Essential Partners, Inc.

EP’s trademark methodology helps communities and institutions have healthier, more complex, more inclusive conversations about polarizing differences of values, beliefs, and identities wherever they arise: in politics, in faith communities, in schools, institutional cultures, and so on.

Over 33 years we have helped institutions and communities develop stronger relationships of trust through courageous dialogues on a wide array of polarizing issues, including abortion, gun rights and reform, immigration, climate change, political polarization, same-sex marriage, faith and science, intergenerational tensions, the rural/urban divide, free speech, healthcare, and more. We create engaged spaces for people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs, identities, and worldviews to express curiosity, share their complex ideas, and build stronger communities.

We envision a world of thriving communities strengthened by difference, connected by trust.

Guided by this vision, our goals are to help civic groups, faith communities, colleges, and organizations build resilience, cohesion, and trust across deep divides of values, beliefs, and identities using our trademark approach to dialogue, civic engagement, and community-building. We are deeply focused on building the capacity for leaders, communities, and organizations to create and live into their own infrastructure for building bridges across differences. We equip communities and organizations to be the agents and the stewards of more inclusive, dialogic, and pluralistic cultures.

Since 2020, Essential Partners has embraced a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging strategy, which includes goals and concrete steps toward diversifying our organization, changing our culture, and better representing and learning from the diverse communities we are proud to serve.

Essential Partners uses a powerful, innovative approach to constructive dialogue across differences. We focus on deep, long-term partnerships with leaders, institutions, and communities to build their own capacity and agency as centers of bridge-building and peacemaking.

Everything from the skills and methods we teach to our free, open-access resources are designed to be accessible, adaptable, and impactful. We work closely with each community partner to tailor our programs and resources to their needs and embed our practices for trust-building and dialogue deeply into the fabric of their communities.

By equipping the cornerstone institutions of communities to build and sustain relationships of trust across differences, we increase the number of opportunities community members have to experience genuine connection by exploring their differences constructively. We create mutually reinforcing systems that are housed and sustained locally, ensuring communities continue and advance the work of bridge-building for larger and larger audiences long after our formal partnership has ended.

EP also invites program and project alumni to join our growing Community of Practice—a network of thousands of skilled dialogue facilitators bringing our work to life in communities all around the U.S. and the world. We provide exclusive, advanced resources for this network as well as regular opportunities for its members to learn, share, and grow together by forming new connections and supporting each other's endeavors. EP remains a central hub for training and resources, keeping members of our Community of Practice at the leading edge of the bridge-building movement.

We offer:

Training for key stakeholders in our trademark dialogue approach;
Long-term collaborations to build local capacity and shift community or institutional cultures;
Co-creation of new proprietary programs and materials;
In-person, hybrid, and remote program design consultation and coaching;
Dialogue facilitation around particularly tough topics.

EP has more than 33 years of experience as a leader in the field of dialogue and peacebuilding. We serve as core partners to civic leaders, community stakeholders, and organizations across the globe, equipping them to sustain constructive conversations about the values, views, and identities that are most essential to them.

Our proven methodology, Reflective Structured Dialogue (RSD), is well-studied and renowned for its transformative impacts. RSD combines elements of family therapy, neuroscience, and mediation. This approach was originally designed and tested in the 1990s, and has been continually refined, adapted, and modified to suit emerging demands. As a result, our core social technology is highly adaptable, impactful, and responsive to a growing range of contemporary needs, challenges, and applications. It is one of the oldest, most impactful, and most respected approaches to constructive dialogue in the bridgebuilding movement.

In addition to our proven approach, EP boasts the most advanced impact evaluation in the field of dialogue and deliberation. We use the data generated through our Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning system to learn as an organization, respond to growing calls for robust evaluation in the field, and tell powerful stories about dialogue.

EP's capabilities are further enhanced by a vast network of partners, ranging from grassroots community partners to national and international organizations, many of whom serve as high-level leaders in their respective fields. To learn more about the people we work with, please visit: https://whatisessential.org/who-we-work.

EP is also the training and resource hub for our vast Community of Practice, uniting program alumni and EP-trained leaders into a network of champions, advocates, and partners. This network is a key element of our capacity to drive and inform transformational impacts around the country and the world.

Over our 33-year history, we have worked in more than 40 U.S. states and in dozens of countries abroad. Each year we typically offer direct training, coaching, and capacity-building partnerships to more than 3,000 people—most of whom use the skills we impart to impact many others in their communities and organizations.

Our Community of Practice includes 3,500+ members, each of whom has accumulated core training in elements of our approach and works to strengthen their communities, institutions, civic/faith groups, and schools by using the skills and resources we provide. EP estimates that our Community of Practice collectively impacts more than 100,000 people each year.

As we look ahead over the next several years, our aim is to deepen and expand our impact at the level of scale in a number of partnering communities. This involves working with several "cornerstone institutions" in these communities that serve as stewards of civic health, engagement, and well-being. We will expand each of their capacities to support healthier communities by training them in our approach and embedding core elements of RSD into the work they do, and connecting them into localized networks of leadership and expertise. Our aim is to create a bedrock of skilled leaders, locally-adapted resources, and opportunities for engagement that local institutions can sustain and adapt on their own. This in turn leads to healthier, more connected, whole communities that are able to withstand the pull of polarization, respond in moments of crisis, and shape brighter futures more collaboratively and inclusively.