Reimagining Local Collaboration
Growing Our Capacity to Lead, Learn, and Adapt Together
Join us for a transformative two-day gathering where we learn about and leverage the Art of Participatory Leadership as a practice and set of tools to access collective wisdom, strengthen self-organizing capacity, and move from conversation to coordinated action.
Kalamazoo County, Michigan | Spring 2027
Communities today face challenges that
no single leader, organization, or sector can solve alone.
Across Kalamazoo, more people are working across organizational lines to address shared challenges, giving rise to new coalitions, backbone organizations, collaborative networks, and cross-sector partnerships.
This reflects an important shift in how our community works. Organizations are increasingly asked to lead in relationship with one another.
Yet many describe community efforts as feeling disjointed or duplicative, even when people are working toward shared goals. That's often because we default to the habits, structures, and assumptions that work well inside our own organizations but are less helpful across them.
Working well across organizational boundaries requires new ways of relating to one another and new ways of making sense of our shared work, along with practices that help us lead, learn, and adapt together.
The Art of Participatory Leadership* offers powerful participatory practices that invite people to step in and respond to the challenges facing them in creative, authentic, compassionate, and innovative ways.
*Also known as the
Art of Hosting
Participants will spend two full days actively engaging in dialogue, facilitation, reflection, collaborative inquiry, and application. Rooted in the Four Fold practice of the Art of Hosting, this gathering will teach participatory approaches for leading, convening, and engaging groups. You will work with methods including World Café, Open Space Technology, ProAction Café, Circle Practice, collective storytelling, and more.
Why this gathering? Why now?
This gathering is designed for the people who increasingly find themselves working across organizations, sectors, and communities, particularly in Kalamazoo County and the surrounding region. It recognizes that collaborative work calls for the capacity to stay in relationship across difference, make sense of uncertain and changing landscapes, and take action together.
Rather than creating another initiative or coalition, this gathering seeks to support those that already exist. Participants will explore frameworks for understanding change, complexity, and emergence while practicing participatory approaches that help groups access their collective wisdom, strengthen their self-organizing capacity, and move from conversation to coordinated action.
Our hope is that participants return to their organizations and community efforts with new relationships, shared language, and practices they can use immediately.
Join us if you’re interested in…
Creating spaces for transformation in your organization, community, or home.
Taking values of collaboration, equity, and democracy into organizational practice.
Exploring what happens when we create conditions for all to step into full capacity as humans.
Strengthening your capacity to see existing and emerging strengths and leverage points.
Sharing inspiring, accessible ideas and practices for your organization and community.
Participatory dialogue methods that tap into collective intelligence
Leadership practices for self-awareness, clarity, and alignment
Frameworks for working with complex community challenges such as Open Space Technology, ProAction Café, the Two Loop Model of Change, and more.
We’ll explore…
What becomes possible when we reimagine our ways of being and working together in service of deeper collective impact in our communities?
Who should attend?
This gathering is designed for the people who regularly convene, connect, and coordinate work across our community, as well as those who aspire to do so. We welcome experienced practitioners alongside people who are beginning to explore more participatory approaches to leadership and collaboration.
It is especially relevant for people participating in coalitions, collaborative networks, community partnerships, and cross-sector initiatives, or anyone who wants to strengthen their ability to help groups think, learn, and act together.
What changes?
When people experience participatory leadership firsthand, they begin to lead and collaborate differently. Meetings become more engaging. Decisions are informed by a wider range of perspectives, and relationships deepen.
Organizations and communities using the Art of Participatory Leadership practices report better decision-making, more innovation, improved relationships, and an increased ability to respond to change.
Participants often leave feeling more confident facilitating conversations, more connected to one another, and better equipped to contribute to collaborative work in their organizations and communities.
Participants will include:
Nonprofit leaders
Business leaders
Backbone organizations
Public agencies
Philanthropic organizations
Neighborhood leaders
Educators
Healthcare leaders,
and others working across organizational boundaries.
Longer-term community impact
Increased collaboration across organizations
More participatory approaches within organizations
Greater capacity to navigate complexity and change
Increased community resilience
New collaborations that continue beyond the gathering
What’s included?
Two full days of training and conversations with fellow community members
An Art of Participatory Leadership Practice Guide
Access to the Art of Hosting global Community of practice
Breakfast and lunch on both days
New and deeper connections
What can we do as a community that we can’t do alone?
Meet Your Facilitators
Amy Mervak
Chris
Corrigan
Logistics and Schedule
Day 1
Arrival and check-in
Official Welcome Circle at TBD
Day 2
Training: Participatory Leadership Framework
Closing circle
Pricing
Regular Individual Rate: $950.00 USD
Governmental Individual Rate: $900.00 USD
Non-Profit Individual Rate: $800.00 USD
Discounts for groups of 4 or more (Please email us for a discount code before proceeding. Contact amymervak@gmail.com)
10% discount (Regular or Governmental Individual rate)
5% discount (Non-Profit Individual Rate)
Location
Kalamazoo Nature Center
7000 N Westnedge Ave
Kalamazoo, MI 49009
TBD:
TBD
TBD
TBD
Additional Section
“TBD Quote”