Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories

Essential Partners

Our mission is to foster constructive dialogue wherever conflicts are driven by differences of identities, beliefs, and values. Difficult conversations — about the issues that matter most — are too often avoided or approached with fear. Essential Partners has worked for three decades to facilitate conversations and equip people using our approach to dialogue. We bring a method that is applicable and adaptable to a wide variety of contexts. Our method, Reflective Structured Dialogue (RSD), relies on preparation, structure, questions, facilitation, and reflection to enable people to harness their capacity to have the conversations they need to have. Essential Partners offers workshops, custom training, and dialogue facilitation, as well as consultation. Our aim is to equip you to have meaningful conversations about essential issues, so you can move forward and create a better way of living together.


Read More

Voting Booths set up in rows on Election Day

Faith leaders can help renew America's social and civil contracts by protecting every eligible vote and honoring lawful results. Here's how to get involved.

adamkaz/Getty Images

Dignity, Democracy, and the Courage to Stay Engaged

Crises are arriving faster than we can absorb them: climate, loneliness, artificial intelligence, housing, addiction, debt. In communities across Washington state, what I see is not mainly anger. It is a sense of being overwhelmed.

When everything feels urgent, people are tempted to withdraw. And when enough of us quietly withdraw, we can begin to believe that nothing works anymore and the rules no longer apply.

Keep ReadingShow less
United States Capitol building with US flag

United States Capitol building shows classical architecture and an American flag waving against a clear blue sky.

Getty Images

Our Democracy Is a Beast, When It Should Be a Buffalo

The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists.

We asked Alejo Cruz, a Fall Fulcrum Fellow, to share what democracy means to him and how he sees its current health.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand with "VOTE" stickers

Hand with "VOTE" stickers

Photo provided

California’s 22nd District and the Myth of the Predictable Voter

For years, I thought California’s Central Valley presented one of the more puzzling electorates I encountered as a public-opinion researcher.

I conducted dozens of surveys throughout the Valley, including communities that would eventually become parts of David Valadao’s congressional districts. One pattern was difficult to miss. Democratic registration, particularly among Latino voters, often suggested a considerably more Democratic electorate than appeared on Election Day. Participation was uneven, and Latino Democratic registration did not translate into equivalent electoral strength.

Keep ReadingShow less