Interaction Institute for Social Change

10/15/2026

If your organization is anything like ours, there's no shortage of great ideas. The magic happens when those ideas leave the meeting and start moving: people know their part, updates keep coming, and the energy from that first conversation carries all the way through 🌟

What makes the difference is what happens next: knowing who's taking the next step, keeping momentum when everyone's busy, and making sure the plan doesn't live only in the notes.

Stop Talking, Start Doing: Making Change Stick Beyond the Meeting is a two-hour workshop (and our last one of 2026!) for teams that want to get better at the space between the decision and the doing.

You'll learn how to:

- Turn ideas into clear commitments, with names and next steps attached

- Build shared ownership so follow-through doesn't fall on one person

- Design plans that withstand real-world pressures

- Keep your team aligned and energized long after the meeting ends

It's all happening Thursday, November 19, 3-5 pm ET (12-2 pm PT), online, facilitated by our brilliant facilitators Adeola Oredola and Curtis Ogden.

If you're ready for your team's best ideas to be realized, join us!

Register here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/interactioninstituteforsocialchange/1963030

10/13/2026

Ok, picture this: A key decision needs to be made at your organization. Before anything is finalized, a colleague reaches out and asks what you think.

What are you seeing? What worries you? What might they be missing? 🤔

You share something they hadn't considered, and the plan shifts because of it. And when it's time to put the decision into action, you're already on board, because your thinking was part of it.

Friends, that's what being brought in early feels like. You feel trusted and respected. And when the people most affected by a decision - often the ones with the least positional power - help shape it (instead of just living with it), decisions get better, and teams get stronger. Do that consistently, and it becomes the culture.

Our free tool, Levels of Involvement in Decision-Making: A tool for deciding who to involve and how, helps teams create more of those moments.

Use it to:

- Figure out who needs a seat in the decision, especially the people most affected by it

- Give people clear roles: inform, consult, involve, or decide

- Match how much input you gather to how big the decision really is

Download it for free: https://interactioninstitute.org/levels-of-involvement-decision-making

May your next big decision leave folks feeling a little more seen 💛

10/08/2026

A room full of folks dedicated to collaboration and social change means our staff meetings go a little like this...

At Monday's all-staff and board meeting, we began with our community practices (pictured here). We bring these into every staff meeting, and we ask out loud which one we're leaning into that day.

Next, we checked in with each other as people. We spent time culture-building with questions like "What line of work did you almost pursue?" and "What's a place that made you who you are?" We learned things about each other we never knew, even after years of working together.

From there, we shared updates across teams, then broke into trios to reflect on what we noticed in our bodies, hearts, and spirits as we took it all in. We closed with a round of appreciations, and the chat filled up faster than anyone could read it.

Our favorite practice from the list? Probably number 7: Have the real conversation in the room. It's not always easy, but it's how trust gets built.

Feel free to borrow these practices for your own team. We'd love to hear which one resonates most with you 💫

10/05/2026

Justice movements and organizations have gotten really good at being right. We can cite the studies, share the receipts, and build the slide deck. But in her latest brilliant piece, Aisha Goss of The Center for Cultural Power makes the case that being correct was never going to be enough on its own.

People rarely join a movement because they finished the reading. They join because they found somewhere they belong.

As Goss puts it, the invitation too many people hear from the left is "Once you believe correctly, then we'll discuss whether you belong." Her call is to flip that, and make room for joy, play, and people arriving imperfectly.

"Movements need more than analysis. They need inside jokes, songs, and characters."

For those of us working on collaborative change, it's a good reminder that how we invite people in matters as much as what we're inviting them into.

Read the Substack here: https://substack.com//p-211884781

By Aisha Goss, CEO of The Center for Cultural Power

10/01/2026

Change has been the theme of the year at IISC, and we know we're far from the only nonprofit feeling it. (We even dug into it together in our recent workshop, Leading Through Organizational Change & Transitions.)

Our Director of People & Culture, Jasmine Williams, wrote about these changes in her latest blog while "still in the thick of the challenge and opportunity of this change," as a reminder that there is beauty and learning to be found in the messy middle.

So many of us are going through it, and not many of us are ready to talk about it yet (completely understandable!). We invite you to read her vulnerable reflection and maybe even share your own answer to this question:

What's helping you move through change right now?

We'll leave you with her closing words:

"May what’s for us find us. May love guide us always. May needs be clear and met. May the container hold us. May the rest be real. And ultimately, may change be a good thing."

Read Jasmine's full reflection here: https://interactioninstitute.org/musings-in-the-midst-of-change/

09/24/2026

A good conversation can come to a halt when someone finally names the power imbalance in the room, or says that thing everyone's been careful to dance around. We built this workshop for exactly that moment.

Facilitating Decision-Making Across Differences is our newest workshop, grounded in IISC's Facilitative Leadership™ approach. It's for the moments when identities, power, and perspectives collide, and a group needs to move forward anyway, without steamrolling anyone or pretending the tension isn't there.

You'll learn how to:
- Clarify who should actually be in the room, and why
- Make power visible instead of letting it quietly run the show
- Use structures that make room for every voice (not just the loudest one)
- Turn a tangle of conflicting views into a direction people can stand behind

And it's happening soon: Thursday, October 1, 3-5 pm ET, facilitated by Cynthia Silva Parker and Erika Strong.

If your team's decisions tend to stall out right when it matters most, come join us!
Register here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/interactioninstituteforsocialchange/1963026

09/17/2026

As we enter the fall season, it's tempting to keep adding more meetings, initiatives, and tasks to your never-ending to-do list. So this month's Brain Boost invites you to ask yourself: what are you holding onto, and is it worth the effort?

Swipe through for three questions to ask yourself and a few prompts to bring into your next meeting. If you only use one with your team, which one will it be?

📬 Want more facilitation tips like this? Subscribe to our Love in Interaction newsletter for monthly tools, resources, and reflections: https://interactioninstitute.org/contact/

09/10/2026

Friends, there is still so much possibility in the work ahead.

The work of advancing racial justice feels heavy, especially right now, but we are also surrounded by people building relationships, sharing wisdom, caring for one another, and creating change every day.

Next Wednesday, September 16 at 2 PM ET, we’re gathering for our FREE Racial Justice Community of Practice to pause, reconnect, and draw on that collective wisdom!

With facilitators Cynthia Silva Parker and Amy Casso, we’ll explore:

- The future we’re working toward and what keeps us connected to that vision

- The leadership challenges we’re navigating and strategies that help us keep moving

- The Systems Thinking Iceberg and where we might find leverage for meaningful change

Come with a specific change you’re working toward. Bring your questions, your experience, and your ideas. We’ll bring the space to reflect, learn, and imagine together.

And remember that in difficult times, we don’t have to navigate the work alone.

Register: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/interactioninstituteforsocialchange/1963074

09/03/2026

The signs are here. Old systems, institutions, and relationships built on shaky ground are all cracking under pressure that's been building for years. And it can't be stopped. So what do we hold onto, and what do we finally let go of?

Curtis Ogden sits with this question in his latest reflection. Not everything that's coming apart can, or should, be held together. And it's an invitation for us to get honest about what's actually ours to protect, what's ready to change, and what just needs to fall away.

We can't "five-step plan" our way out of this one. What Curtis offers instead is something closer to practice: feel the grief and the anger and the hope - but don't let your feelings run the show. Keep the relationships that give as much as they take, ground in the energies of the Earth, and keep showing up for the world you're trying to build, even while everything around it is coming apart.

How are you making it through "the unraveling" without losing hold of what actually matters?

Read more on the IISC blog: https://interactioninstitute.org/the-unraveling-is-unavoidable-so-now-what/

08/24/2026

📣 NYC friends: passed along from our partners at Mississippi Food Policy Council

Hindu, Muslim, and interfaith organizations are holding a press conference this Tuesday, August 25 at 10:30 AM at NYC City Hall, opposing RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's upcoming appearance at Madison Square Garden on August 29.

NYC Council Members Brad Lander, Shahana Hanif, and Lincoln Restler have already called on MSG to cancel the event, joined by dozens of interfaith, civil rights, and South Asian organizations.

If you're in NYC and this matters to you, consider showing up or learning more.

📍 Steps of NYC City Hall
🕥 Tuesday, August 25, 10:30 AM

Hindu, Muslim and interfaith groups will gather at City Hall on August 25 to oppose the spread of Hindu nationalism and RSS influence in the United States.   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   NEW YORK, NY, August 24th, 2026 | Hindu, Muslim, interfaith and civil rights organizations