Conveners.org – We build powerful communities of practice for mission-driven leaders to connect, learn, and collaborate with each other.

THANK YOU

Over the past year, Conveners.org has reflected on our purpose – as an organization, as a board and team, and as individuals. We’ve deeply explored our past, present, and future and have come to the bittersweet decision that our time as an organization has come to a close.

We have fulfilled the mission and goals that the founders and stewards of Conveners.org set forth, and have beautifully guided our team and community through three major inflection points over the last 9 years.

OUR STORY

Inflection Point #1: Exponential Growth of Impact Convening

In 2013, our founders saw a profound need for convening the conveners in the social impact space. Social impact convenings were just getting started with less than a dozen major convenings each year. These conveners were in the early stages of exploring their potential and navigating their journey as first movers – we knew they needed to connect with one another to build community and best practices. At the same time, we foresaw quick and explosive growth as passionate and dedicated conveners sought to make an impact in the space.

We formed Conveners.org to help shape and steward this foundation and shape the momentum into a collaborative and progressive ecosystem committed to continuous learning, connection, and true impact.

Inflection Point #2: COVID Pandemic

COVID devastated countless families, jobs, communities, and ecosystems. Our passion and very lifeblood – gathering in-person – disappeared almost overnight. Our community struggled with canceled events, slashed budgets, and job losses.

We were all forced to question everything we knew about convening. We faced incredible challenges and many questions: How could we rapidly adapt to a life-threatening pandemic that prohibits in-person gathering? How do we maintain the communities and momentum we’ve spent decades building, and convene creatively, responsibly, and sustainably? How do we support our ecosystem during this disastrous and isolating time?

Conveners.org took swift action to tackle these challenges. We dove into deep learning about the tools and best practices for our new world, and held our community while writing the book on virtual convening for impact. We hosted rapid response calls addressing best tools, tactics, and health and safety. We helped our community navigate risk, mitigate loss, and focus on resilience. Against all odds, our conveners adapted and evolved to become a stronger community.

This was a time of deep impact. We’re proud of the work we accomplished, and honored that we were able to serve our community during its greatest time of need.

Inflection Point #3: New Calls to Impact

Over the past year, we’ve been asking ourselves “What’s next for Conveners.org?” Our community is flourishing with hundreds of organizations now dedicated to purpose-driven convenings. After much consideration, we embraced the radical truth that perpetuity is not the sole definition of success, and explored alternative pathways and possibilities.

It’s hard to go a day without reminders that the world is on fire. Having had great success in our mission as Conveners.org, and feeling pressing needs from other sectors, we determined it was time for this chapter to come to a close. It’s time to take the foundation of skills and passion we have built and answer the callings that burn most brightly for each of us.

BEST PRACTICES AND CLOSING RESPONSIBLY WITH CARE

We dreamed up what our best possible closing strategy could include, and how we could serve as an example to our community on how to sunset responsibly with gratitude, joy, and love. To that end, we’re prioritizing:

Transparency into our process

Internally: honoring team perspectives and exploring the why’s of our decision-making

Externally: honestly sharing our decision-making with our community through communication (emails, newsletters, website, etc.)

People over profit

We are fortunate that Conveners.org is in a healthy financial place, and we actively chose to responsibly sunset the organization from that place of stability, prioritizing people first. Instead of pushing to the end of our runway, we created a strategic plan to intentionally close our contracts and operations with care.

Our team

We understand that with the closing of Conveners.org, our team would naturally shift attention and follow their passions elsewhere. To that end, we’ve thoughtfully decreased work flow so our team has time to explore what’s next.

We recognize that nonprofit staff are routinely asked to work under market rate and overtime in addressing challenges, while balancing tight budgets. We’ve gone against that culture in every way we could and have offered generous severances in recognition of our team’s dedication.

Open access to our resources

We are working on making the resources, tools, and methodologies we’ve developed openly available, and identifying great community options for our members to support them in the next step of their journeys.

Thank you for your continued engagement and support throughout the years. It has been an honor to serve you, and we look forward to future opportunities together!

In community,
The Conveners.org Team

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FROM OUR COMMUNITY

Center for Purposeful Leadership

Center for Purposeful Leadership (CPL) is honored to be recommended by Conveners.org leadership as a new membership option for 2022 and beyond. Our vision: a just, inclusive, and interconnected world—a world that works for all. As authors of The Art of Convening book and originators of the Art of Convening programs and trainings, with an active membership community, we welcome you to explore how we can increase our positive impact together.

If you are interested in joining an active convener community with aligned values, we are offering all Conveners.org members a 15% discount on our programs.

KOKORO

KOKORO is an integrated health platform dedicated to whole human wellness that emploers leaders with evidence-based tools, a like-minded community, and feedback for optimizing their health – and their lives – by being attuned with emotions.