Transpartisan Dialogues

Searching for Common Ground

Tired of shouting into the void and not being heard?

Transpartisan Dialogues encourage discussion of divisive topics with an enforced system of talking and listening with the goal of finding common ground and compromise.

It’s About Coming Together

The Process is straightforward and is facilitated by the use of Zoom.

Civility is expected and enforced.

Meeting participants will ideally have about a 50-50 split on opinions on the selected topic.

The meeting follows this structure:

Moderator introduction and description of the process and chooses which group speaks first
Each person in first group now has 2 minutes to explain their views on the selected topic
Once everyone in the group has spoken, each person in the other group has 1 minute to state what they heard (NOT what they think or feel) but what they heard said
This is usually the hardest part for people. Not thinking about one’s response while listening is the key!
Groups switch and repeat the process
Meeting now opens up for general discussion with hopes of finding common ground and possible areas of compromise

We have several hopes for what may come out of these dialogues:

Areas of agreement with possible action plans
A feeling that there are people with opposing views that will discuss the topic civilly, and if necessary simply agree to disagree
People who take this process and hold their own TransPartisan Dialogues via whatever communication process works for them

This is a new process, and we are fine tuning the ideal number of participants for each dialogue and the timing. We think that and ideal number will be about 20-30 participants per dialogue, but also hope that people will drop in and listen, even if they are not an active participant. We’re working on how many dialogues we should hold per topic. The current thought is to hold dialogues 2-6 times a week with dialogues bi-weekly

If you’re interested in participating, let us know! What topics should we cover? When should we hold dialogues? We look forward to hearing from you! And please, if you don’t get a rapid response, give us some time, we’re just a small group working on how to bridge the divides in America.