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8 Keys to Working Across Differences

Around 600 leaders from across the country gathered in Seattle for the Building Together 2026 conference.

8 Keys to Working Across Differences

Recently, close to 600 leaders from across the country — representing some of the nation’s largest grant makers, community foundations, and grassroots groups — gathered in Seattle. They joined forces to strategize on how to do the difficult work of bringing Americans together in an era of intense polarization that threatens to pull us apart.

The charitable sector has always played this role in American life, fueled by the belief that the country’s diversity of identities, priorities, and worldviews is a resource, not an obstacle. It mobilizes people from all walks of life when floods, wildfires, and other crises strike. It builds powerful coalitions for the common good, whether for a local park, job creation, or new affordable housing. And it connects people across seemingly insurmountable divides born of our differences in politics, class, race, faith, and more.

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Businessman on ladder arranging large, multicolored speech bubbles on blue background

Pluralism has a messaging problem. Explore how body metaphors shape politics, exclusion, diversity, and democratic governance across difference.


Malte Mueller / Getty Images

We Need a New Metaphor of Us

Pluralism has a messaging problem. Part of the reason why is that there is no common emotionally intuitive metaphor for the collaborative co-creation of governance across differences that is a pluralistic democracy.

This matters because humans do not think politically through abstract principles alone — we think through metaphor.

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Two Yellow Speech Bubbles Overlapping Common Ground on Blue Background Front View.

A reflection on parenting, empathy, and communication in a divided world.

Getty Images, MirageC

Agreement Is Not Understanding

During a recent conversation, my 16-year-old son told me I did not understand him.

Parents know these moments well. What begins as a disagreement about something practical can quickly become something larger. A conversation about rules, expectations, timing, priorities, or responsibility suddenly transforms into a referendum on whether your child feels seen, heard, and respected.

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Religious leaders hold a press conference at the Episcopal Church Center.

Religious leaders hold a press conference at the Episcopal Church Center to outline plans for implementing the recommendations of President Johnson's riot commission. From the left are Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, president of Inter-Religious Foundation for Community Organizations; Rev. Albert Cleage Jr., pastor of Detroit's Central Congregational Church; Rev., John Hines, co-chairman of Operation connection, and Rabbi Abraham Heschel, of New York's Jewish Theological Seminary.

Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Not Forgotten: The Need To Continue The Work of Black-Jewish Legacy

An aggressor shouting “Free Palestine” choked a 32-year-old Jewish man near Adas Torah synagogue recently in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood in LA.

This episode, following on the heels of thousands more, is a stark reminder that the surge of antisemitism in the U.S. continues unabated.

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