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.
Promoting Social Cohesion 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 have built intercultural understanding and collaborative skills through one-on-one conversations. Learn more 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.
Crossing Party Lines holds weekly meetings on controversial topics. Participants choose topics of interest to them and sign up to attend on Meetup. Learn more here.
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) published a report on how CRS embeds social cohesion and justice across its programming to drive deeper, broader, and more sustainable change. Drawing on evidence from 36 projects in 29 countries, it highlights how inclusive practices strengthen outcomes in sectors like agriculture, WASH, infrastructure, and microfinance. Read here.
Democracy in a Box is a program of the Rotary and Rotaract Global Service Clubs that is organizaed Members of multiple to improve people’s quality of life by using Rotarian principles to structure conversations about democracy for peace and sustainability and take steps to “fix the problems.” The principles include the Rotary’s four-way test and code of conduct, the Pillars of Positive Peace (from the Institute of Peace and Economics), and the UN’s 17 Sustainability Goals. 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.
Ideas Beyond Borders’ Global Conversations program uses Facebook discussion groups to talks about curated content on controversial topics. Learn more here.
The International Listening Association aims to “make listening an integral part of global culture” by uniting and inspiring international groups and individuals who promote its practice, training and research. Learn more here.
IREX runs programs connecting youth in the U.S. with partners in Latin America and the Middle East in virtual dialogues. In these efforts, IREX conducted a landscape analysis to understand how public libraries can promote bridge-building community activities. Learn more here and here.
The TRUST Network published a report evaluating U.S. policy changes impact on social cohesion, and violence risks. The analysis concluded that these shifts may heighten hate incidents, weaken social cohesion, and increase political polarization, with both short-and long-term consequences. Read here.
The WHO Commission on Social Change published a report with practical, scalable solutions to strengthen social connection – and calls on policy-makers, researchers and all sectors to treat social health with the same urgency as physical and mental health. Read here.
Infer-Faith Dialogue
The Ideos Institute is a community of Christians working to foster unity and reconciliation. Learn more here.
The Muslim Community Network offers Interfaith programs for youth and adults in NYC. Its website provides an explicit invitation for volunteers to participate in food drives, a soup kitchen, and other programs. Learn more here.
The Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers supports the positive influence of religious and traditional actors in collaborative peacebuilding and facilitates connections between grassroots peacemakers and high-level policymakers. 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 worked with the Multi-Faith Neighbors Network and the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University to develop a Peacemaker’s Toolkit to help faith leaders in the U.S. foster peace and resilience. 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.
Storytelling and Journalism:
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.
The International Storytelling Center is a premiere educational, arts, and cultural institution dedicated to enriching lives and building a better world through the power of storytelling. Its work falls broadly into three categories: performance, preservation, and practice. Learn more here.
Military Veterans in Journalism is a professional association that seeks to increase the number of veterans in newsrooms. Additionally, the organization builds a community for veterans and provides mentorship to support their career growth. Learn more here.
Making Peace Visible is a bridge-building organization igniting powerful conversations all over the world about how the media covers peace and conflict. Learn more here.
One Million Truths aims to collect one million stories about the impact of social conflict in the U.S. to mark the country’s 250th anniversary. One Million Truths will combine these stories with data, technology, and media expertise to identify effective solutions to conflicts across racial, ethnic, gender, religious, and political divides. Learn more here.
The Center for Media and Peace Initiatives (CMPI) is an organization dedicated to the promotion of conflict-resolving media practices and better policy around the world. CMPI seeks to foster critical journalism devoted to peace building and holding practitioners accountable for ethical journalism. 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.
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.
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.