Practicing Peace: Cultivating Emotional Maturity for Leading Across Difference 

What it is: Exhaustion, uncertainty, and conflict take a toll on every leader. Under pressure, we default to avoiding, appeasing, or pushing through—but these responses often leave us stuck. Emotional maturity offers another path: staying grounded, connected, and courageous when it matters most. This workshop will explore how moral, spiritual, and/or religious convictions can help you do this. 

What you’ll learn:

This interactive workshop will give participants space to: 

• Identify what happens “inside of me” when I encounter difference or conflict. 
• Practice staying true to myself while remaining connected to others. 
• Explore strategies for sustaining growth and maturity when change is hard. 
• Draw from leadership research, social science, and moral resources across traditions, to practice concrete skills for navigating tension with steadiness and clarity. 

Facilitators: Michael Gulker, President, Colossian Forum; Heidi De Jonge, Associate Interfaith Chaplain, Queen's University 

About Colossian Forum: The Colossian Forum works with people to cultivate connection across difference. We teach leaders how to proactively identify and lean into potential areas of conflict and how to better care for people when conflict arises. 

Leading in Turbulent Times: Building Team Resilience Through Dialogue 

What it is: A hands-on workshop that explores how leaders at any level can use constructive dialogue skills to navigate and foster organizational resilience through divided times. Participants will learn and practice strategies for navigating conflict, building trust, and increasing collaboration. Where possible, participants in like roles will be grouped together. 

What you’ll learn:   

• Understand why constructive dialogue is essential for sustaining strong civic and organizational ecosystems. 
• Strengthen trust and collaboration with practical tools for guiding high-stakes conversations. 
• Enhance your skills in listening deeply, sharing perspectives authentically, and leading with empathy while holding firm to your values. 
• Gain resources to apply bridging practices that amplify the impact and durability of your efforts. 

Facilitators:  Mylien Duong, Chief Impact Officer, Constructive Dialogue Institute; Kaleigh Mrowka, Director of Campus Culture Transformation, Constructive Dialogue Institute 

About Constructive Dialogue Institute: The Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI) is a non-partisan nonprofit that equips individuals and institutions with the skills to communicate across differences and build cultures of constructive dialogue. 

Building Thriving Communities: Connecting the Cornerstones of Community to Catalyze Change 

What it is: A hands-on workshop where you’ll learn dialogic practices that help shift people from conflict to curiosity and, when leveraged at scale, build more resilient, hopeful, and cohesive communities. 

What you’ll learn:   

• Explore Essential Partners’ Reflective Structured Dialogue process and principles that promote mutual understanding, trust, and stronger relationships. 
• Understand how intentional co-creation of structures and practices can build constructive patterns and shape community norms. 
• Hear stories of real-world impact at the individual, organizational, and community levels. 
• Learn to identify assets, opportunities, and community cornerstones that can catalyze change. 
• Gain a renewed sense of hope. 

Facilitators: Meg Griffiths, Director of Programs, Essential Partners; John Sarrouf, Co-Executive Director, Essential Partners; CJ Suitt, Restorative Practice Associate, Essential Partners/ Dispute Settlement Center 

About Essential Partners: Essential Partners collaborates with civic groups, schools, faith communities, colleges, and organizations to build a culture of connection, a deeper sense of belonging, as well as mutual understanding and trust across differences of values, beliefs, and identities. 

Bridging to Belonging: Science to Practice 

What it is: A hands-on workshop where you'll learn and practice science-backed tools for supporting connection and creating spaces for belonging. We'll do a deep dive into the evidence and practices of belonging and explore how it can support the work of philanthropy—both in the workplace and the community. 

What you’ll learn:   

• Understand the science of connection and belonging.  
• Gain practical tools to create spaces where people feel they belong. 
• Enhance your skills in fostering connection across divisions. 
• Access resources to support your internal and external work of creating belonging across differences. 

Facilitators: Allison Briscoe-Smith, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Greater Good Science Center; Juliana Tafur, Bridging Differences Program Director, Greater Good Science Center 

About Greater Good Science Center: The Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of wellbeing, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.  

Our Shared Future: Integrating Approaches to Social Change 

What it is: In this workshop we will learn about the many networks and approaches working towards social change; leaning into different frameworks that surface natural tensions, and uncovering the mindsets needed to identify and execute potential complementarity within different social change efforts. 

What you’ll learn:   

• Reflect on and grapple with the brain science of uncertainty and certainty in order to break down siloes in our work.  
• Understand the Polarities Management framework and use “both/and” thinking as a tool to pierce our own assumptions and get the most out of our collaborations across difference.  
• Explore the “block/bridge/build” ecosystem to understand natural inclinations towards change-making, how we decide where we can make the most difference, and how to be in relationship with those in different parts of the ecosystem. 

Facilitators: Julia Roig, Chief Network Weaver, Horizons Project; Jarvis Williams, Democracy Fellow, Horizons Project 

About Horizons Project: The Horizons Project team acts as organizers, conveners, facilitators, and sense-makers, striving to impact the ecosystem of social change throughout the country. 

Long Bridges: How We Rehumanize One Another Across Big Divides 

What it is: This interactive workshop will help participants understand, develop, and implement innovative strategies through which organizations can meaningfully bridge "long" racial, ideological, or urban-rural divides. The workshop is grounded in experiences and lessons from Bridging for Democracy (B4D), a project initiated by the Othering and Belonging Institute, in partnership with leading community organizing groups across six states. As part of B4D, these groups identified communities they had previously avoided engaging with, and designed and carried out intentional bridging campaigns to foster listening and mutual recognition. Workshop participants will hear from leaders of these efforts, and learn, practice, and develop plans to implement their own long-bridging techniques. These techniques enable people to rehumanize one another, build regard, and envision an inclusive “we,” even without the need to agree on issues. 

What you’ll learn:

• Understand how to develop and implement long bridging.   
• Use different formats and approaches to connecting across long divides that allow people to recognize one another and build regard, without erasing differences or needing to agree on issues.  
• Explore a framework on social fragmentation, democracy, and long bridging.   
• Gain skills and new ideas to implement bridges in your specific work and context. 

Facilitators: Mansi Kathuria, Field Strategy and Research Analyst, Othering and Belonging Institute; DeAngelo Bester, Executive Director, Workers Center for Racial Justice 

About Othering and Belonging Institute: The Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley advances groundbreaking research, policy, and ideas that examine and remediate the processes of exclusion, marginalization, and structural inequality—what we call othering—in order to build a world based on inclusion, fairness, justice, and care for the earth—what we call belonging. 

Building Societal Resilience to Political and Identity-Based Violence 

What it is: This workshop will explore case studies, strategies, and tools that demonstrate the role of communication in both fueling and counteracting violence, as well as ways to build societal resilience to political and identity-based violence. 

What you’ll learn:

• Understand narratives that are used to justify violence, and how to counteract them. 
• Explore community-based approaches to preventing, defusing, and responding to political and identity-based violence. 
• Discover how philanthropy can play a crucial role in addressing risks for violence. 

Facilitators: Marissa Wong, Associate Director of Training & Field Support, Over Zero; Erin "Maz" Mazursky, Executive Director, Over Zero 

About Over Zero: Over Zero partners with community leaders, civil society, and researchers to harness the power of communication to prevent, resist and rise above identity-based violence and other forms of group-targeted harm. 

Building a Culture of Dialogue Across Difference 

What it is: A workshop to build your capacity to explore disagreements while strengthening relationships, trust, learning, and collaboration.  

What you’ll learn:

• Practice two core skills for difficult conversations across diverse backgrounds and viewpoints.  
• Get customized coaching from Resetting the Table staff and Council on Foundations staff.  
• Increase your confidence to discuss charged issues.  
• Leave with replicable tools and exercises for building communication across differences in ways that strengthen connection, insight, and collaboration.  

Facilitators: Leah Reiser, Chief Training Officer, Resetting the Table; Cicella Monroe, Senior Trainer and Facilitator, Resetting the Table; Eyal Rabinovitch, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Resetting the Table 

Coaches: Brian Kastner, Director, Engagement, Council on Foundations; Daniela Rodriguez Ranf, Director, Leadership Development and Training, Council on Foundations; Kristen Scott Kennedy, Vice President, Strategy and Organizational Effectiveness and Chief of Staff, Council on Foundations; Wendy Torrance, Director, Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships 

About Resetting the Table: Resetting the Table (RTT) is dedicated to strengthening democracy by building collaborative deliberation across political siloes in American life.   

Building Communities of Belonging in Public Spaces 

What it is: An interactive workshop that will explore best practices in community engagement in public spaces (parks, libraries, or other community gathering places) where democracy can thrive and bring people together across lines of difference. We'll also explore how to effectively measure the social and civic impacts of public space programming. 

What you’ll learn:

• Identify best practices for engaging communities in public spaces, and explore the resources and support needed to apply them.  
• Hear about the key barriers to effective social capital design and measurement faced by public space nonprofits, such as funding constraints, staff capacity, and trust-building, and explore ways to address these challenges. 
• Strengthen grantmaking strategies by incorporating social impact measurement, supporting grantees in building evaluation capacity, and providing comprehensive resources before requiring new assessments. 

Facilitators: Kate Gannon, Associate Director of Capacity Building, Trust for Public Land; Cary Simmons, Director of Community Strategies, Trust for Public Land; Nichole Argo, PhD, Executive Director, TogetherUp Institute; Daniela Paz Peterson, Director of Welcoming Places, Trust for Public Land

About Trust for Public Land: Trust for Public Land believes everyone should have access to the outdoors. We create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come. 

Free Expression and the Conditions for Transforming Disagreement for Better Collective Decision Making 

What it is: A workshop on how to harness disagreement and tension as catalysts for sharper thinking, stronger decisions, and more effective collective action. Free expression and healthy disagreement are essential to robust thinking and sound decision-making. Yet too often, default approaches to conflict create division, stagnation, and reductive thinking. This workshop will develop your understanding of the role of free expression and equip you to lean into disagreement, name tensions clearly, and use them to energize collaboration, problem-solving, and impact. 

What you’ll learn:

• Understand the foundations of free expression and why it matters. 
• Identify unproductive modes of disagreement and transform them into productive engagement that advances your mission. 
• Lean into tensions and conflict to catalyze collective thinking. 
• Leverage disagreement to move from stagnation to action and strengthen collaborative decision-making 
• Apply adaptable models and concrete practices for fostering constructive disagreement within your organization and with stakeholders. 

Facilitators: Leila Brammer, Director of Curriculum, University of Chicago 

About Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression: The Chicago Forum promotes the understanding, practice, and advancement of free and open discourse at the University of Chicago and beyond.