Creating Discourse Across Differences in Newaygo County

By Lola Harmon-Ramsey, director of impact and engagement at the Fremont Area Community Foundation

I live and work in Newaygo County, a large rural county in Michigan with five municipalities and just under 50,000 people. Each locality moves to its own rhythm and its own priorities. Combined with the heightened tensions and polarization in our country, these differences can lead to school board meetings turning contentious, township debates hardening, and Facebook threads spiraling into misinformation and personal attacks. Neighbors who used to wave across the grocery aisle are now avoiding eye contact. I began starting to feel like the community I live in and work to serve is losing muscle memory for how to talk to and connect with one another.

The Power of Shared Stories 

This realization was the spark for me. If we are forgetting how to talk, we need tools that can help us remember. At our community foundation, we convene people regularly around grants and projects; why not also convene around our shared community and how we talk about important issues?

To build these new tools and help us begin a local civil discourse project, we brought in two facilitators, Drs. Lisa Perhamus and Gregory Warsen from Grand Valley State University. In conversation with a group of residents in White Cloud, a small town in our county, the facilitators used a simple but powerful tool to begin — a guided group conversation sharing each person’s memories of the community and values that shaped them — before jumping into a topical discussion.

At our second meeting, we asked participants to choose a photo that reminded them of a positive experience growing up or living in White Cloud. Six out of seven picked pictures connected to water — specifically the Mill Pond. For many, it was the place they learned to swim, spent summers with family, or gathered with friends. It was not just a body of water; it was part of the town’s story.

Not long after this meeting, the state ordered the water level in the pond to be lowered. The loss of that shared symbol of connection could have caused our community loss, grief, and uncertainty. Instead of succumbing to those feelings, we created space to sit together and share emotions: people voiced devastation, anger, and fear. And because we had laid the groundwork for respectful conversation through shared memories, the group could hold that tension. No one had to agree, but everyone was able to share and be heard. 

That’s when I knew we were building something sturdy. 

Inspiration Becomes Practice 

Around the same time, I attended the Council’s Building Together conference in Chicago with our President and CEO, Shelly Kasprzycki. I was inspired by the stories of bridging work being done across the country to bring people together across differences. It was a turning point. We came home committed to launching what would become the Goodwill Project — a local, living lab for civil discourse. To help aid us in our practice, we both joined the Bridging Differences Leadership Cohort — a facilitated learning experience that supports funders in building constructive dialogue and understanding across differences, hosted by the Council on Foundations in partnership with the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley (GGSC). The Goodwill Project challenged me to go beyond inspiration and into daily practice. The support I received from The Council on Foundation’s Building Common Ground (BCG) program gave me the tools — and the courage — to do that. We practiced “naming differences” without weaponizing them. We built scripts for hard conversations so we didn’t have to improvise in the moment. And we talked frankly about humility. In one session, Leah Reiser of Resetting the Table said something I carry with me every day: “You don’t have to be perfect, but you do need to be correctable.” That line changed the way I lead. It reminded me that the work isn’t about being right; it’s about being reachable.

When it came time to recruit participants for the Goodwill Project in White Cloud, I did something else I learned through BCG: start with clarity and start at home. In November 2023, before we trained the community, we trained our staff and board. It surfaced our own assumptions and gave us shared language. From there, I created a “why” document to invite people in -a clear, consistent message about the purpose and the time commitment. I specifically sought latent leaders: people who are deeply involved but not always in the spotlight. We didn’t need titles at the table; we needed trust.

Our values conversation got real, fast. Words like “humanity,” “respect,” and “grace” surfaced tension — especially with memories of a recent school bond vote. It wasn’t comfortable. But the discomfort was productive. We listened; we disagreed; we stayed. In the end, we chose connection, relationships, and home as our core words. Those aren’t slogans. They’re guardrails. When a decision gets tough, we ask: Does this build connection? Does it deepen relationships? Does it feel like home?

From Mill Pond to Main Street

With Mill Pond still in flux, the group continued to gather through the Goodwill Project, working to channel their energy into a visible, hopeful investment downtown: a gathering space — a place to bump into neighbors after school, for students to hang out, for elders to sit and talk without shouting over the internet. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t replace Mill Pond. It’s human-sized and future-facing.

My experiences with Bridging Together and BCG have reshaped my day-to-day leadership. I use scripts in staff meetings so we can disagree without derailing. I name differences early, so they don’t fester. I ask myself whether I’m being correctable -at work and at home. I’m a better colleague, a better neighbor, and a better wife and mom because I practice these skills, not because I perfected them.

I also think differently about philanthropy’s role. I started in this field believing the job was linear: money in, grants out, happy community. But the most meaningful shifts I’m seeing come from convening — from creating spaces where people feel heard and connected, even when they don’t land in the same place. In this moment, when so many people feel helpless, a table and a shared vocabulary can be as valuable as a check.

I hope the Goodwill Project continues to build welcoming spaces where our values — connection, relationships, home — are tangible. I hope the skills we have built through our experiences learning from the Council on Foundations programs will sustain conversations that are steady enough to hold us when the next challenge arises. We’ll keep offering smaller trainings so more neighbors can experience the tools. We’ll keep practicing and we’ll keep listening. The water fell, and we didn’t. We built something to stand on together.