past disagreements between stakeholders—but they navigated their differences constructively, and the structure and facilitation of the gathering prevailed. The first-ever roundtable had been a success. As of 2020, CRWP continues to use constructive facilitation techniques and well-crafted questions in their annual Salmon Harvester Roundtable discussion, now in its third year running.

https://whatisessential.org/impact-stories/protecting-copper-river-watershed-ecosystem

Janet Harris, WRI's Chief Programs and Marketing Officer

Conflicts over herbicide drift have pitted neighbor against neighbor in a region where farmers are already struggling to survive. In October 2016, a dispute over Dicamba use resulted in the shooting death of a soybean farmer near the Missouri border. The Arkansas Agriculture Secretary wanted an effective path through the heated, and now tragically violent debate. Since then, the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute has integrated reflective structured dialogue into many more projects.

https://whatisessential.org/impact-stories/de-escalating-violent-conflict-rural-arkansas

https://www.ideosinstitute.org, https://www.nationaldayofdialogue.com

Racially diverse town with several local community partners engaged in bridge building and dialogue

Community-wide civic events that intentionally gathers citizens across demographic and ideological differences

Multiple corporate, philanthropic, and individual funders

https://theharwoodinstitute.org/report-catalog/lexingtons-path-to-shared-purpose-a-new-agenda-for-education-and-the-community

https://theharwoodinstitute.org/report-catalog/one-step-at-a-time-winchester-and-clark-county-seizing-the-moment
https://theharwoodinstitute.org/report-catalog/waving-the-communitys-flag-winchester-and-clark-countys-moment
https://theharwoodinstitute.org/books/unleashed

Heathmere Center/Living Room Conversations

Strengthening communities through Dialogue and Education

In the spring of 2018, Boston Parks and Rec contacted Essential Partners to help improve their public engagement model and practices. Despite their best intentions, program managers faced complex challenges that led to unconstructive meetings, which bred mistrust between community members and the city’s staff.

https://whatisessential.org/impact-stories/improving-community-engagement-boston-parks-and-rec

The Lexington Interfaith Clergy Association (LICA) is a unique and productive organization. LICA is made up leaders from different faith communities in Lexington, Massachusetts, including Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Christian Scientists, and Unitarian Universalists. Founded in 1971, the group’s focus is to promote interfaith fellowship and social justice. LICA gathers for monthly lunch meetings, organizes volunteer opportunities, and responds collectively when crises occur or controversies erupt in the larger community.

https://whatisessential.org/impact-stories/interfaith-clergy-deepen-relationships-ma

Center for Inclusion & Belonging, American Immigration Council

A diverse leaders assembly representing 30 identity and stakeholder groups, both civic leaders and elected officials, to: build relationships across siloes, build skills in communicating across difference, and co-create solutions to local challenges.

A group of five Gloucester residents, including Essential Partners' own John Sarrouf, gathered to discuss what they could do to foster a more constructive culture of dialogue in the city. The group launched two cornerstone initiatives that would become the foundations for Gloucester Conversations (GC), a ongoing citywide dialogue project, designed to help the city discuss tense or contentious issues.

https://whatisessential.org/impact-stories/building-local-capacity-gloucester-ma

American Arbitration Association-International Centre for Dispute Resolution Foundation

The Howard County Courageous Conversations project comprises clergy and congregants from 52 faith communities. The mission is to learn from and hear other perspectives, to explore how residents live together in their experiences of race and religious bias.

https://whatisessential.org/impact-stories/leading-courageous-conversations-about-race-and-faith-america

Urban Rural Action
Horizon Goodwill
Chesapeake Multicultural Resource Center
The PRIDE Center of Maryland
Alleghany College of Maryland

Uniting for Action on the Maryland Economy is a non-partisan initiative that brings Marylanders together to build relationships, strengthen collaboration skills, explore different views on economic issues, and work together to address economic challenges in MD.

Dave Miller, Ruth Mott Foundation Program Director of Applewood Estate

https://whatisessential.org/impact-stories/city-revitalization-flint-michigan

Ted Volchok, Program Director, UR Action

Uniting for Democracy (U4D) in The Northland is a non-partisan program that brings together residents in Northeast Minnesota to build relationships, strengthen collaboration skills, explore different perspectives on local issues, and work together to broaden civic participation.

https://theharwoodinstitute.org/report-catalog/a-new-civic-covenant-jackson-ready-to-step-forward

Rose Everett-Martin and Linda Gryczan, Montana Mediation Association

Their collective stature positioned the dialogue as a meaningful opportunity for conversations that could deepen understanding and shift relationships. EP and the newly trained facilitators led dialogues with a range of Montana citizens, from staunch gun rights advocates to those who passionately promoted tougher regulations on access and safety. That foundation, and the network of facilitators build the community’s capacity when a hot-button issue arises in the community; now, as Linda put it, “we have a way to have a different kind of conversation.”

https://whatisessential.org/impact-stories/addressing-gun-rights-and-safety-montana

Building Trust Between Police and the Black Community

EP launched a pilot training of activists and police officers. This equipped them to craft, organize, and facilitate dialogues about race and justice on their own, according to the needs of a given context. These EP-trained stakeholders are working to find out, together, what it would take to build real and lasting trust between the Black community and members of law enforcement in the Raleigh-Durham area.

https://whatisessential.org/impact-stories/building-trust-between-police-and-black-community-north-carolina

There are two primary goals of this initiative: generate community-led transformation on concerns that matter to people and strengthen the civic culture of Alamance County so the community can take effective, sustainable action. Impact Alamance and The Harwood Institute believe deeply that local communities must shape and drive their own future.

Welcoming Immigrant Communities in New Hampshire

Welcoming America, a national organization with a branch in New Hampshire works to inspire people to build communities that embrace immigrants and foster opportunities for all. Amidst the increasingly heated debate around immigration policy, Welcoming America joined a coalition of nonprofits and agencies to support the new refugees. At the same time, The New Hampshire Endowment for Health’s immigrant integration initiative sought to improve healthcare delivery for its immigrant populations.

https://whatisessential.org/impact-stories/welcoming-immigrant-communities-new-hampshire

As the Kindland initiative heads into its third year with a new advertising push and programming in two major school districts, I went to Cleveland to see if a “kind” city might become a laboratory for national healing, at least to some degree.

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2022/magazine-cleveland-kindland-just-be-kind-politics/

Uniting for Action on the Oregon Economy is a non-partisan program that brings together residents of northwest Oregon to build relationships, strengthen collaboration skills, explore different views on economic issues, and identify opportunities to work together on economic challenges.Starting with a kick off-workshop in November 2022, participants will practice skills that help them understand the views of Oregonians different from themselves. Over the following 8 months, we will explore the causes of key economic challenges that impact us across the state,
and implement interventions with community organizations to help address those challenges.

Adams, Dauphin, York, and Franklin Counties

Uniting to Prevent Targeted Violence in South-Central PA

Individuals from business, education, nonprofit, and religious sectors came together with a unified goal: to change how their community works together and create better lives for their children and neighbors.

https://theharwoodinstitute.org/news/july-2022-newsletter-change-happening-right-now-in-reading-pa

Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy
Millions of Conversations
The Great Reset

https://theharwoodinstitute.org/report-catalog/clarksville-mo-co-stepping-into-the-future-a-new-agenda-for-education-and-the-community

Energized by the training they received, these facilitators brought the EP method back to their community and their work. The center has since facilitated dialogues on guns, racial reconciliation, interfaith dialogues, war, immigration, and segregation in Milwaukee, to name just a few projects. The Center now works locally, nationally, and internationally. Their partners include the Milwaukee Police Department, Safe & Sound, Habitat for Humanity, the Boys and Girls Clubs, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Marquette University, among many others.

https://whatisessential.org/impact-stories/building-civic-institutions-frank-zeidler-center-public-discussion
https://www.zeidlergroup.org/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/28/obama-change-collective/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/28/obama-change-collective/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/28/obama-change-collective/