Constructive Dialogue: Organizations

This extensive, but carefully selected, list of associations includes citizen-run and nonprofit organizations that help individuals learn to conduct and participate in respectful conversations with others. These organizations also host guided conversations. They do not require a membership fee and provide a wide variety of resources of benefit to the public.

All Links Open in New Tab

  • Better Arguments Project: “[A] national civic initiative created to help bridge divides – not by papering over those divides but by helping people have Better Arguments. In this sense, arguments don’t have to drive us apart. Better Arguments can bring us together.”
  • Braver Angels: “Americans on opposite sides of the political spectrum don’t only disagree on issues — they increasingly dislike one another. This growing partisan animosity is the crisis of our time and threatens our nation. Braver Angels exists to address this challenge.”
  • BridgeUSA: “[A] youth-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that creates spaces on high school and college campuses for open discussion between students about political issues.
  • Citizen Connect: “A resource hub that connects with over 500 citizen organizations that share the conviction that America is stronger if people work together. It is not about agreeing on everything; it is about finding what we can agree on and making it happen.”
  • Civic Health Project: “[D]edicated to reducing toxic partisan polarization and enabling healthier public discourse and decision-making across our citizenry, politics, and media.
  • Center for Constructive Communication (CCC): “[A] broad-based effort that draws on expertise in face-to-face human dialogue, digital networks, and machine learning to develop safe and trusted spaces for meaningful, nonpolarizing human connection and civic impact.”
  • Common Ground Committee: “[W] believe that hunger can be satisfied and that polarization and anger can be healed. It is possible to bring about a private discourse that builds understanding and public discourse that uncovers common ground through passionate but civil debate where facts are valued and participants listen to each other.”
  • Compassionate Listening Project: “Compassionate Listening helps us to awaken to what the mystics from all of the great faiths have known for centuries: that cultivating the wisdom of the heart is the key to real peace from the inside out. The intention of Compassionate Listening is to access our deepest wisdom to transform separation and conflict into an opportunity for connection, healing and peace.”
  • Constructive Dialogue Institue: [W]ork with institutions across the education, for-profit, non-profit, and public sectors to help them communicate across differences and build inclusive cultures.”
  • Crossing Party Lines: Seeks to facilitate polical conversations.
  • Listen First Project: We connect the efforts of 500 Listen First Coalition partners bringing people together across divides. We manage national campaigns and strategies for social cohesion. Listen First Project is the backbone organization for collective impact to save our country from breaking apart.
  • LivingRoom Conversations: “[W]orks to heal society by connecting people across divides – politics, age, gender, race, nationality, and more – through guided conversations proven to build understanding and transform communities.”
  • Millennial Action Project: Works toward activating “young leaders to bridge the partisan divide and transform American politics.”
  • Move for America: “Vision: American democracy will be grounded in civic participation and mutual understanding. Mission: Catalyze a generation of leaders who bridge divides and strengthen civic dialogue.
  • National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD): A membership organization that engages and mobilizes people to come together and strengthen understanding of each other and issues in ways that support community-building and collaborative problem-solving.
  • National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD): “[A] non-partisan organization based at the University of Arizona to promote healthy and civil political debate. NICD is devoted to the same principles that motivated Congresswoman Giffords: that people with different values and political preferences can discuss their differences in a civil and productive manner. The galvanizing power of that event brought together an impressive, bipartisan group of leaders to work on these issues.”
  • One American Movement: “[W]orking to heal America’s divides. We partner with faith communities and faith leaders to confront toxic polarization. Our vision is a resilient, strong, and united country working together to solve our common challenges.”
  • The Village Square: [D]edicated to bridging divides through discussion and spirited disagreement.