Growing a movement, part II: The return of in-person convenings

December 18th, 2023  – By Caleb Christen

Christen is a co-founder of the Inter-Movement Impact Project. He is also a lawyer, theologian, and senior officer in the Navy Reserve JAG Corps. All stated opinions are his own and do not represent the positions of the U.S. Department of Defense.

In September 2022, Debilyn Molineaux (then executive director of the Bridge Alliance and co-publisher of The Fulcrum) and I announced the return of in-person convenings and the inter-movement community building they would produce. Beginning with the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers Annual Summit that December, the wave of major in-person convenings has since grown into a tsunami.

While there were too many in-person convenings for all but the most intrepid travelers (the Braver Angels National Convention, the American Democracy Summit Annual, the National Conference on Citizenship to name just three), these events provided critical opportunities for relationships to be built across inter-movement neighborhoods and at the national, state and local levels.

The visionary thinking emanating from and through these convenings is also helping create the “operating system” for how the inter-movement community of democracy and civic-health-promoting movements unites, organizes and works together for collective impact.

Read the full article on the Fulcrum.