Presented by Civity, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting community leaders who want to create a welcoming culture, this workshop will help them build 'social muscle' in their community, cultivating relationships of respect, empathy and trust across difference. 

This workshop offers skills that leaders from various sectors can use to build social trust in their agencies and work by intentionally cultivating relationships of respect and empathy across differences. Civity scales culture change by partnering with established and emerging leaders in organizations and communities. Civity gives leaders permission, intentionality, and skills to bring this valuable relational element to what they do. When community leaders integrate civity into their work, they build social trust and relational infrastructure to make progress toward their specific goals: Relationality is the secret sauce that deepens and enhances what they are already doing.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
Participants take away actionable strategies that bring cross-cutting social science research to real life. These strategies and skills can also easily be incorporated into existing gatherings. Because the workshop takeaways are centered on what people can do in their everyday lives,– the relationship- and trust-building continues long after the workshop ends.

WHO IT’S FOR
This course is open to all interested participants, even if you're not attending the full ALP National Conference.

Facilitators: Lucy Hancock and Malka Ranjana Kopell, Civity

Lucy Hancock is an entrepreneur, a coach, and a Civity trainer. At Civity, she trains leaders to intentionally build relationships in their workplaces, communities, and beyond. When we create authentic and positive person-to-person connections across difference, we transform our communities into places where everyone knows that they belong.

Malka Ranjana Kopell is Co-Founder and CEO of Civity. As a bi-racial (South Asian and white) girl growing up in a pre-tech Silicon Valley she learned early on how to find common ground with those who called out her difference. As the Valley grew wealthier, she noticed how many others less fortunate were – and are – being rendered invisible, and dedicated her life to try to create a community where everybody is seen and heard. In 1990 Malka founded the consulting nonprofit organization Community Focus to facilitate more effective implementation of public policies by increasing community participation. She also served as a program officer for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, developing and managing grants in the areas of conflict resolution and civic engagement, and was the founding managing director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at Stanford University. Currently, in addition to Civity, Malka is a senior mediator/facilitator at California State University, Sacramento, where she works on a variety of issues ranging from groundwater management to addressing homelessness.. She has a bachelor's degree from Stanford University and a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University.