World Cafe Community

What Makes the World Café Important Now?

In support of our Harvest Fund Drive, Frances (Muryah) Baldwin shares her perspective on what makes the World Café so important now:

"For more than 10 years I have been excited about the far-reaching effects of eloquent and evocative conversation and realized how rarely people have such personal or business conversations in the real world. Repeatedly, I have witnessed large groups build upon their diverse perspectives to experience substantial shifts in what they believe about their real purpose, potential and interdependence.  Sometimes I try to imagine the amount of complexity, confrontation, pain, time and waste that is transcended, just because people intentionally practice seven simple but profound principles and take the time to determine the questions that will get them where they want to go. We are just beginning breakthroughs that translate the most  acknowledged and finest practices (systems, groups and individuals) into practical behaviors that are greatly needed in our relationships, communities and the world-at-large.  We must keep it going."

~ Frances (Muryah) Baldwin, World Café Community Foundation board member and President of consulting group Designed Wisdom

Help us achieve our immediate goal of raising $25,000.00 by November 4, 2011.

Thank you to all of you who have already joined us in making this Harvest Fund Drive a great success. Please make your valuable contribution to the World Café Community Foundation now.

You'll be helping to catalyze the most critical conversations of our time!

The Way the World Café Spreads

World Cafe Community Foundation Board President Tom Hurley leads off Week Two of our Harvest Fund Drive with this thoughtful post about the power of cross-pollination:

"I'm continually astonished by how the World Cafe spreads...

• As when it moves virally through a community, conversations in one place sparking dialogues in others. A World Café at the National Native American Economic Policy Summit inspired tribal leaders to take the process home and convene their own Cafés on key tribal concerns.


• As when there's a slow, steady uptake, word percolating through a company about a better way to address key business issues. Over the last year, we've hosted a series of World Cafés for Marathon Petroleum as one leader after another has called after hearing about how colleagues have used the process to engage collective intelligence and shape collaborative action in their teams.


• As when one World Café host seeds transformative conversations around the world, in new and sometimes surprising places. After a World Café training we did for Dr. Jessica Thompson and her Climate Change Education Partnership team at Colorado State University, she hosted Cafés in national parks around the United States and then with communities in Mongolia as well!

Help keep this gift moving. For over sixteen years, those stewarding the World Café have ensured that the core ideas and process are freely available, helping people change the conversation in order to change their world.

Now the World Café Community Foundation needs your help. Please make a donation to help ensure that "the gift continues to move" -- especially if you’ve ever used the World Café and found value in it for yourself, your organization, or your community.

I'm giving. I hope you do, too.
~ Tom Hurley

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Our immediate goal is to raise $25,000.00 by November 4, 2011.

Thank you to all of you who have already joined us in making this Harvest Fund Drive a great success. Please make your valuable contribution to the World Café Community Foundation now.

You'll be helping to catalyze the most critical conversations of our time.

Chris Chopyak on Miracles

Chris brings us into day six of our Harvest Fund Drive with this inspiring message:

"Miracles happen EVERY Day!  Our abilities to see these miracles are limited by the distractions we experience everyday.  How do we find, uncover, and illuminate these miracles that we seek?  Through conversations that matter.  Your support of the World Cafe Community Foundation ensures that these important conversations can be framed and supported through principles, hosting and design that is proven, that is of the highest quality and that delivers the "miracle" you are looking for.

Please support the amazing and important work of the Foundation."

~ Chris Chopyak, World Café Community Foundation board member, and co-founder of Alchemy: The Art of Transforming Business

Our immediate goal is to raise $25,000.00 by November 4, 2011.

Thank you to all of you who have already joined us in making this Harvest Fund Drive a great success. Please make your valuable contribution to the World Café Community Foundation now.

Help catalyze the most critical conversations of our time!

World Café Services: An Update from Deborah Goldblatt

With the launch of our new website on June 1^st, World Café Services moved into high gear with a flurry of inquiries from all directions!

During the month of June and July, I enjoyed many conversations with people from a variety of public and private sectors:  education, energy, forestry, sustainability, entrepreneurship, immigration, climate change and health.  

What is so encouraging for me about World Café Services is being on the frontlines of the World Café world hearing about the diverse communities and businesses who are curious about The World Café – not just as a method or process but as a practice and way of being in all our communications - and are wanting or are already implementing an approach of “learning together through inquiry” in life and work today.

World Café Services, through our professional network, is serving community and business clients everywhere– whether that’s by having a half hour conversation with myself and others looking at the possibilities of convening very small or very large groups in a new way or exploring ways to renew or deepen the conversations they’ve been hosting internally within their organizations.

One of my favorite stories from this month’s World Café Services work is helping an organizing team for a conference in Arusha, Tanzania to find some guidance and support to co-create their World Café design.

Join us for a World Cafe at the Enlightened Business Summit Oct 29

World Cafe co-founder Juanita Brown and Online Cafe pioneer Amy Lenzo are teaming up to host an online World Cafe as the culminating session of a week-long online "Enlightened Business Summit" starting October 25. This is a great opportunity to experience an online Cafe geared specifically to a business audience - if you've been curious to experience for yourself just how powerful an online World Cafe can be, please join us. All the Summit sessions, including the World Café, are free, and we'd love to see you there, as we are exploring the use of this medium for hosting World Cafes not only in business, but in NGOs and other organizational and community settings.

Moving from Insight to Action: A World Café Strategic Dialogue will be held Friday, October 29th, from 1-2:30pm PST / 4-5:30pm EST and we'll be staying an extra 1/2 hour to extend the conversation for those who want to explore further.

Click here to register and find out more about the other sessions. The Summit is co-hosted by Chip Conley, an inspiring business leader and one of the most popular speakers at this year's TED conference.

You can participate in as many calls as you like and interact with both the featured leaders and other participants via the fabulous MaestroConference platform, which is phone based and easily connects you to others around the world for exciting exploration and engagement. We've begun to use this platform very successfully for a whole range of World Cafe style dialogues.

By registering you'll also get free access to the full library of recordings from the Summit.

Please share this invitation with your friends and allies - all are welcome to participate.

Warm Wishes,

Juanita Brown and Amy Lenzo

P.S. If you're interested in learning more about World Cafe Online Services or for help in hosting your own conversations, please contact Amy Lenzo.

World Cafe hosted by Coach for Peace

From Coach for Peace and Association Resources, a World Cafe in the Geneva region of Switzerland and France, with some fabulous visuals - photography, video, doodles and drawings. Check out their website section all about the World Cafe!

World Cafe in Korea

David Tamoschus recently sent this pdf with the story of a World Cafe he hosted for a multi-national company in Korea. They called their event a Space Cafe, and David's story includes many details of their unusual design.

Download the pdf here.