The Divided Community Project strengthens community efforts to transform division into action. The project focuses on increasing resilience and building trust to make real progress in identifying and meaningfully addressing the causes of community division.
To date, the project has published three reports: Key Considerations for Community Leaders Facing Civil Unrest and Planning in Advance of Civil Unrest, and Divided Community and Social Media. Planning in Advance offers points to consider for a community that seeks to develop a strategy to deal with civil unrest before it occurs. Key Considerations provides a checklist to consider when a community faces civil unrest and when that community begins to build consensus about dealing with the underlying problem. Social Media collates tech-based ideas which community leaders might implement to build trust and resilience in their communities.
Launched in January 2019, the Bridge Initiative at Moritz provides mediators and other experts with extensive experience in helping local leaders respond effectively to civil unrest and tension in communities across the country that can help mediate conflicts between community and law enforcement, train local community members on effective strategies to keep protests safe, and offer technical assistance to executives and community members seeking to build sustainable infrastructure for inclusive engagement.
The Divided Community Project’s Community Resiliency Initiative is a coalition of community leaders who have convened broad-based community planning efforts to address division in their communities.
Developed in partnership with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution, the Academy Initiative trains core leadership groups from diverse communities across the country to plan in advance of civil unrest while developing conflict planning and conflict resolution skills. Our first Academy cohort meets in Chicago in March. Stay tuned for future Academy opportunities.
If we discuss our shared aspirations, we tend to keep in mind that we have joined a venture larger than ourselves, one that we care deeply about, one that we want to preserve for the next generations. We especially benefit by discussing our core aspirations when, as now, the differences that have always characterized our nation turn vitriolic, when our inability to work together becomes a drag on our progress. A widely embraced American Spirit can motivate us as well as stir within us a generous spirit toward each other. It might become the catalyst to the continued building of our nation.