Civic Gatherings

Resource library — 

We’ll be adding new ideas, tips, conversation prompts, inspiring stories, and other content to help you practice the civic skill of developing and practicing civic gatherings.

Explore Priya Parker’s “Art of Gathering”

Priya Parker is an expert gatherer. She shares,

Gatherings play a huge role in our lives. The comings together of friends, family, and co-workers have the potential to change the way we connect, the way we understand ourselves and one another, and the way we live. Yet, too often, we’re on autopilot using the same tired formats. We forget to plan for, or fail to even consider, the human connection at the center of it all — the real magic behind a successful group event. I want to help you shift that lens. I believe everyone has the ability to gather well. I’m here to help you rethink and reimagine how we spend our time together and infuse it with creativity and meaning.

Explore her work →

Become a gathering architect

Picture the physical gathering spaces that exist in your community. Are they being used to build the relationships, trust, and collaborations that your neighbors are yearning for?

We invite you to become become an architect for this kind of “civic infrastructure” — structured and sustained community gatherings that help us feel invited, connected, energized. That help us overcome social anxiety and heal our social rifts. And that build a culture of looking out for others, of taking responsibility for what’s not working, of being civically committed.

Explore journaling prompts to get started →

Take a deep dive into the research

21st Century Civic Infrastructure: Under Construction

This paper from the Aspen Institute outlines strategies to building civic infrastructure – an infrastructure strong enough to meet 21st century challenges and designed to serve all members of our society, especially those on the margins.

“If built with intention, civic infrastructure produces platforms on which a sense of shared responsibility can reside and grow; it enables us to communicate with one another more effectively; it helps to manage our differences; and it can help us to develop a shared understanding of what constitutes our common and public good. Civic infrastructure enables civic capacity — the “capacity to create and sustain smart collective action.” In the absence of an intentional civic infrastructure designed to broaden participation and, particularly, to engage those on the margins, other interests will fill the vacuum. The absence of a robust civic infrastructure risks giving rise to a system that serves a more narrow and elite constituency where market and moneyed interests can replace the interests of a broader public purpose.” Continue reading →

Be a builder

We Need to Build by Eboo Patel is a call to create institutions, structures, and gatherings needed to sustain our democracy — and a guide for how to run them well. IN his book, Patel shares how these gatherings serve as vital spaces for dialogue, learning, and collaborative action among diverse community members, fostering a sense of belonging and shared responsibility for the democratic process.

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