Resetting the Table

We are thrilled to see our clients, Resetting the Table - Melissa Weintraub, one of New Pluralists's Healing Starts Here grantees, featured in this insightful conversation that dives into some of the most pressing questions of our time: - Why bother engaging with people with whom I disagree? - Is polarization necessary for social progress? - Are there “red lines” for people we shouldn’t engage with? - Is what you do “both sides”-ism? - What’s a concrete example where you’ve seen this kind of bridge-building effort pay off? We are proud to support organizations leading these critical conversations and fostering understanding across divides. #SocialImpact #Democracy #CommunityHealing #Engagement https://lnkd.in/gagNd99b

We are expanding our entertainment team and hiring for an Assistant Director, Entertainment Partnerships! As the Assistant Director, you will work closely with our Entertainment Director Jen Richards— engaging Hollywood studios, agencies, showrunners, writers, etc., to expand RTT’s footprint in the entertainment industry and bring bridge-building techniques and messages to millions of people through film and TV. We’re seeking a candidate with: 🔸Passion for RTT’s mission and approach, and ability to represent it powerfully 🔸Readiness to leverage an existing network of contacts in entertainment 🔸Exceptional communication and project management skills 🔸Desire to learn and connect across divisions in the U.S. Links and details in comments and at https://lnkd.in/g48QA2XZ #joinourteam #jobalert #hiring #careers #entertainment #jobposting #impact #jobs #people #team

🎥Our latest entertainment workshop brought together writers, producers, and execs from scripted and reality programming at Netflix, Disney, NBC, and more. 🌟 We love witnessing participants discover how the skills they're learning can not only contribute to depolarization, but also uncover compelling storylines, make for better on-camera interviews, and even help writers land a satisfying 3rd act catharsis. To nominate a TV writer, executive, or producer (including yourself!) for a future workshop, please complete this form: https://lnkd.in/g4DxRm3A. #entertainment #training #tvwriters #showrunners #hollywood #entertainmentindustry #television

Applications are open for an RTT Train-the-Trainers cohort for administrators in higher education! Trainees will walk away with a comprehensive framework and suite of actionable tools to defuse tension, open up productive discussion and learning on charged issues, and strengthen relationships and trust across lines of difference on campus. Please circulate to higher ed administrators in student life, DEI, residential life, chaplaincy, etc. who are positioned to convene and teach skills for meaningful communication across divides to students, faculty, and staff. The process is selective and applicants must be positioned to embed pluralism skills and dialogue on their campuses. Applications are due by June 15. Flyer linked here and in first comment: https://lnkd.in/gpDQ5VYi

✨ We are still buzzing from four inspirational days at the Council on Foundations conference #BuildingTogether24, where 500 philanthropic leaders gathered to build relationships & skills for tackling our crisis of division and solving complex challenges together. 🔥 Resetting the Table was honored to offer two SOLD OUT workshops on collaborative communication across divides, led by facilitation maestros Eyal Rabinovitch and Leah Reiser in partnership with a team of RTT-trained, stellar coaches from the Council on Foundations team (Kristen Scott Kennedy, Nidale Zouhir, Brian Kastner, & Daniela Rodriguez Ranf). 🫱🏼🫲🏽We’ve heard numerous participants say this was the best conference they’ve attended. In reflecting on why, we want to lift up Kristen Scott Kennedy, Kathleen Enright, and their dynamo team in designing a conference that maximized connection, practice, and reflection. Kristen & team made experiential workshops the conference’s pillar, giving expansive hours of each day for skill-building & *interaction* with other attendees. 🍫 They enabled bridging organizations – in addition to Resetting the Table, leading peer orgs like The Greater Good Science Center, Convergence Center for Policy Resolution, StoryCorps, Braver Angels, and Interfaith America – to *do* our work, not just to talk about it. As we said to the team afterward, we got to give people a taste of chocolate, not just describe chocolate. 👂🏼Alongside outstanding & inspiring speakers – Monica Guzman, David Brooks, Eric Ward, Sulma Arias, Eboo Patel, Layla Zaidane, Amanda Ripley – they made the centerpiece of the conference Keynote Listening, with built-in opportunities for attendees to listen, speak, and learn from and with each other. Other conference highlights: 🔹 Rachel Levin’s poetic wisdom that bridging work is not just a sprint and a marathon, but also an intergenerational relay. 🔹 Ali Noorani’s crystallization that technocratic solutions will not be sufficient to build a functional democracy, in the face of pernicious polarization. 🔹 Joshua Clark, Ph.D.'s framing: “We don’t have to agree on much to bridge. It’s not about meeting in the middle. It’s about an expanding sense of ‘we’ across our differences. We know when bridging happens, because disagreement persists. It’s not about a middle ground solution that’s alienating or setting aside deeply held values… and it’s also not about trying to extract concessions. It’s about listening that runs in both directions. Everyone must see the other in their full humanity. That requires different skills and muscles than the ones many partners are exercising. We need to invest in those skills.” Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley Deep gratitude to all the organizers and partners who contributed to making a conference that modeled the caring, connected society we seek to build. Wendy E.F. Torrance Melissa Sines Jennifer Hoos Rothberg Uma Viswanathan Heather Templeton Dill David T. Hsu Melissa Rhodes Carter

This conversation with our visionary Co-CEO Melissa Weintraub powerfully connects the dots – why bridge-building is an essential foundation for sustaining democracy; why it’s *not* about "the mushy middle;" why RTT goes towards the heat of differences rather than common ground; why and how to engage bridging-skeptical groups, on the left and the right; and what gives her – and can give all of us – inspiration and hope. “My life had become a bridge, and we imagined what if we brought thousands of people across it?” Melissa joined a string of bridge-building luminaries who have spoken in this Village Square series: Jonathan Haidt, Robert Putnam, Daryl Davis, Peter T. Coleman, Monica Guzman, RTT alum Chloe Valdary, Amanda Ripley, Alexandra O. Hudson, Over Zero's Rachel Brown, Justin Gest, Ted Johnson, LP.D., Jonathan Rauch, and Danielle Allen. We hope you’ll give it a listen. The program starts 5 min. in. #disagreebetter #bridgebuilders #democracy

🚀 Come work with us! We’re excited to be growing our team and looking for someone incredibly organized to fill a new, crucial role: Program Operations Assistant. This role is an excellent fit for an early-career professional who is interested in bridge-building and excels at the behind-the-scenes logistics that make programs shine. At RTT, we know how much small details can make a difference. The right candidate has demonstrated success implementing the systems and small touches that support program excellence. ✨ If this sounds like you or someone you know, we’d love to hear from you.   You’ll get to join a thoughtful, caring team committed to tackling toxic polarization and invested in your growth. 👀 Stay tuned for more opportunities on the horizon! We’ll be continuing to roll out a few new positions over the coming months so keep an eye out and follow us here. https://lnkd.in/eqWNfrC

🌟 Please join us in celebrating this exceptional cohort of practitioners, mediators, activists, and community leaders who recently completed a Facilitation Intensive with RTT as part of our 2-year Courageous Neighbors project in Greater Buffalo, supported by New Pluralists #healingstartshere initiative. These tenacious leaders – serving community health, workforce training, food equity, neighborhood planning, youth services, education, restorative justice, DEI, and economic development – have long been building opportunity, resilience, and healing within and across Buffalo’s communities. We are so grateful to have gotten to work with them, learn from them, and share RTT’s tools in service of their work.

A beautiful Easter reflection from our intern Samantha Eckrich, who is a graduate student in Catholic Theology: "We are in the midst of the Holy Week, the time Christians observe the remembrance of Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection. This is a time to reflect on themes of suffering, hopeful waiting, and new life. When we look at the distraught political landscape unfolding in our country, congregations, and even families, these Easter themes can feel distant. Hope is perplexing in the face of broken relationships and fractured communities. But this week reveals critical facets of hope. Good Friday remembers the agony of the crucifixion–it is about profound suffering. It can be tempting to look away from conflict, brokenness, and pain. How do we locate hope in the face of the painful divisions afflicting our communities? This version of hope says, something must change. Holy Saturday is an invitation to sit in the stillness and gray of the tomb. Social media and its charged narratives spur us to speed up and respond quickly. In conversations when our ideals are challenged, we enter fight-or-flight mode, ready to react rather than receive. But Holy Saturday is about slowing down. This hope is patient and humble; it leans in, listens deeply, and lives in the uncertainty of what we may not yet know. Easter Sunday reveals the resurrection of the body in new form. It’s a celebration, through which we shed parts of our old selves to enter something new. Sometimes this 'new way' is unexpected and means taking on new conceptions of others and ourselves. It can be painful to let go of the assumptions that served us before. But this hope is liberating. It gives us a new lens to see and build a pathway forward together. Many RTT participants enter conversations across fraught differences with trepidation, not knowing where it will lead. But they show up, moved by an inner knowledge that there must be something more–that we must confront our painful differences, let listening overturn our assumptions, and resurrect our ability to build a shared life. May this Easter spark our courage and resurrect our hope, in this critical time for our country and communities." To all those celebrating, Happy Easter from your friends at RTT! #happyeaster #hope #disagreebetter

“Purple is an inspiring and thought-provoking film that has given educators a visual presentation to display to students as they seek to teach about our government, societal institutions and structures, and skills for civic engagement, academic inquiry, and problem-solving.”   We’re thrilled to have teamed up with Constructive Dialogue Institute to share our short film Purple in support of CDI’s new blended learning curriculum Perspectives—offering educators’ tools for building students’ skills for dialogue, civic engagement, and communicating across divides.   Filmed in rural Wisconsin and Iowa – in a swing region within two bordering swing states – Purple tells the story of everyday Americans with opposing viewpoints confronting their disagreements and discovering the concerns and experiences that lie behind each other’s positions. Created in partnership with Emmy award-winning Transient Pictures, Purple captures a rare political conversation that uplifts, provokes, and inspires while going toward the heat of passionate political differences. Looking to build skills for communicating constructively across divides in the election year ahead? RTT’s free, accompanying Discussion Guide offers step-by-step instruction for a 90-minute process to support viewers to build skills for communicating across divides and capture the thinking of characters with divergent perspectives. The process offers a DIY taste of RTT's skills and tools, and is suitable for libraries, classrooms, congregations, museums, and informal watch parties alike, whether for groups of 15 or 400. https://lnkd.in/dMdytcZ. You can learn more about CDI’s blended learning curriculum Perspectives below! #disagreebetter