Community leaders discuss critical issues related to bridging and belonging at the American Leadership Forum's Bridge Houston event.

In a moment defined by deep division, when it feels harder to be with one another. Where difference too often becomes distance. Where disagreement hardens into division. Where the spaces that once held us together — our institutions, our communities, even our conversations — are under strain.

In Houston, a group of leaders is choosing a different path.

Not by ignoring those divisions or trying to resolve them quickly. But by learning how to stay connected through them and to do the work that bridging makes possible.

They come from across sectors — food systems, public defense, business, housing, and civic life. They do not all share the same politics. They do not all agree. But they share a recognition that feels increasingly urgent: the tools they have inherited for navigating differences are no longer enough for the moment we are in.

So they are building new ones.

Through the Bridging and Belonging Fellowship — convened by the Empower Initiative and in partnership with the Othering and Belonging Institute (OBI) and the American Leadership Forum (ALF) — these leaders are not just studying bridging as an idea. They are practicing it and bringing it into the institutions and systems they are responsible for shaping.

And that practice is already taking form.

In a citywide survey on belonging and connection, developed in partnership with the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, that is helping leaders understand how people experience connection across Houston and where those connections are breaking down. 

In gatherings across Houston, where leaders from different sectors are coming together not to debate solutions, but to ask what becomes possible when trust is built first. At belonging tables, where community leaders from different faiths and backgrounds sit together, break bread, and engage in honest, civil conversations across differences — even on the most difficult issues.

And in the quieter, everyday decisions — how leaders convene, how they listen, how they design systems — that begin to reimagine how institutions show up in people’s lives. 

“This work isn’t just about the big moments,” said Empower Initiative co-founder Ben McBride. “It’s about how we show up every day — in the meetings we lead, the decisions we make, the way we respond when there’s tension or disagreement. That’s where bridging actually lives. And if we’re not practicing it there, then it doesn’t matter what we say we believe.”

Leaders from Houston belonging to the Bridging and Belonging Fellowship convened at an Empower Initiave event last year.

Serving as Chief Public Defender for Houston’s Harris County, Genesis Draper said the fellowship has helped her to navigate a system that is “adversarial in nature,” from the inside-out.

“I had to ask myself — do I have to be that way? Because if I do, then I’m never actually seeing the person across from me. I’m only seeing their role, and that limits what’s possible in that relationship,” she said. “This work of bridging really helps you to internally have those moments with yourself, and to see people not as colleagues to disagree with, but as human beings to connect with.”

And in Houston, that kind work didn’t emerge overnight. 

It has been built over decades, said ALF Houston President Nory Angel. Through ALF’s leadership programs and cohorts, leaders across the city have been coming together to engage across lines of difference and wrestling with issues like gun control, immigration, and more.

That sustained commitment to relationship-building has laid the groundwork for what’s happening now.

“And over time, that creates something powerful. You’re not starting from zero,” Angel said. “You’re building on a web of trust, where people are already connected within just a few degrees of separation. That makes it possible to do this kind of work in a deeper way. And the fellowship gave that foundation the framing and energy it needed to really take hold.”

Bridging and Belonging Fellows traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to understand the history and culture of post-apartheid South Africa. They enjoyed ceremonies and performances from local culturebearers.

Bridging before conflict

The Bridging and Belonging Fellowship was designed with a simple but urgent premise: most leaders are asked to navigate division without ever being taught how.

People across sectors — private, public, faith, social change — often don’t get into relationships until the point of crisis,” said McBride. “And by then, anxiety is high, people are dug in, and the stories we’ve told ourselves about each other are already hardened.”

Instead of waiting for conflict, the fellowship brought leaders together before it, inviting participants into a structured year-long experience of reflection, relationship-building, and practice grounded in the idea that belonging is not just a value, but something that must be intentionally built through bridging across differences.

“One of the most powerful things is watching people move from certainty to curiosity,” said Ashlin Malouf, OBI Deputy Director. “When that shift happens, the entire dynamic in the room changes and suddenly, connection becomes possible in ways it wasn’t before.”

Across months, McBride and Malouf engaged fellows in facilitated conversations, deep reflection, and shared experiences that challenge how they see themselves, each other, and the systems they operate within.

Some of those experiences took fellows out of their day-to-day environments entirely — into places where history, conflict, and possibility are held side by side.

Slideshow from the Empower Initiative's March 2025 Learning Lab during which the group visited three cities in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma cities in Alabama.

In Alabama, fellows walked through sites central to the civil rights movement, confronting the legacy of racial injustice in ways that moved beyond abstraction, which McBride called a “spiritual pilgrimage.”

For many, the learning was not just in what they saw, but in who they encountered. Dorian Cockrell, who serves as Vice President of Global Philanthropy at JP Morgan Chase, said the immersive experiences with people he never would have interacted with were the most powerful.

“I ended up sitting down and having lunch with an Alabama state trooper,” said Cockrell. “Seeing the archival images and videos of state troopers violently abusing Black people during the civil rights movement, that wasn’t someone I would have chosen to meet at the legacy of slavery museum.” 

“But that’s what the fellowship does,” he added. “It creates these moments where you’re pushed outside of your comfort zone, and you have to decide whether you’re going to lean in or pull back. That was my moment of bridging, realizing that connection is possible even when the history between people says otherwise.”

For Thao Costis, that design — bringing people from different systems into shared experience — was what made the fellowship transformative for her. An Executive Director for housing and community development in Houston, Costis said the history she learned had an impact on how she views current struggles in the city.

“These challenges are never in isolation,” she said. “Housing, education, criminal justice — they’re all intertwined, and yet the way we’re trained to lead often keeps us in our lanes. What the fellowship does is disrupt that. It puts you in relationship with people whose work intersects with yours in ways you may not have fully understood before. And once you see that, it changes how you think about solutions and what’s actually possible.”

Fellows share a meal together in Cape Town, South Africa. Ben McBride, front right, led the fellows through hands-on bridging and belonging experiences throughout the city.

Fellowship participants also traveled together internationally to South Africa, where learning moved beyond theory. As President of Softway, a B2E Houston tech company, Mohammad Anwar sat and ate with people who had lived through apartheid, and was surprised by the resolve they exhibited to continue to bridge with those who had enforced the system against them.

“They weren’t angry, they were hopeful, resilient, ready to build something new,” said Anwar. “And it stopped being history. It became real. That changed how I understood what’s possible when people choose to move forward without forgetting what happened.”

As CEO of She’s Happy Hair, Warren Broadnax also operates a foundation dedicated to empowering youth and low-income families. For Broadnax, the experience in South Africa underscored something deeper about connecting across differences.

“You realize how much people carry, and how much they’re still willing to extend toward one another,” he said. “Even after everything they’ve been through, there’s a commitment to building something together. And that forces you to reflect on your own context — on what we’re holding onto, and what we might need to let go of in order to move forward.”

Together, those experiences reshaped how fellows understood both history and possibility not as something distant, but as something actively shaping the choices they make in their own communities.

As Chief Impact Officer at the Houston Foodbank, Nicole Lander oversees the largest foodbank in the country providing access to 150 million meals every year. As a veteran in the nonprofit world, the trips changed how she saw systems entirely.

“You start to realize how many of our systems are designed in ways that keep people apart rather than bringing them together,” she said. “And once you see that, it’s hard to go back. It changes how you approach your work and what you think your responsibility is within those systems.”

OBI's Deputy Director Ashlin Malouf (left), and ALF Director Nory Angel, middle, traveled to South Africa with the fellowship.

Bridging in practice

While the fellowship brought personal transformation for its cohort, it is now becoming collective action. In Houston, fellows are beginning to translate bridging into systems, policies, and shared civic efforts.

One of the most significant outcomes is a partnership with the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, which led to a citywide study on belonging and connection. Stephen Ives, President and CEO of YMCA Houston, said the survey has helped the group understand what people in Houston are going through at this moment.

“And what we found is that connection and belonging are more strongly correlated with life satisfaction than income or education. That tells us that belonging is not just a ‘nice to have,’ it’s foundational,” said Ives. “And that insight reframes our work. Belonging is no longer just a value. It is something measurable and actionable.”

Those findings are already influencing how leaders think about policy and practice, not as separate from belonging, but as deeply connected to it. That work carried into the Stronger Together convening held in Houston, where in March hundreds of leaders across sectors gathered to reflect on the data and ask what it requires of them.

The American Leadership Forum's Bridge Houston events continue to bring community leaders from across the city to find common ground across differences and create spaces of belonging.

“We’re not trying to create something entirely new,” Ives said. “We’re asking: how do we take what already exists and embed connection and belonging into it in a more intentional way?”

Lander added: “Food insecurity and the lack of other basic needs is impacted by the fact that residents lack connection and a sense of belonging. If we work to change those foundational issues it will help with the overall well-being of our communities.”

But the work is not confined to research or large-scale gatherings. It is also unfolding in smaller, more intimate spaces where bridging becomes something people can experience directly.

Across Houston, fellows have convened belonging tables, bringing together community leaders from different faiths, backgrounds, and political perspectives to sit together, share meals, and engage in honest conversations across difference.

“I hosted an iftar during a time when there was a lot of fear and division around the topic of Israel and Palestinian relations,” said Anwar. “We brought together people from different faiths — rabbis, muslims and Christians — not to debate, not to solve everything, but just to sit together and see each other as human again.”

For fellow Allie Falender, a program director at the Nature Conservancy, that translation from idea to practice is where the work becomes real. Falender, who previously worked at Shell as a biotechnician, said that in conservation work, people may disagree politically but they can agree that protecting land and water matters.

“And that becomes an entry point. It’s not about forcing agreement, it’s about identifying where shared values already exist and building from there in a way that creates trust. The fellowship taught us that listening is critical, and it’s something we don’t practice enough. Not listening to respond, but listening to actually understand someone whose experience is different from your own — that’s where bridging starts.”

In Cape Town, fellows shared meals with local leaders and residents which inspired fellows to create their own Belonging dinners in different parts of Houston.

Others are bringing bridging into the design of systems themselves. For Draper, that means rethinking what it looks like to show up as a professional in spaces with the intention to bridge.

“I think before, I was moving so quickly through my work that I didn’t always take the time to examine what biases and judgement I was carrying into those spaces,” she said. “Now, I’m much more aware of that, and that awareness has changed everything.”

And for Broadnax, the work means investing in the next generation. Creating pathways for young people to feel a sense of belonging and possibility in their own lives.

“The work may look different across sectors, but it is connected by a shared approach,” said Broadnax. “And for me, this work is about the next generation. If young people don’t feel like they belong, then we’re not doing our job. The fellowship made me more intentional about how I show up for them and the kind of community we’re building around them.”

A shift in perspective, and what comes next

The most lasting impact of bridging work, for many of the fellows, is not just what they are doing differently — it is how they are seeing differently. Costis says that shift begins with a deeper understanding of complexity when it comes to collaborating on challenges together.

“If we keep approaching these issues in silos, we’re going to keep reproducing the same outcomes,” she said. “The opportunity here is to actually work across systems in a way that reflects how people experience their lives — not how our institutions are structured.”

That change is subtle but profound, said Falender. It shows up in how leaders listen. How they hold disagreement, and how they define success.

“Listening is critical — and it’s something we don’t practice enough,” she said. “Not listening to respond, but listening to actually understand someone whose experience is different from your own — that’s where bridging starts.”

For Lander, that shift has made the systems she works within impossible to ignore.

“The fellowship made me realize that I’m not just operating within systems. I’m helping shape them, whether I intend to or not,” she said. “And that comes with a responsibility to be more intentional about how I show up, how I make decisions, and how I create space for others. It shifted my mindset from just doing the work to really thinking about the impact of how that work is done.”

But the work of bridging and belonging can be challenging when others don’t want to bridge, said Draper. A daily question she has asked herself is: “How do you honor someone’s humanity even when you disagree?” 

“But I started to think more about the people behind the cases — not just my client, but the victims too. That was a shift for me. Because in an adversarial system, you’re not really encouraged to see the full humanity of everyone involved. But the fellowship pushed me to sit with that and to recognize that every person in that situation has a story, a family, a life that matters.”

What is happening in Houston is still unfolding, but it is already pointing toward something larger, said McBride — the foundation of a new fabric of relationships.

And that fabric is not limited to one city, said Angel.

“What we’re seeing here isn’t just about Houston,” she said. “It’s about what becomes possible when you invest in relationships, shared language, and a willingness to bridge across differences — and how that can travel.”

Angel has begun exploring how this work might extend globally, including places like Croatia, where histories of division continue to shape civic life.

The contexts are different. But the question remains the same. What does it take to build belonging across differences?

Back in Houston, the answers are emerging in real time. In rooms like the ones where strangers become collaborators. In data that reframes what matters. In leaders willing to change themselves before trying to change others.

“In a moment where everything is pushing us to separate and take sides, creating spaces where people can stay connected across difference isn’t just valuable,” said Malouf. “It’s necessary.”

Fellows together hiked up a Cape Town mountain during their trip to South Africa. As a team exercise Warren Broadnax said "It was an experience I will never forget."

And what’s happening in Houston offers a glimpse of what becomes possible when people choose to try. Not perfectly. Not easily.

But together.

“This isn’t about getting it right every time,” said McBride. “It’s about making a commitment to keep showing up—to stay in relationship even when it’s hard, to resist the instinct to pull away, and to keep choosing each other. That’s what makes transformation possible.”