Civity is everywhere!
All over the country, people are acknowledging that political and social divides are making it more difficult to address a range of challenging community issues. And all over the country, people are recognizing how civity and the relational infrastructure that civity creates are essential for community resilience.
We are thrilled to announce two new Civity initiatives to support “the conversation before the conversation” on a large scale!
- In August, we embarked on an extensive project supporting U.S. communities in civity work to support economic transitions away from fossil fuel reliance.
- This month we began a project in California, which is facing a stark shortage of affordable housing, to support building civity across economic divides. Special thanks to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and to Facebook’s/Meta’s Housing Initiative for their support.
We’ll keep you posted as this work progresses!
In addition, we continue to respond to specific requests to bring civity to communities and organizations. Recent highlights:
- A “Bring a Partner” workshop that provided civic leaders the opportunity to put differences on the table at Central Hall Commons in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine
- Training for a group of facilitators, organizers, and community leaders convened by the Center for Rural Affairs to use civity to support diversity and inclusion in communities across Nebraska
- Work with the administration and governance of Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, to integrate relationality into the University’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion
We are also in partnership with the Silicon Valley Community Foundation to support nonprofit social justice leaders working in the areas of arts & culture, faith, neighborhood organizing, and local journalism.
In all of these places and all of these projects we are connecting with local community leaders who are already building civity, who are eager to deepen and extend cross-cutting relationships, and who seamlessly weave civity intentionality and practice into their work.
Our work is supporting our partners and Civity Champions around the county … new and old friends both. Thanks to YOU for the work that you do. Thanks to YOU for continuing to inspire us and the people around you.