Resources for Facilitation and Community Building
Here is a living library of “go to” resources to support you in facilitating groups and growing strong communities that have a healthy culture of kinship and mutual support:
These are offered with gratitude to the contributions of many teachers and organizations shared here and with blessings to you as you carry forward work in this spirit. It’s great to hear what works and if you have questions or comments, please contact us here.
Participatory Tools and Methods
Methods that can work from the scale of a one-on-one conversation to large conferences.
Meeting Design and Strategic Questions
A powerful gathering needs a foundation of intentional design with broad input. A helpful way is to craft strategic questions to explore. Then engage people using participatory methods.
Facilitation Methods
Combining a good question with participatory conversations allows you to access the “collective intelligence” of a group and strengthen relationships.
Weaving Connections and Relationships
Connecting people who don’t usually talk is an overlooked way of creating change. Good collaboration rests on the foundation of strong relationships, which can be intentionally woven and strengthened.
Collaborative Learning and Reflection
Strong communities put collaborative learning at the center, sensing what’s changing, offering peer support, and reflecting over time.
Listening and Conversation Skills
Conversations are the lifeblood of relationship and community. When we are listened to with openness, presence, and warmth, we deepen understanding and think better together.
Working with Tensions and Conflicts
Encountering tensions, differences, and conflicts is an inherent part of group work. Effective methods and skills can be used to work with these dynamics in productive ways.
Inspiration and Learning
Links to inspiration and learning resources.
Collective Healing
Healing can be defined as a process of bringing together that which was separate. The container of trusting community and/or a warm caring presence of another person is a potent foundation to access many forms of healing, such as acknowledging and honoring what is, grieving what was lost, being with/feeling with those suffering, and making amends.
Living Systems Change
When we shift from seeing the world as a problem to fix to seeing our role within interconnected living systems, it calls for different ways of working together and taking action.
Networked Approaches to Change
Connecting work across organizations and issues in thriving collaborations is crucial so you can do more together than alone.
Methods that can work from the scale of a one-on-one conversation to large conferences.
Generous Resource Flows
Healthy ecosystems and communities have a flow of mutual exchange. This abundant giving and receiving takes some unlearning and creation of new practices, to move out of the scarcity and transactional norms of modern US culture.
Facilitator Resources and Trainings
There is an art to facilitating teams and organizations to work together on complex challenges as they strengthen their trust, resilience, and effectiveness.
Friendship and Accompaniment
We grow our gifts when in the presence of someone who sees and encourages them. With community, we can navigate the loss and challenge of life.
Stories of What Works
These sites are good resources for stories and ideas of what works.
The Solutions Story Tracker is a curated database of stories of creativity, agency and problem-solving with over 127,000 stories from 199 countries.
A catalog of stories of ‘radical hope’ curated by Mitch Anthony.
Speeches, podcasts, and articles from over 30 years of convening innovators seeking solutions to socialand environmental challenges
News that Inspires – Positive news stories and actions to continue the “good”
Climate Solutions–Actions that can be taken today to address climate change as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.
“Tonic for tumultuous times.” Founded by artist and musician David Byrne, this is “part magazine, part therapy session, part blueprint for a better world.”