Welcome

We are faced with no shortage of seemingly existential threats right now: rising deaths of despair and mental health concerns; the stoking of racial tensions, and with it, an embrace of racial revanchism; distorted views of one another, and rampant toxicity in our public square, with dire consequences on everything from public health to the functioning of our school boards; technologies ostensibly meant to connect, which fuel the opposite; fracturing workplaces that lose sight of the people behind the systems they operate and impact, and find themselves the objects of ire and growing disaffection.

But, what might on the surface seem like disparate issues competing for fleeting attention or funding or both are bound by a common thread: At the root of each one, we’d argue, is a problem of isolation and fragmentation. And the closer we look, the more we find that the solutions to each are bound in our ability to build deeper social connection and cohesion.

As a society, we’ve tended to focus on the things that are easy to measure: on programs, products, policies, and technocratic fixes to long-standing problems. We’re mystified when well-honed theories and plans fail to translate into practice, and throw up our hands when there is no single policy or programmatic fix, and cultural forces imperil our best laid plans.

Very often, the thing that gets in the way of good ideas is not the idea itself, or systemic barriers — however mighty they may be. Often, what gets in the way is us. It’s the conflict that simmers in silence. It’s the elephant we let run rampant in the room. It’s the transactional promises that go flat. It’s the thoughtful offering that falls short of expectations, because we didn’t effectively consider how to spark and sustain engagement. It’s the empty apology, or the refusal for repair, or the lack of tools to practice what we long for. We learn too late that we cannot argue our way out of our problems.

We tend to think of community as an afterthought: a nice-to-have, after we take care of the real work, whether that's in education, or healthcare, or the like. But what if it's the reverse? What if we focused instead on collective care as the end goal? What other positive behaviors and outcomes would follow? What if, to quote Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy,

“we can be the medicine that each other needs”?

about this guide

Who this guide is for

Over the last five years, we’ve worked hand-in-hand with deputies and directors within local Mayor’s Offices; with faith leaders bent on healing the fractures and divisions they see imperiling their congregations and those outside them; with public health leaders, who see that trust is an essential ingredient of building healthier communities. We’ve worked with people who occupy positions in every sector, from public, to private, to nonprofit. While their titles may differ, as may your own, they are all civic leaders and community stewards.

What you’ll find here

This guidebook focuses on strategies to deepen connection to the places we call home, whether as a means of narrowing the gap between civic leaders and the people they serve, of cultivating repair and moving from destructive conflict into its more generative form, or simply of fostering positive sources of social connection and deepening trust among neighbors, particularly across lines of difference. We call this the work of strengthening civic infrastructure.

In the pages that follow, you’ll find strategies to meaningfully bring people together — whether offline or online — and how to tend to the things that often get in the way.

Click the map to explore case studies from unique cities and towns, whose experiences mirror evolutions taking shape in the country at large.

How to use this guide

We’ve focused on principles and practices that can be adapted and tailored to the unique needs of your particular community, so we invite you to skip around to the sections that speak to your immediate needs.

As you think about the gathering you wish to hold, the single most important thing you can do is to get clear on your why.

Why does it matter that people come together, and what do you want folks to leave with when they do? What are the kinds of relationships you want to cultivate, and the conversations that long to be had?

We find it helps to look for an acute pain-point that folks can agree upon — something that gives them a stake in deepening relationships. (Hint: Political polarization in the abstract is rarely a sufficient enough reason to gather.) It could be a long-simmering conflict, and the false assumptions we’re apt to make of one another. It could be the long-tail of a history of segregation, and ongoing inequities in our schools, our healthcare institutions, or our workplaces. It could be rising rates of loneliness or depression, or the chance to rebuild something that’s gone missing since the pandemic. It could simply be the excuse to get off our phones.

Your purpose can and should be highly specific to the particular community you're in and the people you wish to gather. And it should be one for which there is strong buy-in and agreement regarding the need and opportunity at hand.

When it comes to strengthening civic infrastructure, we find it's helpful to map your strategy to one of four goals (and no, you don't need to limit yourself to just one, as these are often overlapping):

• Who’s not in relationship and should be?
  
• Whose voices go unheard, and why?
  
• What’s getting in the way of the work you need to do together, and where could your community use a little more trust?
  
• What are the conversations here that feel taboo or otherwise polarizing?
  
• What are the feelings you wish to make space for, personally and as a community?
  
• What do you want to feel coming out of the experience? What do you want other people to feel?
  
• What might you have to offer other communities across the country, as an example for others seeking to build trust?
  
• Can those goals be realized in one night, or will they require time?
  

Translating Social Connection into Systems-Change

Sometimes it’s enough — and perhaps the best we can hope for — to simply complicate the narratives of one another: to create positive social connection, to recognize common humanity when common ground isn’t there to be found, knowing that structural isolation is a big part of what continues to fuel division. If you believe someone is inviting you to a table to change your mind, you won’t show up. If you’re inviting someone to a table to change their mind, you’ll probably fail.

And sometimes — as in the case of racial justice — it’s actually not enough. Trust is built on results. We hear all the time from communities of color who are not interested in coming to another dialogue circle, or doing any amount of interpersonal bridge-building, absent the promise that the underlying conditions fueling racial inequity will change.

So then the question becomes: If trust is the lubricant by which everything else gets done, how do we build more of it? How do we broaden the coalition of voices that are actively working to repair long standing pain-points, and to build a more equitable future?

case study:

Mayor’s Office of Erie, PA

A 2017 USA Today article named Erie, PA as the worst place in America for African Americans to live. We teamed up with the Mayor’s Office on a series of racial healing suppers. Over the course of six months, a mix of racially and ethnically diverse civic leaders — 80 in all — sat down for a seven-part series of bridging suppers across racial difference, and affinity suppers among folks who shared a common identity.

THE ISSUE: The Black community had been invited to too many dialogue circles before, and nothing had changed. They needed to know that the Mayor’s team was serious about addressing the inequities that were driving the city's racial divisions.

THE GOAL: At the end of the series, participants would come up with action steps to make Erie more equitable, based on the themes and stories they’d heard around the table. Those action steps would become the framework for the city's diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility work, to be led by the Mayor's Office.

Getting people to the first dinner — and the six that followed — didn’t require knowing what all of the outcomes would be. But it did require a promise and a plan to translate the stories shared around a table into action.

THE OUTCOMES: The projects that emerged included:

• a new workforce development initiative
• a multimillion dollar college scholarship fund for students in Erie
• cultural competency training for all public works employees

We spent the next year-and-a-half working with the Mayor’s team and a group of participants from the supper series to put those ideas into practice.

Narrowing the Gap Between Civic Leaders & the People They Serve

Trust is at a troubling low. Studies conducted by our friends at More in Common show that less than 4 in 10 Americans feel “most people can be trusted” (1). When asked about the trustworthiness of government, media, and business, a large majority of Americans considered each one dishonest. The consequences of that are significant, not least when it comes to the functioning of democracy: endemic mistrust fuels the spread of misinformation and extremist movements, and a decline in civic participation in everything from voting to volunteerism.

But here's the good news: Those same studies suggest that Americans have more faith in their local government than they do in the federal government. And, crucially, there are real steps we can take to build more of it.

The team at More in Common points to five key “pressure-points” which, if intentionally nurtured, can help to rebuild our sense of trust:

• our sense of belonging to the places we call home
  
• the degree to which we believe people in power operate with integrity, and with the best interests of the communities they serve
  
• having a stake in policy-making — a belief that decisions will directly impact your wellbeing
  
• opportunities to actively participate — to have a seat at the table, in both the figurative and literal sense
  
• staying local, concentrating less on the meta narratives we carry as a country, and more on local initiatives and the particularities that comprise our respective communities
  

Creating opportunities to break bread with neighbors and local leaders alike creates a positive feedback loop: The more people have the opportunity to participate in civic life, the better they feel about civic institutions, and the more willing they are to keep participating.

(1) Vallone, D. et. al. “Two Stories of Distrust in America.” New York, NY: More in Common (May 2021) https://www.moreincommon.com/media/yfcbfmmp/mic_two-stories-of-distrust.pdf

In February 2023, we teamed up with New York City’s Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes to launch “Breaking Bread, Building Bonds,” a multiyear initiative designed to unite New Yorkers regardless of their background, build understanding, and aid in ending bias, hate, and discrimination.

As with Erie, we set out with the goal of using shared meals and personal story-sharing to illuminate the gaps in inequitable policy outcomes and to surface opportunities for growth. But in a time of increased polarization and an increase in hate-motivated extremism and violence, we also wanted to visibly stand together in celebration of the diversity that has defined the city’s history.

The effort is powered by three parallel tracks, collectively designed to mobilize New Yorkers at scale. The Mayor’s Office is enlisting each city agency in the effort. We’ve hosted a series of “Catalyst Dinners”: large-scale gatherings for local leaders and community members to share stories with one another. From there, interested hosts then receive training on how to host a similar gathering back in their neighborhoods.

We also heard from community-based organizations in the city that were looking for connective practices and tools to help them better navigate new and historic sources of conflict. In one such instance, we advised a group of 40 Haitians and 40 Dominicans, on how to build trust amidst a crisis at the border of the two countries. The crisis threatened to undo years of local coalition-building and collective action strategies that the two communities had undertaken to improve issues concerning housing, healthcare, and education access. Local leaders needed the tools to help their communities sit down and talk openly about the pain-points that had emerged, and to complicate the narratives they carried of one another, and to restore trust in those they deemed “the other”. We’re in the process of training a team of local leaders who can accompany organizations undergoing similar sources of conflict, and help them to create generative conversations and connections among the people with whom they work.

Finally, we’re creating the equivalent of a New York City liturgical calendar: using the regular cadence of holidays and days of honor and remembrance across a diverse body of religious and ethnic groups to bring people together across lines of difference, and to invite New Yorkers to gather around shared tables at scale.

To date, more than 5,000 New Yorkers have sat down at 515 tables, largely through a series of suppers hosted by the NYPD, as a means of ensuring the officers at local precincts have the opportunity to build stronger relationships in the neighborhoods where they work.

Unearthing Hidden Histories

We're living through a moment of profound reckoning: one that requires an excavation and examination of our sanitized histories, a confrontation with our most complicated, ugliest, and sometimes conflicting truths, and a leveling of historic inequities and imbalances of power, as we come to understand that who’s telling the story determines the stories told.

What role has power and positionality played in determining whose stories are seen and heard within your community, both past and present? Changing that necessarily requires a bottom-up and highly networked strategy: It means going beyond the usual suspects, and thickening a web of connection that includes those who aren’t regularly invited to gatherings of this kind.

case study:

Oak Ridge Periodic Tables

In 1942, the government seized 60,000 acres in eastern Tennessee, turning a farming community into the city of Oak Ridge. Used to develop enriched uranium for the atomic bomb, the city was dubbed the “Secret City”. Over 18 months, 75,000 residents moved to Oak Ridge. Residents were forbidden from keeping journals; cameras were banned; mail was opened and censored. Scientists didn’t talk to engineers, & engineers didn’t talk to laborers. Secrecy was paramount. Today, those restrictions no longer exist, but the legacy of secrecy, segregation, and mistrust persists.

Like the American story itself, it’s a story defined no less by its hidden histories and the many voices that weren’t heard. In 1955, 85 Black students from the neighborhood of Scarboro became the first to enroll in an all-white school in the southeast. The students were banned from playing sports, or engaging in extracurriculars. They were called names and met at moments with hostility. But the integration otherwise took place without major incident, and was soon forgotten, even by many within the town.

In 2018, we began working with Reverend David Allred and the local Ministerial Association to bring together folks across racial, political, socioeconomic, generational, and religious differences, with the goal of building trust and connection among people of different identities and perspectives. Together, we set out to answer a single question: What do Oak Ridgers wish to be known for over the next 75 years? That question could not be answered by one voice, or one institution. It requires enlisting the many hidden voices — and hidden lives — that comprise the town.

In June 2019, nearly 200 people — religious and non-, spanning the town’s socioeconomic, political, racial, and generational diversity — gathered around 25 tables at First United Methodist Church for a community picnic, as part of the city’s annual Secret City Festival. All fourteen congregations participated, spreading the word to their members, volunteering to make sandwiches, canceling Wednesday night Bible Study in order to encourage participants to join, and opening their doors.

Among the organizers was a fry cook in fast food, who, together with his pregnant wife, showed up three nights in a row to lend a hand. As the night drew to a close, an older man approached the serving table. He explained that he had suffered from addiction and homelessness for 37 years, and asked if he could take a few brown bags to share with several friends who were still on the streets. Tearing up, he said how much he appreciated the chance to connect. One table was comprised, by chance, of more than half people of color, two Trump supporters, and a gay married couple. Three of them, all strangers, discovered they live on the same block, and went on to plan a block party.

Then came COVID. The isolation of the last several years created a powder-keg of mistrust and misinformation, not just about the pandemic and vaccines, but also having to do with recent elections, January 6, the Black Lives Matter movement, economic pressures, and more.

So in 2023, we set out on multi-pronged strategy designed to equip local leaders with a process and tools to help their communities navigate hard conversations, to enlist a wide coalition of unusual bedfellows in the cause of connection through meals and social events that invite story-sharing, and to use the resulting trust to generate solutions that advance equity and belonging for all. Oak Ridge Periodic Tables was born.

Led by David and a local Steering Committee, we teamed up with the Scarboro 85 Monument Committee, and together hosted a month-long series of racial justice suppers, reflecting on questions like “When did you first realize you had a racial identity that was different from someone else’s?”, “How were issues of race discussed in your family growing up?” and “What does it look like to be in right relationship with each other?”. The team has hosted suppers on the heels of dozens of arts events, panel discussions, and community festivals, helping other community-based groups throughout the city to foster deeper engagement and story-sharing among the people they serve.

More than 1,500 people have sat down so far this year, ensuring that long-hidden histories and the visible and invisible identities and experiences that collectively comprise the city are afforded a literal seat at the table.

Creating Positive Social Connection in Place of Its Opposite

Speaking to students at Cornell College in 1962, Dr. King stated, "I believe men hate each other because they fear each other and they fear each other because they don't know each other. They don't know each other because they don't communicate with each other and they don't communicate with each other because they are separate from one another.”

Over the last few years, researchers have begun studying how communities respond to natural disasters. They expected to find that survivability — let alone the capacity to rebuild — depended on access: how quickly you were able to access emergency services, and your overall wealth. But that wasn’t the case. In the face of catastrophe, the most important variable is the density and strength of a person’s social network: what are known as bonding and bridging ties (2). In the face of disaster, you can’t wait for your family member across town. What matters is how much you trust your neighbors, and whether folks are willing to lend each other a hand.

Strengthening our civic fabric requires talking to each other — creating simple opportunities by which we can see each other as complex and caring human beings. Such exchanges are not a panacea. They don’t inoculate against grief, or polarization, or futility. But the moments in which we truly connect with each other matter. They move us from isolation to association, and toward a shared humanity. Their absence diminishes us.

(2) Aldrich, D. P., & Meyer, M. A. (2015). Social Capital and Community Resilience. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(2), 254–269. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764214550299

case study:

Silver Thread Public Health Department, Creede, CO

Creede, CO is a town of 400 year-round residents tucked away in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. In 2019, we teamed up with the tiny public health department on what became a year-long community-wide potluck series.

They recognized that increasingly vitriolic fights on Facebook, and the tendencies to “other” one another were — even before 2020 hit — a threat to public health.

We started by interviewing a dozen folks in town: faith leaders from across the political aisle; the manager at the grocery store, who knew everyone’s name; cowboy-types. We talked about what people love about Creede, and what they fear for it, too.

We spend a lot of time with people who are ringing their hands about the state of democracy and polarization and all the headlines. But that wasn’t really the case here. Whatever was happening in Washington felt far away.

Every person we talked to talked about Creede as a place where people go to heal. They talked about the pride people take in helping each other out: in hosting a fundraiser in the Community Center when someone gets sick, in knitting blankets anytime a baby’s born.

But when you pressed a little, people also said things were a little more fraught than they used to be. They talked about fights on the school board, the way little sparks turned into giant conflagrations, how disagreements over local decisions were, in some cases, literally splitting families. They talked about how one fight on social media could destroy years of trust built between neighbors, or even friends they’d known for years.

So the invitation was not: “We’ve got a problem here.” The invitation was, “We think the country can learn a lot from Creede’s example.” And: “Let’s spend time away from the toxic waste dump of our Facebook feeds.”

We created a Host Committee, enlisting people from across town who were anchors in the community, many of whom we’d interviewed at the outset. We brought everyone together for a planning dinner, and trained them in how to host a table. When it came time to invite folks, we asked each Committee member to invite ten people.

We carefully arranged the seating charts, with an eye toward protecting marginalized voices in the room, and simultaneously fostering connection among folks where you'd least expect it.

Over the span of a year, 151 people in Creede (or 43% of the population) — more than a quarter conservative or very conservative — participated at least once, and 56 people (16% of the population) attended two or more.

Once you know why you’re gathering, the next step is to figure out whom you wish to invite.

You may be inviting people who are already loosely connected to one another: It might be the members of a congregation or faith community, the attendees of an event, or all the people who make up a school community — the families, teachers, counselors, janitorial staff, volunteers, and administrators who walk through the hallways. If that’s the case, and you already know exactly who you want to invite, skip ahead to “Setting the Table”.

On other occasions, however, you may be looking to bring together a diverse room of people who are, by and large, not in relationship with one another, or who would be reticent to sit down with folks of different backgrounds and beliefs. Perhaps you want to build trust across difference, by bringing together 100 people who represent many of the innumerable identities that comprise a city or town. Perhaps you want to combat endemic loneliness in the place you call home, and to engage people who are rarely invited to suppers of this kind. Perhaps you’re inviting folks who share a particular source of struggle or loss, in order to cultivate the kind of connection and understanding that can only be found among others who’ve lived it, too.

When designing a gathering or an initiative, it’s easy to focus on our objectives as an organization or as a host, and the things we wish to get out of it, rather than on the experience of the people you want in the room. From the moment you craft an invitation to the moment the event ends, keep your attention on the people you’re hoping to engage.

Here, it’s helpful to be as specific as possible, lest you get lost in assumptions or stereotypes.

Want to change who’s showing up?

Change who’s doing the inviting.

As a rule, people will only show up if they trust the person at the table or the person — or organization — who invited them.

If your goal is to bring together 200 diverse people, you don’t personally need to know the name of every guest. You need to know 20 people with strong ties to different networks and communities, and have each of them invite ten people they know.

Assignment

Ever put in a ton of effort into an event, only to have very few people show up? You, us, and every organizer we know.

Invitations should include:

• A personal why — why this person, why this group, why now
  
• A goal/purpose for the conversation itself
• An easy way to say no

You may want to have folks fill out a simple sign-up form ahead of your gathering. By collecting a little bit of demographic information in advance, you can assess the diversity in the room, and take steps to ensure no one voice is an outlier.

A sign-up form allows you to:

Consider the group dynamics, and what you’ll need to do to ensure everyone feels welcome.

Finally, by asking a few questions of folks ahead of their arrival, you can get a sense of some of the invisible stories and identities present within the group, as well as their hopes for the space and any fears you may want to preempt at the outset. What might get in the way of your being able to show up fully in this kind of conversation? Or: What is something that would help you feel able to show up as your full self in this gathering?

Keep in mind, however, that we live in flaky times: It’s not unusual to have up to 30% of participants be unable to make it in the end. And if the invitation is publicly advertised (or shared across multiple listservs, for example), some folks will likely show up without rsvp-ing, hence why we like randomized seating. Have name-tags available that people can fill out in real-time, and know that having more food available is better than less. Just have a plan for what to do with leftovers.

“It's easy to focus on preparing all the practicals and forget to prepare the people,” writes Priya Parker in The Art of Gathering. “Priming your attendees for the gathering is crucial. Think about what behavior you'd like at the gathering and look to prime it ahead of time.”

What can you do to reinforce the message of the evening long before folks arrive? If you want folks to talk with one another over lunch rather than look at their phones, what can you say in the morning to encourage folks to fully participate in the experience? If you’re hosting a supper at the end of a long day of events (say, as part of a conference), consider how the rest of the day’s agenda might build toward the experience.

What are different points in the day or run-up to the gathering that you can use to elevate the themes and types of expression you’re inviting folks to share? Perhaps you can curate an unusual set of bedfellows on a preceding panel, and lift up someone with lived experience as the “expert” in the room. Perhaps you can share a story earlier in the day, and model vulnerability and self-examination as you do so. Depending on the nature of the event, you might consider having people bring an object or a photo with a story behind it — for example, capturing the place they grew up, or a reminder of a person who taught you the meaning of courage — and using that either as a conversation-starter, or to co-create a Wall of Remembrance or altar together.

“The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out.

But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek.”

- Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life

Once you've figured out your purpose and the folks you wish to bring together, it's time to turn your attention to the environment you wish to create: what we call the "container". (No, we're not referring to your choice of tupperware.)

Perhaps you're bringing people together to unearth the hidden histories within your community: In that case, you'll need a container in which people can freely share stories with one another, and can feel safe enough to do so. Perhaps your goal is simply to forge positive social connection — to spark joy and alleviate, for a moment, the heaviness borne by a community that knows too well the weight of marginalization. The container you'll need might involve a variety of healing modalities and somatic practices, or it could focus on games or carnival rides and activities that spark a spirit of play. Perhaps you're gathering as a way of memorializing an experience of collective grief: In that case, what are the choice-points that will create a powerful, trauma-informed container for your community to process loss?

What will it take to create an environment that feels warm and inviting ​​— where every person who walks through your doors feels valued for being there?

Start by identifying your strengths as a community, and the cultural rituals and practices that make you who you are.

You may decide you want to focus on a different kind of container and set of activities, in which case, skip ahead!

Here you’ll find a series of strategies and tips for hosting a shared meal. We’ve focused on shared meals because we find that, if designed with care, they can accomplish a lot when it comes to fostering meaningful connection. You may decide you want to focus on a different kind of container and set of activities, in which case, skip ahead to the section on “the art of holding space”. (But remember: Whatever the nature of your gathering, it’s always a good idea to feed people.)

Why meals? We’re seeing a renaissance of dinner as “social technology”, fueled by people less interested in what we eat than in how we eat, why we eat, and with whom we eat. There are models designed to welcome the stranger and to combat hate (Syrian Supper Club, Displaced Dinners). There are dinners designed to open up conversations about the barriers that separate us, including race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and class (National Day of Racial Healing, Shabbat Salaam), or otherwise hard-to-talk-about subjects (Death Cafes, Generations Over Dinner), and those designed to spark individual and collective civic action or to highlight local innovations (On the Table, Inclusivv, Detroit SOUP). Some focus on reinventing religious ritual in the DIY age (One Table, Root and Branch and other “dinner churches”), and others offer simple opportunities to get to know your neighbor, as a way of combating endemic loneliness (Our Family Dinner, Peoplehood).

Each one seeks to leverage the role that food has played throughout time and across traditions, as a tool for meaning-making and community-building. There’s nothing novel about shared meals: Eating together is the oldest ritual in all of the books. And that’s the point. There’s a familiarity to sharing a meal together, whoever you are and wherever you’re from. There shouldn’t be anything intimidating about sharing a meal, whether that’s backyard burgers or pizza takeout. It’s about using food not as an end, but as a means—as a way of connecting to the person who put it on our plates, or to the person across the table, or of introducing ourselves and the people and places whose imprints we carry with us.

On a practical level, it makes for a better invitation: You’re more likely to show up to a meal than you are to a group that meets around a conference room table. And it creates a natural rhythm to conversation: When you need a moment to pause and consider what you want to say, or to reflect on something you’ve just heard, it helps to be able to pick up a fork.

This is not a networking gathering, or a strategic planning meeting. It’s not a Town Hall or a debate. You want to use the gathering to invite people into self-examination and storytelling. That means choosing discussion questions that elicit stories, encourage personal examination, and build trust.

If you’re hosting more of an “Open House”-style gathering, meaning participants will be self-facilitating, pick as many questions as you like from the list below, or add any of your own, and let folks pick and choose what they’re eager to explore together.

If using the “Shared Table” approach, pick three questions for your gathering, each one inviting greater depth than the one that came before it. Keep in mind that you do not need to present them all at once, or even get through all of them. Some groups have a very rich conversation on one question. Based on the flow of conversation, pay attention to when it might feel appropriate to bring in another question.

additional conversation starters

• Tell us about a time when you questioned something you held as certainty.

• Tell us about a time when you changed your mind about an issue that was important to you.
  

• Who is someone you know, a historical figure or a figure from your faith tradition/scriptures, who models radical hope?

• What is a spiritual practice or ritual that gives you strength when times are hard?
  

• What stories from your tradition inspire you to be your most courageous self?
  

• Who and what do you hold sacred?
  

• Describe an experience of loss that left you changed. How are you different now than you were before?

• Reflect on a person you loved and lost. Write three tiny letters to yourself, sharing lessons and words you’ve held onto, or words you wish they’d shared, or words you’d like to pass forward.
  

• Share a story of joy about time spent with someone you miss.
  

• What’s a trait of theirs you carry with you? What’s something you’re letting go?
  

• Think back on a time of deep struggle, and what it was that got you through. What did this experience teach you about your strengths, and about how you deal with adversity? (Credit: Kelly McGonigal, The Upside of Stress)
  

• Tell us about someone who showed up for you when you needed it.

• Describe an experience in which you've longed for a community that wasn't there. What did that teach you?

• Think about a supportive or joyful community that you have been a part of. What were the ingredients that made it that way?

• Tell us about a time when living your values required you to make a change.

• Tell us about a time when, in an important relationship, you had different perspectives on what it meant to do the right thing. How did you navigate it?
  

• What makes you feel deeply alive?

• What is the vision of hope that sustains you?
  

• Who or what makes you feel most rooted?
  

• How do you practice hope in your life each day?
  

For people of color:

• Describe your first experience of racial injustice or discrimination. How did it shape your worldview?
  

• As we think about the moment we’re in, the pain that led us here, and this history and manifestation of racial injustice in our community, where does it hurt?
  

(Credit: Ruby Sales)

• What do you love most about being a part of your community?
  

• Have your views of what you like about America changed through the years or remained the same?
  

For white folks:

• Describe a time when you first realized you were white. What did this experience teach you?
  

• How did your parents and family raise you to see race, your whiteness, and the history of racism within the United States?
  

• What’s an issue related to race that you don’t understand and would like to understand but feel uncomfortable bringing up/not knowing about?
  

• Imagine you’re talking to your grandchildren or great-grandchildren. What story do you want to be able to tell them about what you did in this moment in the story of racial justice?
  

If going the Shared Table route, you’ll want to have a table host at each table to introduce discussion questions and then lightly facilitate the conversation. It’s a great way to elevate natural leaders from within your community, and to deepen a sense of co-ownership over the experience.

So if you’re doing an event with 240 people and 8 people at each table, that means you’ll need to recruit 30 Table Hosts. Where possible, make sure your table hosts reflect the diversity of voices in the room.

A good facilitator:

Creating brave space is about being courageous enough to model vulnerability. It's about co-creating a space of radical honesty and radical hospitality and nurturing where we seek to truly see each other and respect the other's humanity. (More in the Setting the Table Guide)

Sharing one's own story gives others permission to share theirs. This isn't about giving advice, or waxing poetic from a soapbox. A host will have to be able to steer clear of intellectual banter and philosophizing of any kind, and talk openly about their lived experience. To become a successful host, one has to be willing to be vulnerable, and to reflect deeply on their own story.

These conversations are all about connecting through conversation and storytelling, so you'll need to be comfortable chatting, prodding, questioning, and laughing with other people while discussing sensitive stuff.

A good table host recognizes what they don't know about someone far exceeds what they do know. They prefer asking questions to giving answers. A big part of being a host is simply listening, asking follow-up questions, and resisting the urge to "fix" something for someone else. The most important thing hosts do is to create space at the table for every person to be heard.

Basically: You’re looking for people who already have good facilitation skills, and are skilled at making others at the table feel welcome — people who are introspective and able to name their own stories, and to listen actively as others share theirs.

You’re welcome to just share this guide with anyone who serves as Table Hosts: Make sure they have a list of all the questions you’re using, and make sure they’re familiar with the Facilitation Tips in the Setting the Table Guide.

Want additional support for Table Hosts? Email us at info@thepeoplessupper.org to schedule a one-hour training.

SETTING

THE TABLE

Where & When & What's On Our Plates

Creating a space that feels casual and intimate? Try a potluck.

Want it to feel like a special occasion? Take care of the food.

Remember the golden rule of college organizing: If you feed them, they will come.

One of the unchanging facts of a changing world: Serving food is a universal expression of care. The food on our plates can also help to reinforce the messages and values you espouse to hold: You can choose to go local, or to lift up small businesses. While the goal of the evening should focus more on memorable conversation than on what’s on our plates, a memorable menu can help warm people up to the experience.

The space you choose matters every bit as much as what you choose to put on the plates. Loud restaurants can create a fun, party atmosphere, but are less ideal for deep conversation with more than two or three people.

You want to identify a nonjudgmental space in which folks of different backgrounds and identities, life experiences, and cultural and religious differences will feel comfortable. It’s also crucial that folks be able to hear one another, so be sure to choose a location with plenty of space.

Long farm tables with immaculate dishes set upon them make great photos for Instagram, but are the worst for small group conversation. An ideal group size tends to be 8-10 people; more than that, it becomes difficult to get a word in, and conversation easily splinters. We recommend arranging tables at least 4-5 ft. away from one another.

(Note: You’ll need at least one trained Table Host at every table, so if you’re doing an event with 240 people and 8 people at each table, that means you’ll need to recruit 30 Table Hosts.)

Hosting a large gathering and looking to maximize diversity at each table? Try this simple approach: Assign each table a number and place a large, visible place-card in the center of each table. Have each person grab a table number out of a bag when they sign in. (If you’re hosting 100 people at 10 tables of 10 people each, you’ll want to cut out the numbers 1-10 ten times.) A few no-shows are inevitable, so if a couple of tables have less than six people present when it’s time to get started, simply combine them.

Our tendency is to have a million things to do at the last minute, so a word of hard-earned advice: Don’t. Be sure that someone is able to invest real attention in every person as they walk in the door.

It’s helpful to leave a few things unfinished (lighting candles, setting the table, etc.) so that when folks arrive, you can give them a task and they, too, can help co-create the space you'll be sharing. For bigger gatherings, let your guests know ahead of time that you’re looking for a handful of volunteers to help with set-up and break-down at the beginning and end of the gathering. It helps build a sense of ownership over the experience, and reduces the burden on the organizing team.

suggested flow:

Arrivals

Welcome

60 min flow:

Small group convos. (ALL)

Participants will be at tables of about 8-10.

Hosts’ job is to kick off the conversation and

lightly facilitate.

Closing and Next Steps

Large group debrief:

Announcements

90 min flow:

Small group convos. (ALL)

Participants will be at tables of about 8-10.

Hosts’ job is to kick off the conversation and

lightly facilitate.

Closing and Next Steps

Large group debrief:

Announcements

Facilitation Tips

conclusion

Take a deep breath with us, friends. Take a moment to sink in to what you already know: where have you felt well connected in community- and what made that possible? Where did you experience an attempt at connection that fell flat? What happened there? Trust that you have experiences that you can draw upon in order to create the kind of community you are longing for. This guide is full of our learnings along the way, and you’ll have your own learnings, too - as you take your next steps, see what works, what doesn’t and adjust accordingly. Notice what lingers with you from this guide that you want to experiment with, return to this guide as a companion as you work with your particular community in your particular place. We close withs guide with gratitude that you join us and a lineage that extends long before us, and will extend long after us, full of people who are committed to building a more deeply connected world.

We are rooting for you.