Breaking the Model to Engage Grassroots

February 2, 2022

Friend,

Convergence – together with partners Civic Genius, More in Common, and Interfaith Youth Core – recently announced they will test a new model to engage local, grassroots, and faith-based participants in the national dialogues, beginning with the upcoming Convergence Dialogue on Digital Disinformation.

The partners have prioritized broadening participation in finding solutions and are building linkages between the national dialogue to build solutions and the grassroots conversations to deliberate on the issue.

They are hopeful that the initiative will help expand participation in deliberative bridging conversations across America, and the collaboration will strengthen their individual impact. Convergence sees opportunities to enhance the impact of the Convergence Dialogue as the partnerships:

Add new and diverse voices to shared learning and consideration,
Offer new opportunities for feedback and refinements of potential proposed solutions, and
Boost the distribution, awareness, and support for the eventual consensus solutions.

Likewise, the partners expect to demonstrate that local, grassroots, and faith-based deliberative conversations will yield stronger results, as their connection to the Convergence Dialogue:

Improves recruitment for the broader engagement,
Enhances the content and output of the deliberative conversation itself, and
Grows public awareness of the need, and the breadth of opportunities, to come together across differences to consider crucial challenges and their potential solutions.

In the upcoming national Convergence Dialogue on Digital Disinformation, leaders and experts of diverse perspectives and from multiple sectors will come together (virtually, at first) to build trust, learn to understand each other’s perspectives and values, and arrive at new, consensus solutions that move America past the places the issue has been “stuck” by divisiveness or failure to coordinate.

Read the Announcement

More on the Upcoming Digital Disinformation Dialogue

Collaboration Doesn’t Mean Compromising Values

“When dialogues are put together well, they don't require compromise. There is no reason to give up your values...[T]he best conversations come between people who have different values that are curious to learn about the other perspective,” emphasizes our CEO, David Eisner, in the This is Civity podcast. Listen to learn more about our Dialogue process and what makes it so successful at fostering a consensus without compromising values.

Listen Now

Audiences Captivated by the Dialogue that Bridged the Gun Divide

Article headlines of pieces Convergence was Featured in

The Convergence Dialogue on Guns and Suicide Prevention report release has garnered a multitude of media hits across the publishing spectrum, reaching an audience of over 3 million, including:

The Hill published an op-ed piece by two of our Dialogue participants, Emmy Betz and Rob Pincus.
The Trace, a leading gun crime prevention organization, discussed the report in its newsletter.
Notable gun rights publications, Ammoland, Bearing Arms, and The Reload covered the report release.
Juvenile Justice Information Exchange and the Association of Health Care Journalists published on the report release with a focus on youth and mental health.
The Fulcrum, a notable bridging blog site, also posted the event on its platform.

The breadth of coverage thus far illustrates the urgency of the issue and the power of Convergence to build trust and collaboration among unlikely allies. To learn more, visit our website news page and the project page.

Convergence in the News

Learn About the Project

Solving our Budget Mess through Collaborative Dialogue

Alison Acosta Winters and Emily Holubowich in Episode 28 of the "Let's Find Common Ground" Partner Series with Convergence

Convergence Board member (and fiscal conservative) Alison Acosta Winters joined Emily Holubowich (an advocate for greater government support in health care) for a lively conversation about the Congressional budget process in Common Ground Committee’s podcast. The two participants of the 2016-2018 Convergence Building a Better Budget Process (B3P ) project discussed how the lack of agreement over federal spending regularly threatens to bring about government shutdowns and impacts millions of Americans and how the Convergence dialogue process gave rise to important recommendations to address it.

Listen to the Podcast

Governor Includes Convergence’s CA Health Reform Proposal in 2022-2023 Budget

California Gov. Gavin Newsom once again included the Office of Health Care Affordability in his new budget. The proposed Office will create a strategy for controlling health costs, including establishing and enforcing cost targets for health care providers and insurers. It mirrors the key solution promoted by the diverse coalition of consumer, business, labor, and health care stakeholders in the Convergence CA Health Reform Initiative in their report, “A New Government Entity to Address Health Care Costs & Affordability.”

Learn why the diverse group of experts proposed increasing transparency and setting cost targets.

California Health Reform

Thank You For Supporting Convergence!

Thank you to all our supporters who contributed to our end-of-year fundraising campaign! Your investment allows us to create a greater, more meaningful impact in 2022 and in the future for our country where we value collaboration over conflict and bridge-building over deepening divides. We couldn't do our work without you, and we are grateful for your continued commitment to our work.

We’re Hiring!

Convergence is hiring! We are looking for an Associate Director for Human Resources and a Senior Manager for Communications. Learn more and please share these opportunities with your networks.

Employment

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Are you following Convergence on your favorite social media platforms? Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn – and now Instagram – to keep up with the latest at Convergence and in the bridge-building community.

You can help Convergence bridge divides, find solutions for America’s cascading crises, and advance the bridge-building movement against toxic polarization. Invest today in solving problems through collaborative dialogue.

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