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Moving Through Chaos and Complexity: Network Weaving for Social Healing in Times of Great Change

Who Should Attend?

This session is ideal for anyone interested in social change, healing and new ways of building stronger connections and trust, foster alignment, and/or catalyze collective and distributed action in the service of sustainability, equity and justice. 

Why This Matters Now

As we find ourselves swimming in uncharted and unsettling times, we know that we need each other and must work together in new and deeply collaborative ways. And under current conditions, leaders are overwhelmed with concern about their own organizations; their constituencies, staff, and key partners. We are all problem-solving day-to-day and facing many critical decisions related to our own and others’ wellbeing.

How can we move beyond crisis mode to strategically and care-fully build networks that sustain us for the long haul?

At IISC, we use our Collaborative Change Lens of love, power, and networks to support people move through the stages and growing pains of transformation. We help them shift from emergency responses to creating conditions for longer term resilient futures. This includes encouraging individuals and groups to embrace the network mantra, “Do what you do best and connect to the rest.” By strengthening relationships and weaving networks with intention, we can distribute leadership, be more impactful, and create the better world we know is possible.

Come join us for this provocative and interactive webinar to explore strategies to build stronger networks, so you and your community can move through these challenging times with clarity and connection. 

What You’ll Learn

• The power of networks – What are they, how do they work, and why should you care?
• What are different network modalities and roles to consider to better navigate these times?
• What are core weaving skills and practices that can help us do and be more with less?

Interactive & Engaging Format

This session is highly interactive, designed for meaningful dialogue and collaboration. It includes:

• Core Concept Presentations – Learn key frameworks and strategies
• Small Group Breakouts – Engage in meaningful discussions
• Real-World Case Studies – Learn from successful partner networks.
• Guided Reflection Activities – Exercises to encourage personal and professional insights on equity and network leadership practices.

Session Details & Pricing

️ Thursday, March 27, 2025 | 3 PM – 5 PM ET 

(12 PM– 2 PM PT | 1 PM – 3 PM MT | 2 PM – 4 PM CT)

Pricing:

• $25/person (Grassroots)
• $66/person (Nonprofit)
• $84/person (Foundation)
• $100/person (For-Profit/Social Venture)

STAY TUNED FOR FUTURE WEBINARS!

Your Facilitators

Curtis Ogden is a Senior Associate with the Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC), where he has worked for two decades supporting social change leaders, organizations and networks as a coach, consultant, facilitator, trainer and network weaver. He has helped to start the Food Solutions New England Network, Vermont Farm to Plate Network, Cancer Free Economy Network, Digital Navigators Network, Diverse Teacher Workforce Coalition, DC Social Justice Transformations Network and supported numerous other local, state-wide, regional, national and international collaborative efforts. In addition to his work at IISC, Curtis is an advisor to The Transformations Community, Rural Communities Rising, FLOW Public Trust for the Great Lakes and the Connecticut River Watershed Partnership. He also writes regularly on the IISC Blog. He lives in the Connecticut River Watershed in Western Massachusetts with his wife, teenage daughters and a flock of laying hens.

nisha purushotham is a queer femme, leadership coach, facilitator, musician, and writer with 30 years of movement building experience as an organizer, researcher, youth worker, and artist in residence. She is the Founder and Principal of Kriya Coaching and Consulting and has worked as an affiliate consultant with IISC since 2017. nisha’s work is informed by the lens of healing justice, an abolitionist vision, and a deep trust in ancestral wisdom, our bodies’ intuition, and the natural intelligence of Land. She lives in Lenapehoking in the unceded territory of the Ramapough Munsee Lenape, Mohican, and Schatigoke peoples with her son, a musical gamer who loves anime. nisha is grateful for her collaboration with Curtis Ogden which has deepened her understanding of network weaving for healing and transformative change.

Racial Justice Community of Practice

How Do We Sustain Ourselves While Advancing Racial Justice?

Sustaining the work of racial justice can feel overwhelming, especially when facing resistance or isolation. Have you ever wondered how to stay grounded and effective in this work, or how to find the support you need to keep going?

Our FREE Racial Justice Community of Practice is here for you. This quarterly gathering is a space for connection, reflection, and action. Together, we’ll explore challenges, celebrate progress, and share strategies to advance racial justice in and through our organizations. Whether you’re just starting out or deeply experienced, this is your community to recharge, learn, and lead boldly.

In 2024, we expanded participation to welcome anyone engaged in advancing racial justice – not just alumni of our workshops. Join us in 2025 as we continue building a community of leaders driving meaningful change!

What to Expect

In each session, we will dig into the “who” and “how” of leading for racial justice. We will use the document, Preparing Yourself to Serve, as a starting point for our discussions. Topics will include:

WHO: Sustaining Myself as a Leader in This Work

• How am I staying grounded and centered? How can I prepare my heart and mind to lead for racial justice?
• How does my identity matter as I lead for racial justice? What challenges am I facing as a leader? (includes racial affinity spaces)
• What’s my orientation toward collaborative leadership? How does/doesn’t that align with the expectations of the people I’m leading and partnering with?

HOW: Collaborating to Advance Racial Justice

• Making the case for change and building buy-in, especially in the current context
• Engaging stakeholders and making decisions together
• Designing spaces for planning
• Designing spaces for learning

Session Details

Register for all four sessions now, or register for individual sessions as the year unfolds. There is no fee to participate, but donations are encouraged.*

• Wednesday, March 12, 2025 | 2 PM – 4 PM ET
• Wednesday, June 11, 2025 | 2 PM – 4 PM ET
• Wednesday, September 17, 2025 | 2 PM – 4 PM ET
• Wednesday, December 3, 2025 | 2 PM – 4 PM ET

(1 PM – 3 PM CT / 12 PM – 2 PM MT / 11 AM – 1PM PT)

REGISTER HERE →

Join our private LinkedIn group to stay connected and share resources between gatherings!

Note: While we may distribute resources or tools shared in the sessions, due to the sensitive nature of the discussions, we will not record the sessions.

*Running a Community of Practice takes significant, often invisible labor – designing content, facilitating meaningful conversations, and coordinating logistics. Your donation helps sustain this work so these much-needed spaces can continue to thrive, especially in challenging moments. Together, we can advance racial justice and create lasting change.

RECORDINGS: Leadership for Transformative Futures

This series was designed for leaders of all kinds – organizers, network members, and those working for justice. In each of the first two sessions delivered thus far, the IISC facilitators helped leaders dig into the complexity and reactivity of the moment. Together we explored the roots of a current critical issue, and IISC offered tools with an eye on identifying opportunities to move towards transformative and equitable futures.

The recordings for each of the three Leadership for Transformative Futures 

Session One: Conversation and tools for leading during moments of chaos and complexity

Session Description: We are living at a moment of immense instability – economically, politically, environmentally, and socially. Leaders are expected to navigate the instability and model their values. But how do you do it? And what’s your foundational orientation to change? How is that showing up now? How is it serving or not serving you and the people around you? In this learning experience, we’ll look at examples of how past leaders have led during seasons of unrest. Then we’ll work together to generate ideas and approaches to guide our own unique situations. We’ll close by sharing a tool you can use to deepen your ongoing exploration of these challenges and opportunities.

Delivered on May 7, 2024 with IISC facilitators Kelly Frances Bates and Simone John

Purchase the recording here.

Session Two: New and Ancient Wisdom for Shared Leadership: Lessons to (Re)Learn and Unlearn 

Session Description: We are living in a moment of immense instability. Leaders are expected to model their values while balancing budgets, addressing staff discord, and navigating ideological conflicts. IISC has been supporting collaborative leaders and networks for years; still, to some people, shared leadership sounds like a new and even disruptive concept. In this session, we will explore how shared leadership and interdependence have always been common in nature and in movements for justice. Join us to reflect on lessons we’ve learned – and unlearned – on the path to transformative futures. Together we’ll distill enduring leadership lessons for our times.

Delivered on July 25, 2024 with IISC facilitators Kelly Frances Bates and Simone John

Purchase the recording here.

Session Three: From Conflict to Connection: Strategies to meet the moment

Session Description: How do we lead boldly through the conflicts and contradictions facing our world and our work? As we face overlapping crises, what does powerful leadership and collective power look like? How do we grow sustainable organizations grounded in love, joy, collaboration and a commitment to liberation? This session is a chance to share and try on strategies and tools to lead when there are attacks on equity and democracy as well as differences of opinions within our workplaces. We will explore how we lead in ways that are creating the future that we want as we go.

Delivered on October 29, 2024 with IISC facilitators Amy Casso and Miriam Messinger

Purchase the recording here.

An Introduction to Advancing Racial Justice in Organizations

Why This Matters Now

Now more than ever, change agents in organizations large and small need new tools and a fresh perspective to catalyze and sustain the work of racial justice. Whether you are already leading or want to lead racial justice work within your organization, ARJ will introduce essential skills and tools to move forward collaboratively with your colleagues.

Who Should Attend?

If …

• you are formally or informally leading racial justice work in your organization or network;
• you know that guiding your organization or network to move from commitment to action isn’t a solo act;
• you want to exchange ideas with other leaders who are advancing racial justice in and through their work;
• you want more tools for making your organization or network more collaborative, powerful, and even joyful;

… then this workshop is for you!

What You Will Learn

An Introduction to Advancing Racial Justice will equip you with frameworks and tools to design a collaborative process to guide your racial justice work. You’ll explore how to:

Session 1: Envision the Future
Articulate a vision for what racial justice and liberation could look like in your organization or network and begin to identify how the “who, what, why, and how” of your racial justice work can provide leverage for organizational change
Session 2: Frame your Collaborative Change Effort and Assess your Situation
Understand collaborative planning principles, a simple framework for developing a racial justice action plan, and guidelines to explore your context and current reality.
Session 3: Make the Case for Change
Practice communicating to stakeholders about the importance of your racial justice change process (a.k.a. sharing your “Case for Change”).

And, you’ll leave with a workbook full of useful tools and tips to support your ongoing collaboration for racial justice.

How Will You Learn?

Each interactive session will feature: 

• Brief presentations with practical examples 
• Full group dialogue
• Paired and small group discussions
• After-session reflection questions and worksheets

Pricing

• $150/person (Grassroots)
• $300/person (Nonprofit)
• $380/person (Foundation)
• $450/person (For-Profit/Social Venture)

REGISTER HERE →

What Happens After the Workshop Series?

Post-series opportunities include:

• Workbook with additional resources and tools to explore on your own 
• Free Quarterly Community of Practice gatherings (see more below!)

Racial Justice Community of Practice

IISC also offers a free quarterly community of practice for anyone who is working with others to advance racial justice within their organizations or networks. This community of practice, facilitated by Cynthia Silva Parker and Amy Casso, is a place to explore challenges and share successes and encouragement as we work to advance racial justice.

Register here to join us for one or all of the 2025 community of practice sessions:

• Wednesday, March 12, 2025 | 2 PM – 4 PM EST
• Wednesday, June 11, 2025 | 2 PM – 4 PM EST
• Wednesday, September 17, 2025 | 2 PM – 4 PM EST
• Wednesday, December 3, 2025 | 2 PM – 4 PM EST

(1 PM – 3 PM CT / 12 PM – 2 PM MT / 11 AM – 1PM PT)

RECORDINGS: Bringing Facilitative Leadership for Social Change to Virtual Work Webinar

We appreciated the enthusiastic response to our webinar series and are happy to announce that IISC is available to deliver one or more of these webinars live to you and your colleagues, grantees, or other stakeholder groups. If you are interested in learning more, please send us a detailed message. 

AND…the recordings are now available to those who participated as well as those who were unable to do so.  Click here to access the recordings.

Have COVID-19 and social distancing thrown you into the unfamiliar world of virtual meetings as the only way to connect? While there are plenty of tips and tricks circulating about how to make your virtual meetings more effective, join us to learn how to make them more equitable by leading with love, nurturing networks and relationships, and managing power dynamics.

This free series of webinars will help you integrate the collaborative values and practices of Facilitative Leadership for Social Change into your virtual work.

Session 1: Managing Power Dynamics in Virtual Meetings.

In this webinar you will learn to:

• Articulate how facilitative leaders understand what power is and how to work with power dynamics
• Use meeting design considerations to normalize discussions of power and share responsibility for shifting power dynamics
• Use facilitation tips and the role of facilitator to make it easy for everyone to participate

Session 2: Designing for Love and Equity in Virtual Meetings.

In this webinar you will learn to:

• Articulate why bringing love and equity into virtual meetings is an important practice for facilitative leaders
• Use transformative prompts, mindfulness and affinity spaces
• Use arts and healing to bring love and equity into your virtual meetings

Session 3: Balance the Dimensions of Success: Results-Process-Relationship.

In this webinar you will learn to:

• Articulate why focusing on multiple dimensions of success is important to your virtual meetings
• Balance your focus on results, process, and relationship as a leader
• Design your virtual meetings to balance results, process and relationship

Session 4: Collaborative Decision-Making and Shared Leadership.

In this webinar you will learn to:

• Articulate what “shared leadership” is and why it’s important to organizations, networks, and the world right now
• Promote equitable leadership and operate in ways that foster “power-with” instead of “power-over”
• Engage stakeholders in collaborative decision making

As always, thank you for your interest in and support of our work. We appreciate you!

P.S. Please subscribe to our mailing list to be among the first to know about other new, virtual IISC offerings. (For example, we expect Facilitative Leadership for Social Change to be available for scheduling in the new year!)

Fundamentals of Facilitation for Racial Justice Work

Who Should Attend?

This workshop is for anyone who is or would like to be facilitating conversations about race and racial justice, and who wants to sharpen their skills. We look forward to having you join us!

Why This Matters Now

Conversations about race, racism, and racial justice are essential – but they’re not always easy. In today’s polarized climate, leaders need the skills to navigate these discussions with confidence, empathy, and effectiveness.

This workshop offers you the skills and practical tools to foster meaningful dialogue, address challenges in real time, and create a supportive space where people of diverse identities can work together more constructively. Whether you’re leading discussions in your workplace, community, or movement, this training will help you build the internal capacity to hold space, respond skillfully in difficult moments, and guide conversations toward deeper understanding and collective action.

By the end of this workshop series, participants will have:

• An exploration of the internal conditions (e.g. mind, body, spirit, heart) needed to build self-awareness to effectively facilitate racial justice conversations.
• Practical skills for facilitating productive conversations and building shared understanding about race, racism, and racial justice, in both virtual and in-person environments.
• A deeper understanding of the development of racial identity, the system of racialization in the U.S., and one’s own story within this context.
• Practice addressing challenges and aspirations as a racial justice facilitator.
• An experience of a caring and collaborative approach to racial justice facilitation and a well-resourced community of racial justice facilitators.

Session Descriptions

1. Foundations of Systemic Racism

• Explore ways to build shared language and develop a shared understanding of racial justice concepts.

2. The Power of Storytelling

• Understand stories of race in the US and how our own racialized identities impact our facilitation.
• Explore how to create and use racial affinity spaces.

3. Preparing Yourself and the Container

• Create the context for effective facilitation.
• Learn strategies for managing when we’re activated as facilitators.
• Reflect on how to sustain ourselves over time.

4. Facilitation Fundamentals

• Explore the different roles facilitators are called on to play.
• Learn intervention strategies for unexpected challenging moments.

5. Coaching & Practice

• Apply these learnings to our own scenarios and exchange feedback while doing so.

This workshop is for anyone who is or would like to be facilitating conversations about race and racial justice, and who wants to sharpen their skills. We look forward to having you join us! 

Pricing

• $375/person (Grassroots)
• $750/person (Nonprofit)
• $950/person (Foundation)
• $1,125/person (For-Profit/Social Venture)

REGISTER HERE →

Subscribe to our mailing list to be the first to know when new dates are announced.

Fundamentals of Facilitation for Racial Justice Work is also available as an offering for participants from one organization or network – either as an online offering as described above or as a two-day in-person learning experience. Details and pricing can be found here.

Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change

Who Should Attend?

If you are committed to creating conditions in which you and others can act together and make change, moving together from vision to action in extraordinary new ways, then Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change (FL4SC) is for you. IISC defines leadership broadly, regardless of formal or positional authority; participants from a variety of organizational and network structures and hierarchies find value in this training program. You will, as well. 

Why This Matters

Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change develops practical collaborative skills and tools for tapping our individual and collective creativity and experience as social change agents. At the heart of the workshop are powerful leadership practices that make it easy for all of us — regardless of race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, and other identities and experiences — to offer our perspectives and talents, speak up when we have problems, take initiative, make decisions, work with others, and share responsibility for the health of the team, organization, or network. 

What You’ll Learn

Facilitative Leaders model key practices that make it easier for principled, self-empowered collaborators to communicate, decide, and act together. The following list of these practices represents what you will learn in our standard seven-session online workshop or our two-day in-person workshops to engage your own and your collaborators’ skills, wisdom, and energy towards your shared goals. 

Introduction to Facilitative Leadership™ & Building Liberatory Power Equitably
Throughout this workshop series, as we offer you tools that you can bring to your work and community, it’s crucial that we ground these practices in a commitment to build power with, not power over, in service of liberation, not domination. Through IISC’s Collaborative Social Change Lens of love, power, and networks, we’ll explore the concepts of power-over and power-with, our own relationships with power, and our individual and collective commitments to a more just and equitable world.  We’ll also introduce the concept of “attunement.” A key characteristic of Facilitative Leaders is being attuned to, or aware of, our bodies, emotions, and spirit, as well as each other and the natural world. This practice of expanding our attunement allows us to create and inspire the conditions for sharing power and responsibility, trust, and collaboration. 

Focus on Results, Process, Relationships
Facilitative Leaders build a path for performance and satisfaction by balancing our focus on three dimensions of success: results, process, and relationship, and by inviting others to help attend to that balance. Rather than focusing exclusively on outcomes (results), Facilitative Leaders also encourage continuous improvement in how the work gets done (process) and how people connect with and treat one another (relationship). Learning to balance our focus in these ways enables us to sustain effective, collaborative processes and build a supportive work environment for our teams and networks.

Discover Shared Meaning
Through skillful communication, Facilitative Leaders gather and share information with our collaborators, strive to understand one another and expand our collective understanding of any situation, in order to create the conditions for better decisions, collaborative action, and desired results. The workshop offers ways to understand how we and others make sense of our experiences, intentionally and unintentionally, and how we can be more deliberate in our thought processes. 

See Systems
Facilitative Leaders recognize our work exists within a broader, systemic context and that there is much to be gained from understanding what is hidden beneath the immediate, visible surface of any challenging situation. In this workshop, we learn how to make sense of complexity by involving others in understanding how the visible and invisible levels of complex systems are connected and mutually reinforcing. Together we uncover more innovative and creative strategies that can be leveraged for transformational change.

Seek Maximum Appropriate Involvement
Facilitative Leaders make conscious choices about when and how people can best participate in making decisions that affect their lives. The workshop offers concrete skills and tools for acting as stewards of decision-making processes. We learn how to be intentional, inclusive, and transparent in the decision-making process as we seek to leverage the interest and talent of those around us by including them appropriately in the decision-making process. And we see the many advantages of doing so: better-informed decisions, increased commitment to action, and higher levels of trust.

Design and Facilitate Meetings
Facilitative Leaders model behaviors – and invite others to do so, as well – that create an environment for participation and shared responsibility. They are process powerhouses: leveraging simple, intentional processes and tools to facilitate effective group conversations; preparing for the necessary and possible conversations; and pivoting as needed as conditions change. Facilitative Leaders see meetings as seeds of possibility for the changes we need in our organizations, society, and world. We learn how to design each meeting thoughtfully, which allows us to bring together all of the facilitative leadership practices – balancing different dimensions of success, stewarding effective decision making, and more – in thoughtfully designing meetings for successful collaboration.

Please note: There are two additional practices of FL4SC – Build Collaborative Change and Inspired a Shared Vision – that can be included by special arrangement. 

What You Can Expect

Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change includes small group time to practice and grow your understanding, and individual reflection to help integrate the practices into your life and work. We prioritize connection between the program participants because the group’s collective wisdom is precious, and we try to give it space to grow and spread. 

IISC is pleased to have a team of brilliantly skilled trainers – some of the best in the movement. All are fully steeped in the practices of FL4SC and also bring their own unique facilitation magic as they deliver IISC’s workshops grounded in our lens of love, power, and networks. You can look forward to a joyful and inspirational experience that is highly interactive and may include music, poetry, somatic practices.

Pricing

• $525/person (Grassroots)
• $1,050/person (Nonprofit)
• $1,325/person (Foundation)
• $1,575/person (For-Profit/Social Venture)

REGISTER HERE →

Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change is available – both online and in-person – as an offering for participants from one organization or network. Details and pricing can be found here.

Subscribe to our mailing list to be the first to know about how to register when new dates are announced. And take a peak at this blog post to read some reflections of past FL4SC participants.