In partnership with a growing number of national networks and local communities, we are hosting a series of dialogues to explore how we can secure legacies of well-being and justice for generations to come.
We invite you to share what civic renewal, economic renewal, and social, emotional, and spiritual renewal mean to you, your family, neighborhood, organization, or community–and to discover what we have in common.
Join a dialogue:
Explore our resources:
Why dialogue?
Dialogue strengthens our sense of belonging and connection by building relationships.
When we listen, share, and discover the stories of our community, we are able to create meaning together—and are better positioned to act as stewards in our organizations, communities, and regions.
No matter the topic, dialogue participants enter the conversation with intention by:
- Listening for what’s true for others
- Sharing what’s true for you
- Discovering what we have in common
Paths to Renewal
How can we heal through adversity & secure legacies of well-being & justice for generations to come?
Renewals braid vital conditions together into cohesive but still-evolving proposals for how our lives together could unfold. Short-term pivotal moves may help us to change course. However, the renewal we need requires persistent, courageous, trend-bending effort on many frontiers—always directed toward our north star expectation: All people and places thriving—no exceptions.
Click on the images below to explore the Path to Renewal Springboard chapters:
Renewing Civic Life Dialogues
How do we work across differences to create a future with all people and places thriving?
CIVIC LIFE IS ABOUT LIVING, LEARNING, AND WORKING TOGETHER, as shared stewards, to shape our common world. It encompasses the infinite ways that people may connect and contribute to their community and society: from voting in an election, organizing a neighborhood arts festival, standing up for a just cause, or doing everyday work with pride in its public impacts and civic significance.
This is a legacy moment, an opportunity to reimagine and renew our civic life. We have a chance now to embrace our interdependence and strengthen the civic muscle we need to create just and productive communities. Success depends on our ability to create pluralistic spaces that foster relationships of belonging, ensuring everyone has the privilege and motivation to contribute to a thriving community.
Dialogue Guide
Dialogue guide coming soon!
Renewing Economic Life Dialogues
How do we assign value, define prosperity & invest resources?
OUR ECONOMIC LIFE ENCOMPASSES MORE THAN JOBS, BUSINESSES, AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS. It is an expression of what we value, who we value, and how we work together. It structures and channels our most basic transactions—and our most complex innovations. Our economic life holds tremendous possibility for unlocking trapped human potential, building wealth for working families, and sustaining the living ecosystems that support our existence.
The economic fallout from COVID-19 has exposed, yet again, the flaws in today’s prevailing form of capitalism. Even as we honor essential workers, from caregivers to clerks, many of these same people are still without fair pay, still without adequate health care, and still beleaguered by hunger. COVID-19 has exposed how our economic system is designed to extract value from the many, concentrate its benefits in the hands of a few, and place us all precariously on the edge of an adversity spiral.
Dialogue Guide
Dialogue guide coming soon!
Renewing Social, Emotional, and Spiritual Life Dialogues
How do we cultivate emotional strength, grow resilience & care for others?
OUR SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL, AND SPIRITUAL LIFE is tied to how we understand ourselves, relate to others, and experience belonging and purpose. It is about our thoughts, feelings, perceptions, memories, and states of being. This sense of self is further shaped by culture, early life experience, faith, ZIP code, and other factors. Our social, emotional, and spiritual life guides our decisions, influences our actions, and helps us know who we are.
Too many of our lives are compromised by trauma, exclusion, and violence. Too few of us receive the care that is essential for strong social and emotional health. Too often, our differences and biases drive us apart and disrupt connections to each other and our better selves. The structures meant to promote social and emotional health are hobbled by fragmentation, over-specialization, and inaccessibility.
Dialogue Guide
Dialogue guide coming soon!
Our Partners
Disagreements on important issues, such as education, housing, or healthcare, are inevitable, but they do not have to create insurmountable divides. Intentionally engaging across differences through dialogue strengthens our sense of belonging and connection by building relationships–and by making visible what we have in common.
Our partners practice dialogue to move toward a world where people who have fundamental differences of opinion and backgrounds work together, respect each other, and are able to inform and influence the policies and systems that shape our lives.
Living Room Conversations
Living Room Conversations (LRC) are a simple way to connect across divides – politics, age, gender, race, nationality, and more.
Living Room Conversations has more than 100 dialogue guides on a range of topics. The Living Room Conversations team members regularly supports dialogue host trainings–and offer a host toolkit to support community members interested in holding conversations of their own.
Check out the Living Room Conversation Live to learn more about what it’s like to participate in dialogue.
Local Voices Network
Local Voices Network (LVN) is devoted to engaging and amplifying under-heard voices to inform public understanding, policy development and decision-making.
Local Voices Network partners use its conversation model to gather the complex and nuanced stories of people who have historically been underrepresented in policy making and the media. The online platform and analytics tools (powered by Cortico technology) distill key themes from recorded conversations, enabling our partners to lift up important perspectives from real people.
Explore Local Voices Network Script-o-matic to create your own dialogue guide–or listen to perspectives of dialogue participants in the medley below.
National Civic League
The National Civic League envisions a country where the full diversity of community members are actively and meaningfully engaged in local governance, including both decision making and implementation of activities to advance the common good.
The recently released National Civic Review (access code: TT21) captures how we can begin to bring Thriving Together renewals to life. Through the voices and experiences of stewards working in communities across the country, the Review invites us to meet this moment by joining the thriving movement.
While American renewal is far from secure, it is within reach if we turn toward each other instead of against each other.
National Civic Review, 2021 Winter Edition
Well Being in the Nation (WIN) Network
The Well Being in the Nation (WIN) NETWORK is a growing strategic network working together to advance intergenerational well-being and equity.
WIN begins with a recognition that the legacies of the past and the policies, structures, and beliefs we choose to live with shape our current reality. It is our obligation to make decisions today that will expand the vital conditions of health and well-being. In doing so, we will move toward a thriving, interconnected, more equitable world today and over generations.
Listen to the Commons Good episode below to learn more about the WIN Network’s dialogue strategy: