Projects and organizations promoting conversations in one way or another, or stories about conversations
Update (2019/07/08): Several more including Consider Civility, Make America Dinner Again, and Center for the Study of Liberty: https://www.aier.org/article/modern-technology-and-return-civility
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Accidental Courtesy is a documentary about the inspiring Daryl Davis and his efforts to meet and talk with Klan members, efforts which have led to friendships and have led many to renounce their old ways.
Accord was a project that tried to connect people with different views for discussion.
Beyond Conflict is a non-profit that helps create peace, especially within international conflicts, with an approach that focuses on meetings and conversations between leaders.
The Center for Digital Wellness at Liberty University has tried to get people out of their tech and into conversation. Camp Grounded does something a little similar and provides a retreat where tech is banned.
Essential Partners facilitates conversations on difficult issues within various communities.
Hi from the Other Side is a service that links people on opposite ends of the political spectrum for conversation. They provide conversational tips.
Hopework is an association of individuals in Minnesota that’s organized a number of different events and classes at the core of which is people sharing stories from their lives with each other.
The Ignition Initiative helps facilitate people getting into conversation at (primarily?) coffeeshops. I’m not sure how active it still is though I saw an incarnation of it at Birch Cafe in NYC in early 2017.
The Jane Addams School for Democracy was an organization in St. Paul, Minnesota that brought together “recent immigrants and college students from the surrounding community come together to benefit from one another’s experiences.”
On Being’s Civil Conversations Project seeks to model inquiry into differences in entrenched debates and provides some resources for hosting conversations.
Sit With Us is an amazing app which helps kids in school connect with other kids to sit with at lunch.
Skip the Small Talk organizes events where people can meet each other and discuss deeper topics without engaging in small talk.
‘Small talk should be banned, here’s why’ is a short article on hosting events free of small talk.
‘Talking with the Enemy’ is a Boston Globe story about a group of Boston-area pro-life and pro-choice activists who met and talked over the course of five and half years.
Tea with Strangers organizes meetings of strangers for conversation over tea.
When Strangers Meet: How People You Don’t Know Can Transform You is a book that grew out of a TED talk that describes the “transformative possibilities” of talking to strangers. The book includes a number of exercises for interacting with strangers ranging from just saying hello to everyone you see for ten minutes and escalating to a case where you ask someone for directions, ask them for their phone number in case you get lost, and later call them to ask for further help or thank them — I can’t remember. The Atlantic’s James Hamblin gives some of it a try. Kio Stark also recommends talking to strangers when you travel.
The World Cafe promotes a method for helping groups of people connect over conversations and I think they may also organize such events.
