Community Leadership Online

We’re piloting two new online trainings to teach young people how to strengthen their communities through dialogue, collaboration, and relationship building.  Learn more. Opens in a new tab

Want to make positive change in your community but don’t know where to start? These free, six-week trainings will introduce you to key components of community leadership. They build on learnings from dozens of in-person trainings we’ve led in cities across the United States, including feedback from participants and issue-area experts along with our own research and input from focus groups.

The inaugural training is currently underway! Be sure to add your email at the bottom and check back here for updates on when the next training will run.

Looking to make lasting, sustainable change? Start by embedding yourself in your community, building connections with other community members, and understanding the resources available to you. This training focuses on highlighting ways to connect with your community, in order to leverage its existing strengths to make positive change.

In six weeks, you will:

• Define your community and identify your community’s valuable assets.

• Understand your community’s dynamics, including its demographics and power structures. 

• Evaluate your connections within your community and identify ways to strengthen ties.

• Develop effective, equitable ways to build new connections.

• Learn from experts like Theresa Hyuna Hwang—a community-engaged architect, educator, and facilitator—and young leaders like Shirley Ramirez and Nicolas Robledo, who are all working to change their communities for the better. 

Community leadership requires us to engage with one another in nuanced dialogue—not to have vigorous debates—but to truly understand the lived experiences, motivations, and belief systems of our neighbors. Like democracy, the impactful dialogue our diverse and vibrant communities need doesn’t just happen. It requires intentionality, commitment, and most of all, practice. This training provides a sustainable model for connecting across lines of difference. 

In six weeks, you will: 

• Define the concept of impactful dialogue.

• Learn its corresponding eight habits, and practice applying those habits in your daily life.

• Learn from experts like Kristen Coley—founder, writer, podcaster, and dialogue-based expert—and Dylan Marron, creator of the podcast, “Conversations with People Who Hate Me.” 

• And, of course, talk to other people from diverse communities who are also committed to deepening their impactful dialogue practice!