Welcome to the Transpartisan Alliance!

Building on the national network of relationships and goodwill from five years of transpartisan events to date, this fall a two member transpartisan “seed planting” team consisting of Reuniting America co-founder Joseph McCormick and conflict documentarian and Compassionate Listening facilitator Peter Hwosch (documenting this work since early 2006) will take to the road. They will begin local transpartisan organizing in and around the capitals of the “nations” of cultural affinity within the U.S. depicted below – New England, Foundry, Breadbasket, Dixie , The Islands , Mexamerica , The Empty Quarter, and Ecotopia.

I. Transpartisan Igniters

As the first step in the Uniting Communities Tour, Joseph and Peter will come to a community at a time and place that is convenient – anywhere from someone’s living room, to a local library, to a place of worship – and conduct a 3 hour session aimed at exploring the passion for the transpartisan approach. Each session will be charged with personal story of how they came to be transpartisan, video content, circle dialogue and examples of practical applications of the Transpartisan Toolbox. At this initial event among 10 to 20 local leaders and community members the Transpartisan Toolbox workbook will be distributed. The goal of the evening is to a) motivate the group and inspire transpartisan action in the community, b) identify an organizer and c) identify two co-facilitators to start a Transpartisan Toolbox dialogue group.

II. Transpartisan 101 Town Halls

The eight week Toolbox dialogue group project will be the production of a Transpartisan 101 Town hall meeting in their community. The Transpartisan Alliance will serve as advisor and coach and, in some cases, a co-convener of this event. They will assist with the design process, provide video content, provide speakers (where possible), and provide copies of the Transpartisan Toolbox workbook (to ignite additional groups) as well as a catalogue of books, CD’s and DVD merchandise to sell to offset the cost of the event.

III. Transpartisan 101 Facilitators Training

Some participants such as mediators, facilitators, trainers and coaches who attend Transpartisan Igniters and 101 Town Halls will want to go deeper into the tools. It’s for these people we will intermittently offer a full day intensive workshop called “Transpartisan 101 Facilitators Training.” At this gathering, participants will receive an intensive experience with the tools, be connected to our online resources and social network, and certified as Ambassadors to return to their community to begin convening and practicing.

IV. Citizen Summits

These Summits serve as a place to bring all of the above together. They are intended primarily to build relationships across divides. Each Summit will be focused on personal mastery skills, citizen empowerment training, and building grassroots networks. Invitees are people who are looking to build regional and national transpartisan relationships and networks. They will leave the Summit with innovative tools and skills, new connections, and restored inspiration for healthy citizenship.

V. Solutions Summits

The emphasis of a Solutions Summit is on applying whole system, transpartisan thinking to solve complex challenges. The Transpartisan Alliance will serve as a neutral co-convener facilitating a search for win/win public policy options that integrate knowledge, issues and interests from multiple sectors. These events will begin with a review of the transpartisan tools but then emphasize a whole systems thinking approach to creating public policy options. These summits will serve as incubators of out of the box choices for solving complex, interrelated problems. Participants will not decide among options and then advocate positions. There will be an explicit follow-up process to facilitate ongoing collaboration that leads to subsequent transpartisan activity under multiple banners.

VI. Professional Documentarian

Since April 2006, many transpartisan events have been professionally documented by filmmaker Peter Hwosch (with documentary credits for using dialogue in resolving conflict in Israel-Palestine and the Balkans). The intent is to produce a myriad of media products that help shift the partisan cultural narrative. This video content will be fully integrated into our website and be used as a medium to disseminate the transpartisan principles far and wide. These videos will include:

• short promotional films to articulate the Transpartisan Alliance’s mission and inspire engagement;
• web-based instructional videos and longer format webinars on how to use the specific tools in the Transpartisan Toolbox;
• interviews with the citizen leaders of the Transpartisan Alliance;
• edits from the large Transpartisan Alliance events and strategy meetings to provide transparency, information and inspiration to supporters from the grassroots to the philanthropic level;
• soliciting and addressing Frequently Asked Questions about the Transpartisan Alliance and transpartisan facilitation;
• and much more.

Additionally, Hwosch Productions has a feature length documentary film under development, (to be independently funded), with the working title of “Transpartisan,” which will look at the wider issue of the partisan divide, its history and consequences, who is doing what, and how to become empowered and engaged. This film will serve to draw many more to the work of the Transpartisan Alliance, its mission, and resources.

VII: Transpartisan Consulting

There is demand at all levels society for the unique political bridge-building experience developed by members of the Transpartisan Alliance. The skills, tools and knowhow for constructively engaging across divides to achieve greater collaboration are in demand at all levels of society, within and between all types of organizations. As part of its mission the Transpartisan Alliance will offer fee based consulting services to conference planners, conveners, organizers and design teams for:

• framing purpose, themes, intended outcomes and event invitations in ways that attract politically diverse participants
• designing meetings and gatherings that create the level of safety and trust needed to address and process the emotional wounds of division
• applying transpartisan design principles to producing gatherings that maximize opportunity to connect, dialogue, deliberate and explore opportunities to build relationships/partnerships/collaborative initiatives going forward

VII. Online Organizing

The Transpartisan Alliance is currently re-branding an existing internet framework that can hold and organize the presence of thousands of participating organizations and up to millions of individual members. This framework:

• defines the basis for partnership and cooperation among participating organizations and individual members
• has a "broadcast email" function that can reach all participating individuals, and selective email functions that can reach individuals or organizations interested in specific topics
• dovetails with the existing Transpartisan Alliance social networking system, but does not duplicate its functions

This body of organizations and individual members, held in relationship through the internet framework, is the core power of the Alliance. Through this framework, organizations can interact with one another, support one another, interact with the public at large, and the at-large members of the Alliance.
Also built into this system are the organizing tools needed to support and coordinate the on-the-ground activists engaging in transpartisan initiatives in local communities.

VIII. Self Sustained Funding

The Transpartisan Alliance is currently raising its launch budget from philanthropic sources. By the end of the first year, however, we will be self sustaining based on online and “back-of-the-room bookstore” sales of the following:

• Transpartisan Toolbox eight week small group dialogue guide
• CD-ROM including an electronic version of the Transpartisan Toolbox with video intros to each tool
• Transpartisan Alliance t-shirts and hats
• DVD’s including inspirational cross spectrum leadership interviews and mind opening comedy with Swami BeyondAnanda, “Breaking the partisan trance!”
• Books, DVD’s and courses from authors, trainers, and coaches whose work supports the growth of the transpartisan movement
• Transpartisan Alliance Membership dues