2. Develop and disseminate ways to explain how anyone can learn to build peace and prevent conflict (that doesn’t take hours of classes) so you can spark change in your home, schools, community, online, and beyond.
As political violence continues to escalate in the U.S., AfP was heartened by the recent NBC News segment, Finding Common Ground: Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro and Utah Gov. Cox. The discussion focused on the importance of condemning all forms of political violence and how to de-escalate political tension.
Peacebuilding Programs in the U.S.
(How to) Build Up’s The Commons is a U.S.-based program that works to strengthen, heal, and humanize relationship-building online, with a focus on race and politics. Learn more here.
Acquaint facilitates one-on-one conversations between volunteers. Their website indicates that volunteers from over 90 countries, including the U.S., have built intercultural understanding and collaborative skills through one-on-one conversations. Learn more here.
Democracy in a Box is a program of the Rotary and Rotaract Global Service Clubs that that aims to improve people’s quality of life by using Rotarian principles to structure conversations about democracy for peace and sustainability in the U.S. Learn more here.
DMV Democracy Dinners helps to bring people in the DC region together across their specialty silos to help advance democracy at local to global levels and build a Democracy Learning Community. Learn more here.
The Horizons Project’s Narrative Engagement Across Difference Project is a unique consortium of actors—organizers, philanthropists, and academics—who have come together to gather insights into collaboration across difference in the deeply divided contexts of rising authoritarianism, declining democracies, and restricted civic space. Learn more here.
Peace Catalyst encourages faith communities to use their guide to start their own projects, and will provide workshops for churches or communities. Learn more here.
Search for Common Ground’s Common Ground USA program envisions an America where we engage in collaboration across differences to address our greatest challenges, and where we can all belong and thrive. The program is Search for Common Ground’s most significant investment in a self-sustaining and peaceful United States. Learn more here.
The Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding designs educational resources and promotes the work of religious peacebuilders in the U.S. Learn more here.
World Faith engages religiously diverse youth to lead development projects in their community. Its website explicitly invites youth to join chapters/projects or start them. Learn more here.
The Theater of War Productions, based in New York, presents community-specific, theater-based performance that address pressing public health and social issues. After a performance, the audience talks about what they’ve seen and heard with the goal of “reminding audiences of their shared humanity.” Learn more here.
Tools and Resources on Building Peace and Preventing Conflict in the U.S.
The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits created a guide on how organizations around the country can contribute to peace amidst unrest in the state. Read here.
Amanda Ripley, New York Times bestselling author, Washington Post contributor, and co-founder of Good Conflict, published practical tips anyone can take to resist high conflict in their day-to-day life. Read here.
Beyond Conflict published a resource that merges neuroscience, social psychology, and movement strategy to help changemakers craft more effective, human-centered, and context-responsive messages for justice. Learn more, get involved, and receive developed resources and tools here.
Beyond Intractability provides a large, free set of online materials on intractable conflict. A Constructive Conflict Guide organizes these resources around a “framework for thinking about conflict” and identifying realistic things that can be done to solve or limit resulting problems. Learn more here.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy launched a monthly webinar series, The Commons in Conversation, that explores divisions in the country and philanthropy’s efforts to bring Americans together. Learn more here.