Stories of Impact
Community Learning Exchange
Community organizations and coalitions participate in the Community Learning Exchange to build their collective leadership capacity. They learn how to work across divisive boundaries, build resilient relationships, tap into the wisdom of the community, and move from storytelling to making a new story of the community’s future. Migizi Communications, a Native American organization in Minneapolis, MN, is using their collective leadership capacity to build a state-wide coalition that works on new models of racial equity in public schools. They have helped move the Native American high school graduation rate from 18% to 57% in Minneapolis public schools. Read more stories about how collective leadership has created community change...
Gracious Space
We utilized Gracious Space to help the Cascadia Center host interfaith dialogues on key community issues. People of diverse faith traditions felt welcomed, developed relationships, and created plans to …Read more stories of how people are using Gracious Space.
Leadership and Change
The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation engaged the Center for Ethical Leadership and our partner, the Berkana Institute, to design a series of youth-adult community dialogues that would shape policy on youth violence. Throughout the engagement, youth and adults built relationships with each other, deepened understanding of the issue, and made community commitments. Youth gained a voice in shaping the community. As a result of this process, the foundation reoriented its work for the next decade to better engage the community in change work. You can download a copy of the final project report here.
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We recently partnered with the Rainier Beach Empowerment Coalition, the Rainier Beach Neighborhood Association, and the United Way of King County on a Community Mapping Project. The project was focused on engaging students and teachers that live in the Rainier Beach neighborhood in identifying the critical assets in the neighborhood that support good student learning. Using the PhotoVoice technique, 25 individuals between the ages of 12-55, took photos and wrote stories about people and places in Rainier Beach that are assets for good learning. The group as a whole then synthesized all the stories to come up with some common themes.