Pre-Conference Sessions

Advancing Real Solutions in the Face of Coordinated Opposition
with Local Progress Network and Othering & Belonging Institute

As federal inaction and overreach harms communities and withdraws essential services and protections, people are looking to local governments for real solutions to the livability crisis. Local governments rising to the challenge face barriers when state governments preempt local authority and use authoritarian tactics to attack and silence local electeds standing up for communities. 

Despite these efforts, all across the country,  and especially in the South, progressive local leaders are creating strategies to wield their power and govern for all communities. In this session, local elected officials, including from the South and Appalachia, will share the strategies used to build and wield power at the local level for real solutions.  

The goal of this learning lab is for attendees to leave with: a deeper understanding of the constraints local governments have in achieving bold policy change and strategies for working around them; clear examples for how values aligned local electeds can govern with the community in this moment to advance racial and economic justice; and tools for strategizing across their community to move real solutions.

This session will include two case studies from elected officials on how they worked through legal, narrative, and political constraints to achieve policy wins and build power, discussion of the principles, practices, and resources needed, and discussion of how participants can apply these lessons in your own community. 

The learning lab will draw from curriculum and strategy frameworks from the Collaborative Governance Academy, a joint initiative of the Local Progress Impact Lab and re:power Fund, and the Othering and Belonging Institute’s work on transformative policy change and narrative strategy.

Creating Community Belonging & Bridging: Case Studies from Battle Creek, Michigan

What does it truly take to build a collaborative, durable partnership between institutional philanthropy and local community leaders focused on catalyzing bridging in a community? In Battle Creek, Michigan, Kellogg Foundation and community partners embarked on an intensive 18-month journey to ground their shared work in the transformative framework of "belonging without othering."

This interactive session will help participants explore what they can do to support bridging across differences to create more belonging in their community. Our panelists will explore the real-world struggles, major breakthroughs and powerful "aha" moments of this unique collaboration as partners navigated institutional power dynamics, tested innovative local actions to create “ripples of bridging,” and worked to catalyze meaningful, community-wide bridging.

Attendees will leave with: A clear understanding of the benefits of engaging in a deep, shared study of "Belonging without Othering" principles before rushing into community action;  Frameworks for self-examination to help identify and navigate the unique challenges and conditions of creating belonging in your own community; and  Actionable, practical ideas for implementing initiatives that spark positive ripples of bridging back home.

This learning lab is designed for foundation staff, community organizers, civic leaders and anyone seeking to shift power and foster deep belonging within their own spheres of influence. 

Radical Imagination as a Tool for Belonging
Hosted by Othering & Belonging Institute Arts & Cultural Strategy and partners 

The learning lab will include a series of group discussions, somatic exercises, and activities that cultivate a framework of utilizing radical imagination as a transformative tool for change and possibility. This learning lab offers a deep exploration of the many definitions of radical imagination and their practical applications. We will first position and discuss imagination as a muscle that needs to be cultivated and exercised, as well as how it can become neglected and atrophy. We will discuss the current conditions in the world that may be hindering our ability to imagine and strategize together how to move from imagination to implementation through activities that exercise our "muscles" of imagination. 

This learning lab is designed for artists, community organizers, influencers, cultural workers, and policy analysts. Participants will be able to join an ongoing network of radical imagination practitioners.

Connective Tissue: Belonging, Migration, and Democratic Renewal
with Othering & Belonging Institute’s Democracy & Belonging Forum; Building Belonging with Wings and Roots; and the European Philanthropic Initiative for Migration

Migration is a defining wedge issue of authoritarian movements — in the US and much of the world — yet the fields working hardest on democracy, social and economic justice, and climate resilience have struggled to articulate a compelling alternative vision, let alone build the cross-sector solidarity to make it politically effective. This half-day learning lab, hosted by Belonging Beyond Borders (BBB), offers an immersive introduction to a transnational network that has been convening leaders across five continents to cultivate that vision and alignment — and actively developing an emerging Migration–Belonging–Democracy framework to support it.

Through facilitated dialogue, polarity mapping, and collaborative working sessions, participants will explore the interdependence of migration with the broader struggles for democratic renewal and social justice, build relationships across sectors and geographies, and offer practitioner-grounded feedback on a framework being shaped with partners around the world.

For leaders working across migration, democracy, social justice, labor, climate, and narrative change. We aim to engage those already part of OBI’s ecosystem, as well as new collaborators from the Midwest and South who are building inclusive civic futures. Participants may include movement organizers, funders, narrative strategists, and scholars contributing to the belonging field.

Common Ground Kentucky and Bridging for Democracy
With Common Ground Kentucky and Othering & Belonging Institute

This learning lab will bring participants into the Bridging for Democracy project through an abridged long-bridge canvassing training and canvassing session where we will go out into Louisville to humanize and better understand Kentuckians. 

Bridging is urgent for the progressive movement to meet this moment and to grow our impact. The growing division and dehumanization cannot just be countered by amassing more forces on one side, but demands bridging. Bridging makes us better organizers by sharpening listening and relational skills, expanding what we think is possible, supporting stronger narrative development, and creating new possibilities for base building. Participants in this learning lab will also leave with an understanding of concrete ways movement organizations have implemented bridging, including the challenges and lessons from this practice.

Civic Hubs 2.0: Building Permanent Relational Infrastructure for Belonging in Your Community
Led by TogetherUp Institute in partnership with the Othering & Belonging Institute and ThinkPlace US

This session is designed for anyone who wants to build stronger, more innovative, inclusive, and resilient communities — including municipal professionals, education and law enforcement leaders, philanthropic officers, nonprofit and faith and identity group leaders, and anyone who aspires to create deeper relationships and belonging in the place where they live and work.

What would it look like if your community had a standing network of trusted relationships across every sector and identity group--ready to solve problems together, hold through conflict, and align diverse actors around shared goals before a crisis forces the issue? This learning lab introduces TogetherUp Institute's civic hub 2.0 model: a whole-of-society approach to building durable relational infrastructure at the local level, grounded in the science of intergroup contact, targeted universalism, and resilience to disaster, economic downturn or violence.

The session opens with a brief introduction to the evidence base for civic hubs and stories from hubs in Needham, MA, Pleasanton, CA, and New Orleans, LA. Participants then move into a hands-on lab to imagine and prototype this kind of connective tissue in their own context. Participants will walk through the process of building a community map and convening leaders and residents across sectors and identity groups. Then they'll experience key components of the Turning Towards curriculum for building relationships, strengthening skills for collaborating across backgrounds, and co-creating solutions to shared local challenges. Participants will leave with a clearer sense of how to move from the values of belonging to the structures and practices that make it real and lasting at the community level.

This session emerges from TogetherUp's work to grow a movement and field of practice around civic hubs as permanent and inclusive bridging and relational infrastructure. This is work being shaped in partnership with communities across the country, and with OBI and ThinkPlace US. We are especially interested in grounding this session in the context of Kentucky and the broader region, and would welcome the opportunity to collaborate with local leaders to deepen its relevance and connection to place.