Who We Work With
We help campuses, companies, and communities to see deeply, bridge divides, and instigate change. People thrive and grow when they are able to bring all of who they are to everything they do — and we are convinced that this includes people’s religious, spiritual, and secular identities. We do this through an arts-based dialogue approach called photovoice.
Campuses
We work with students, chaplains, faculty, and staff and their community networks to see deeply, bridge divides, and instigate change on their campuses and in their broader communities.
Impact Story: Phillips Academy
The chaplains at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts encounter the same challenge all chaplains face: a shortage of opportunity for students and faculty to engage in purposeful conversations about beliefs and belonging. How can chaplains build bridges of belonging in campus cultures?
We co-led a photovoice experience to help Rabbi Joshua Greenberg and the other chaplains strengthen connections across differences and further unite their diverse campus. Students from at least six faith backgrounds used photos of their daily lives to discuss their faith journeys and the role their schools plays in them.
Students left empowered with deeper understanding of themselves and others, and with stronger relationships.
The process also equipped chaplains to lead more effectively. Chaplain Rabbi Greenberg shared that he, “was able to learn more about both my students and my colleagues in one evening than I could after a whole semester.” When chaplains can move beyond the superficial with their students, needs, concerns, and longings come into view — and this deepened understanding enables chaplains to serve their communities more effectively.
Companies
We work with Employee Resource Group leaders, marketing officials and other invested corporate stakeholders to see deeply, bridge divides, and instigate change both within their companies and with their companies in the broader communities.
Impact Story: ServiceNow
Belonging is good for business. It empowers workers to be their best selves — and that translates to them being the best workers that they can be. When people feel energized to bring their full selves to work, including their religious and spiritual selves, organizations thrive.
Many employees, however, don’t experience belonging in the workplace. A recent study found that 25% of workers feel that they don’t belong at work. Without a sense of belonging, employers see lower levels of job performance and job satisfaction, more sick days, and higher employee turnover rates.
ServiceNow, a global AI platform company, knows the importance of building belonging and is instigating the changes needed to cultivate a community where belonging thrives
We teamed up with ServiceNow’s Interfaith EBG to help take their commitment to the next level. Our collaboration involved workshops and a five-meeting project. Through their photos, participants celebrated the many ways their company creates belonging in the workplace. Likewise, they identified opportunities for improving workplace culture to be even more inclusive and sensitive to the needs of people from all religious, spiritual, and secular backgrounds.
Communities
We work with concerned community organizations, local governments, and invested community members to see deeply, bridge divides, and instigate change on their campuses and in their broader communities.
Impact Story: Center for a Vital Community, Sheridan College
There is a quote often attributed to the anthropologist and author Margaret Mead that goes something like this: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” One of these groups of small and committed individuals are the community leaders behind the Center for a Vital Community (CVC), a program of Sheridan College (Wyoming) using photovoice, amongst other tools, to empower people to engage in and strengthen their community.
That’s a process that begins by helping people and communities to see deeply. By seeing deeply into important social problems in their community such as youth mental health, an influx of new community members destabilizing the status quo, and environmental issues, the Center for a Vital Community empowers community members to begin the process of change.
Center for a Vital Community Director Amy Albrecht talking to community members at an exhibit reception for one of their several photovoice projects.
Not sure where to start? Contact us →
Their first project, a collaboration from Interfaith Photovoice and Essential Partners, focused on communal flourishing at a time of change. The 24 participants came from all walks of life and carried with them a richness of diverse identities. We trained six facilitators to run an Essential Photovoice in Sheridan.
Those involved with the project are no longer able to see their community the same way as before. They see so much more than the myopia of their own perspectives enabled.
The first step to change is “identifying and illuminating area issues,” as the CVC website puts it. And by using our approach that combines amateur photography and structured dialogue, the CVC has been able to do just that. They have trained 65+ community members to be leaders in constructive dialogue around difficult subjects, and they have opened many more conversations into key issues, including with their many public facing photovoice exhibits.