(DRAFT ONLY)
Reimagining Local Community
An Art of Participatory Leadership Experience
Join us for a transformative gathering where we learn about and leverage the Art of Participatory Leadership as a practice and set of tools to celebrate, reimagine, and bring out the best in our communities.
Together, we’ll explore what’s possible when we create the conditions for authentic connection, racial healing, and coordinated action to emerge.
Connection. Dialogue. Co-Creation.
Thursday, MM DD -
Sunday MM DD. 2026
Location TBD- Kalamazoo, Michigan
The Art of Participatory Leadership (also known as the Art of Hosting) offers simple yet powerful participatory practices to host (facilitate) conversations and meetings. These practices invite people to step in and respond to the challenges facing them in creative, authentic, compassionate, and innovative ways.
Groups and organizations using the Art of Participatory Leadership practices report:
* Better decision-making,
* More efficient and effective capacity building, and
* Greater ability to quickly respond to opportunity, challenge, and change.
Rooted in the Four Fold practice of the Art of Hosting, this event teaches a participatory approach for leading, convening, and engaging groups.
What becomes possible when we reimagine our ways of being and working together in service of deeper collective impact in our communities?
The Facilitation Team has invited all members of the Blueprint for Peace Coordinating Council to attend. We have asked each council member to also invite another community member to attend. This diverse, cross-sector group will be made up of individuals who want to help - who believe in the power of collective creativity, intelligence, and collaboration to improve communities, teams, and organizations.
Who Will Be In Attendance?
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.
We’ll explore…
Participatory dialogue methods that tap into collective intelligence
Working with equity and across difference through a participatory lens
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.
Accommodation for three nights, (tbd)
Three meals a day between Day 1 dinner and Day 4 lunch in the dining hall
Three 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
New and deeper connections
What’s included in this training?
What can we do as a community that we can’t do alone?
Meet Your Facilitators
Amy Mervak
Kenlana Ferguson
Phil Cass
Logistics and Schedule
Day 1
Arrival and check-in
Dinner
Official Welcome Circle at TBD
Day 2
Training: Participatory Leadership Framework
Sharing and mapping of projects and questions
Collective inquiry activity on shared question
Dialogue and sensemaking
Participant-driven community building conversations and activities
Day 3
Training: Systems Change Framework
Storytelling and deepening projects
Open Space Technology - Collective exploration of participants questions
Participant Driven community building conversations and activities
Day 4
Training: Complexity Framework
Dialogue on complexity, community, and coordinated action
Co-creation and collaboration on participants' projects
Collective insight harvest
Closing circle
Pricing
Individual Participant:
$TBD USD
Two Participants Booking Together:
$TBD USD ($500 less than separate bookings)
Location
TBD
Come and practice the
Art of Participatory Leadership
with us!
TBD:
TBD
TBD
TBD
Additional Section
“TBD Quote”