- Living Room Conversations works to heal society by connecting people across divides - politics, age, gender, race, nationality, and more – through guided conversations proven to build understanding and transform communities.
- Living Room Conversations works to heal society by connecting people across divides - politics, age, gender, race, nationality, and more – through guided conversations proven to build understanding and transform communities.
- Living Room Conversations works to heal society by connecting people across divides - politics, age, gender, race, nationality, and more – through guided conversations proven to build understanding and transform communities.
- Living Room Conversations works to heal society by connecting people across divides - politics, age, gender, race, nationality, and more – through guided conversations proven to build understanding and transform communities.
What a Living Room Conversation looks like.
Two conversation hosts with different viewpoints each invite one or two others to join together for structured conversation on a specific topic. (We have a lot of structured topic guides to choose from, or you can create your own).
The Conversation Agreements and structure help assure a good experience and allow participants to get to know each other.
Living Room Conversations can happen anywhere: our homes, coffee shops, conference spaces, churches, and more and more online via video chat.
Getting at the heart of what we share in common with one another, these conversations have powerful, positive impacts across society – including a sense of respect, understanding, and even friendship in unexpected places!
You can get started bridging divides TODAY—Join a video conversation, host a conversation of your own, and tap into a community of people involved in the work of connection.
Our Story.
Origins
Living Room Conversations is a non-profit organization founded in 2010 as a result of a transpartisan partnership focused on bridging divides through conversation.
Major disagreement on important issues is a fact of life, but it doesn’t have to create insurmountable divides. We hope for a world in which people who have fundamental differences of opinion and backgrounds learn to work together with respect – and even joy – to realize the vibrant future we all desire for ourselves and our families. Through applying and adapting our conversational model, we hope participants will build relationships that generate understanding and enable collaborative problem-solving.
Divides Aren't Inevitable.
Where is your living room?
Living rooms used to be the place where people would gather to socialize and relate with each other. Inviting someone into your home was to treat them as valued and worthy of respect. But before they were called living rooms these rooms were referred to as “parlors” – a term that comes from the French and means place for speaking.
Our modern world no longer limits our place for speaking to a physical location. We live our lives in our communities and online. Our living room is wherever we find ourselves connecting with others.
Living Room Conversations can take place anywhere, which these days includes the virtual world. Video chat allows us to bring each other into our homes, with all that represents, at a scale never before imagined.
Our History.
The Pilot
In late 2010, Joan Blades partnered with dialogue experts, Walt Roberts, Debilyn Molineaux, Amanda Kathryn Roman and Heather Tischbein, to create a structured, intimate conversation format that would empower everyday citizens to discuss important issues with friends of differing political affiliations and backgrounds. The theory was that if two friends with different points of view each invited two friends to join a conversation, with full disclosure about the intent and structure of the conversation, they could create a safe space for a respectful and meaningful exchange of ideas, develop new relationships and perhaps find common ground. This was the Living Room Conversations pilot project.
» More…
By early 2011, the pilot revealed that the Living Room Conversations structure worked. Both the observed and independent conversations were successful. Participants found they were anxious at the outset but soon felt comfortable using the format. In fact, these early conversations fostered relationships that continue to this day.
» Less…
The Project
Inspired by the success of the pilot, Amanda Kathryn Roman and Joan Blades formed a transpartisan political partnership, recruited an advisory board and launched the website to make the Living Room Conversations open-source format available to individuals and organizations around the country. Their hope was to empower participants to begin to reweave the fabric of our civil society by demonstrating that respectful conversation can enrich our lives and enable us to create better solutions to the challenges we face together.
» More…
Early participants had conversations about the role of government, money in politics, immigration, gay marriage and more. In 2013, our first high profile conversation, cohosted by Joan Blades and Mark Meckler (Tea Party Patriots), discussed crony capitalism and identified the need for criminal justice reform as an area of 100% agreement. common ground This led to further discussion and impactful collaborative action.
Living Room Conversations is constantly evolving. We have a growing list of champions who speak publicly about Living Room Conversations or use the format in their work, as well as a growing number of partners who are using our open-source format in large and small ways. We look forward to developing and sharing materials for more issue areas, and creating a cycle of online-to-offline community building as we learn from and support each other in becoming a more respectful, civil society.
» Less…
Frequently Asked Questions
Living Room Conversations are structured to increase understanding, reveal common ground and allow us to discuss possible solutions. No fancy event or skilled facilitator is typically needed. When people of all walks of life begin to care about one another, they can begin working together to solve the problems of our time.
Cohosts are best when they have a different perspective than you. Think about your friends with whom you have respectful disagreements.
Cohosts are great, but not necessary, so don’t feel constrained if you can’t find one.
Think about people who are interested in having meaningful conversations about our world. Conversations are richest and most fun when there is diversity of perspective represented. Think about many kinds of differences: age, gender, culture, politics and more. You may be surprised at the range of opinion on a particular topic in a group that seems homogeneous.
- Use the Living Room Conversations Facebook page and/or join our Facebook Organizer community and make a request for diverse conversation partners.
- Choose a topic where the participants express different viewpoints (e.g. Status & Privilege, Relationships First, Future of Work).
- Recognize that we are all different and there is tremendous value in cultivating skills in listening and conversation.
While you don’t need to provide food or beverages, having those available is a hospitable gesture that supports conversation. When we share snacks together, we tend to be more sociable. Having a potluck or meeting at a coffee shop can work.
Living Room Conversations can happen anywhere a small group of people can gather in a comfortable and relatively private space. You can even gather online using platforms like Zoom, or our preferred video conversation platform, Junto (in beta testing).
Absolutely! Community meetings are happening in several places in the country. We’ve developed a guide based on our experience that can help you plan.
What’s most important is being in a space where you and the group feel safe to have a conversation that explores your values and opinions. It’s also important that your conversation be in a place where others are not disturbed. Someone’s home may be the best place. Sitting under a tree in a park or in a coffee shop might also work.
No facilitator necessary! All you need is the conversation guide. Everyone in the group is responsible to own and guide the conversation. This said, with a video Living Room Conversation it is often helpful to have one of the hosts get things started and watch the time so that the conversation can wrap up in time.
The materials are absolutely free! Living Room Conversations is an open source project. Please use, share and modify with attribution to LivingRoomConversations.org.
The conversation guides—more than 100 of them!— are found under topics on the website.
You can read the conversation agreements here!
The conversation agreements are six common sense ground rules for engaging in a respectful conversation that supports openness and curiosity rather than debate. They let people know what is expected of them and create a safe environment for a great conversation.
The conversation agreements are found under “resources” on the website and are available as the first page of the pdf conversation guides.
You can watch or listen to a recorded Living Room Conversation here.
We also host monthly Living Room Conversation LIVE events, where you can watch a streaming conversation in real time. Sign up for the next one or watch our past LIVE events here.
The best way to learn about Living Room Conversation is to participate in one.
You can see highlights of a conversation here as well as a complete conversation here. Watch even more LRCs and related videos and podcasts on our Watch and Listen page.
You can help Living Room Conversations grow and expand by completing our feedback form or by writing a blog telling us about your experience. We’d love to see photos of your group (just contact us about that) and to hear your suggestions for topics you’d be interested in hosting.