We live in a time when strength is often confused with domination and compassion is mistaken for weakness. At Common Ground Institute, we teach a different way. We call for a different kind of courage — the courage to connect. Real strength promotes dignity — both yours and mine.
The future must not be shaped by louder voices, but by stronger character. And so, we need leaders who seek to coordinate the needs of different people – not those who protect their own at the expense of others. When we learn to assert ourselves without dehumanizing others, conflict becomes a source of growth rather than division. Common Ground Institute exists to form the courage to connect.
We want to make compassionate, assertive, peaceful, needs-based communication the primary ways people engage each other and solve problems together.
Collaboration is the path. Shared humanity is the goal.
Common Ground Institute teaches the relational capacities needed for effective democracy, continuously-developing organizations, and fulfilling interpersonal relationships. We help individuals, couples, organizations and communities manage conflict, transform relationships and create shared values. Treated properly, any conflict is an opportunity for people to learn to understand each other better, improve their relationships, solve problems between them, and meet their individual and collective goals.
Most of our success in life comes from our capacity to work effectively with others. We often think of working well with others as the absence of conflict. But that’s not true. Conflict is an inherent part of all relationships. Whether we are talking about a relationship, organization or a community, what matters is not the presence of conflict, but instead how conflict is handled.
Learning to manage conflict effectively transforms lives. Most people experience conflict as something to be avoided. Imagine not having to fear conflict. Imagine what it would be like if you felt that you could turn any disagreement into an occasion of mutual understanding and problem-solving.
Learning how to solve problems collaboratively can change your life, organization or community. We show you how.
The Common Ground Institute (CGI) is a nonprofit organization founded in 2021 to help others bridge interpersonal, social, and political divides, and work toward creating a more unified and compassionate society.
We are educators, mediators, moderators and organizers.
We offer:
A Call to a Higher Purpose
We are living in a time of fracture.
We have learned to argue, to defend, to win.
But we have not learned how to stand firm without dehumanizing.
Strength without care hardens into domination.
Care without strength collapses under pressure.
We believe a different kind of courage is possible —
the courage to connect across difference,
to assert our needs clearly while honoring yours,
to protect dignity — yours and mine.
To connect is not about being nice.
It is about being strong enough to work with others without diminishing them.
The future must belong to those who can hold
conviction without contempt s about being strong enough toand power without cruelty.
We invite you into that standard.
We will help you develop it.
Keep current with conflict resolution strategies and collaborative problem-solving techniques for our day and age by exploring our publications-and inspire your mind, heart and community
Here’s a sneak peek at the new 2026 book, Bridging Political Divides: “Collaboration requires that we simultaneously connect to the other while protecting the self. It simultaneously says, ‘I am open to finding ways to meet your needs and my needs, but I will not let you hurt me.’ In this way, collaborative engagement is strong: it brings together power, self- assertion and compassion for the other.”
Here’s a sneak peek at the Transformation of a White Supremacist: It is a compelling account of a self- identified White Supremacist who came to renounce his racist ideology and belief that African Americans were inherently inferior through a series of relational encounters with a variety of African Americans over time as a product of many discrepant experiences that contradicted and disconfirmed his ideology. The author experienced the successive dismantling of his heart-felt ideology and the construction of a new one.
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