Gracious Space is a simple yet powerful approach to working better together. Defined as “a spirit and setting where we invite the stranger and learn in public,” Gracious Space sets the tone for honest and vigorous exchange, deep listening and creativity around challenging issues. Gracious Space can move organizations and communities forward, together, with deeper understanding and solid problem solving.

Gracious Space has had a significant impact in diverse communities across the country. From human services to youth-adult partnerships to education initiatives, Gracious Space is an environment where diverse people in a complex system can carry out the intensive and intimate work of community building and collective leadership. 

Following are some demonstrations of Gracious Space being effectively used in situations of conflict and diversity.

Urban Race Issues in Buffalo New York

At the time that the KLCC fellowship in Buffalo was formed, the school district was in financial crisis and the community had been denied federal funding for after-school programs. Buffalo had a history of being divided by race and ethnicities in various neighborhoods, so the Public Policy and Education Fund of New York/Citizen Action of New York intentionally invited 25 people who represented the diversity of the city.

When the fellowship first formed, they quickly moved from a space of enthusiastically coming together into confronting each other over their different perspectives. The group used Gracious Space to focus on their shared purpose and how they could work together with a deeper appreciation of each other. They had difficult conversations about race in Gracious Space.  As they learned to work together they also coordinated a collaboration of after-school program providers, the school district, labor unions, and the mayor’s office to prepare a proposal that increased Buffalo’s allocation of 21st Century Fund grants from $150,000 to $1.5 million.

Based on the learning that came from this work, the Buffalo project lead brought Gracious Space to the State organization in order to raise the question of whether agendas were being set with appropriate involvement of those they were intending to serve.  As a result, the leadership recognized that its selection process was unintentionally biased towards White decision makers. The statewide organization adopted a new approach to analyzing and selecting issues based on racial equity. They shifted their decision making process to reflect their value of inclusiveness and service to those most vulnerable. They shared their approach in a Summer 2009 Community Learning Exchange on Racial Equity.

Gracious Space provided a robust container that was strong enough to handle the difficult dynamics of the race conversation and the change process. 

Sacred Space, Billings Montana

The Empowering Youth Project in Billings, Montana provides training to non-profits in leadership and organizational development, with the goal of creating collaboratives that function well in addressing situations across the county. All grant partners receive Gracious Space as assigned reading material at the beginning of the projects, and are invited to use Gracious Space in their collaborative work across often territorial boundaries. All the partners of the Empowering Youth Project used Gracious Space as the basis for communication and how to prevent working in silos and getting burned out.

Director Mary Hernandez took grant partners on a mini retreat to what they came to call “Gracious Space - Sacred Space.” There was a snow-covered tipi on the property which served as their peaceful meeting space.  Using Gracious Space along with some Native American practices, the group came together around shared purpose and passion.

Gracious Space allowed group members to ask one another hard questions without feeling like someone would take over their turf. The more they engaged in Gracious Space the more it allowed them to attend to themselves and the people they cared about. “We still had very passionate exchanges, but without the anger that sometimes accompanies passion. Even though we only had a couple of hours, it felt like time had stretched and had stepped into another world,” Mary said.

Civil Society in Colorado

Carolyn Love uses Gracious Space in her consulting work on diversity, using it as a model to create open space for people to feel safe communicating their views about difference and diversity. 

One very diverse group focused on economic development. After Carolyn described the aspects of Gracious Space and how it could lead to a more civil society, a representative from the city council approached her and said that was the first meeting he’d come to that was relaxed and where they could discuss complex issues without getting mad at each other. Another member of that group, an ordained pastor and a local developer, bought the book and gave several copies to give to his colleagues.

Rural Race Issues in Montana

At the beginning of her Kellogg Leadership for Community Change program, Julie was the only Native American employed in a professional position in the local school system in Montana. Even though the schools in this town were physically located in the heart of the Reservation, the principals, administration, teachers, and most of the school board came from the White part of the community.

In the beginning Julie found it difficult to bring Gracious Space, due to her own anger about the injustices and especially when others did not return it. She committed to staying in Gracious Space, no matter how others acted, which led to different relationships and different types of conversations.

Julie and the group worked with the school district to make changes that would open the school system to serve all its students. They created a family room that welcomed Native American parents and students, started a mentoring program and performed myriad actions intended to create a welcoming school climate. It was not easy and not done all at once.

Julie described her experience of Gracious Space as a journey from anger to hope. “Those wanting to do community change work must be able to build a relationship field that is so strong, it supports people to say what must be said in a way that advances the work.”

Community Learning Exchanges

Gracious Space serves as a core foundation of the Community Learning Exchange (CLE), a program of the Center for Ethical Leadership that is designed to help vulnerable communities build local capacity to address equity issues and improve lives.  The focus is on cultivating collective leadership, creating Gracious Space for building trust and having tough conversations, and utilizing culturally appropriate forms of engagement.  CLE’s are developed in concert with communities that have experience in building their collective leadership capacity and applying it to bring about change in their local communities. Race is used as a lens, along with analysis of inequities, to examine what is needed to aid healing conversations and develop change strategies.  Gracious Space is a core text and methodology for all of the work done within this network and at the exchange events.

Community Learning Exchange topics have included: 

• Using digital storytelling to build youth – adult/ community/school partnerships for the purpose of increasing public will to support the schools (Edcouch,Texas);
• Mobilizing youth and adults around immigration, advocacy and policy to help immigrant families stay together during an aggressive season of immigration enforcement (Chelsea, Mass.);
• Using language, history and the culture of place as a source of collective identity and grounding to improve student success in Native American schools (Laguna and Acoma Pueblos, New Mexico); 
• Equipping community leaders with tools for incorporating principles of racial equity into their social change organizing efforts (Buffalo, New York);
• Building a coalition for education equity to help Somali, African American, Latino, Hmong, rural White and Native American communities improve student outcomes (Minneapolis, Minnesota).  One of the hosts is a Native American organization that has helped move the public school graduation rate of native Americans from 18% to almost 50% in the past few years.