Since 1998, Imagine Chicago has served as a facilitator for global conferences, business meetings, community events and strategic visioning processes, often where people want to enter into a “conversation with the future” of their community or organization or to do strategic team or community building. Imagine Chicago has built a reputation of facilitating reliably constructive and inspiring events which include wide ranges of participants and which move from idea to action in a way which is uncommonly diverse and creative. The brief of facilitation work varies but generally includes designing agendas in advance of the event to achieve desired outcomes, as well as presiding at the event in a way which creates hospitable and productive space, engages participants, builds community, encourages reflection through good questions, keeps the whole group focused and energized, deals with challenges productively, documents discussion and results and aligns ideas and actions.

Imagine Chicago has facilitated events for a wide range of clients in business, government, education, health, youth development and the non-profit sector including British Airways, Coastal Management Group, Brandtrust, Harris Bank, DTE, Central Arizona (Water) Project, ABN-AMRO, Lawson Software, the British Council, EPA, Park Co Community Foundation, municipal governments in Bogota (Colombia), Calgary (Canada), Durban, Plettenberg Bay and Cape Town (South Africa), Perth (Australia), Singapore, Vejle (Denmark) , St Helens (UK), the Scottish Civic Forum, Safer WA (Australia), the Council of Aboriginal Elders, the Episcopal Church, the Scottish Qualification Authority, South African Women in Dialogue (SAWID), the Housing Authority of New South Wales, the Keiskamma Trust (SA), the United Way, Pierce County WA, Goree Institute (Senegal), Ministry of Social Development and Communities Southland (NZ), Kansas City Arts Council, Americans for the Arts, the Loyola School of Nursing, the Project for Public Spaces, the YMCA, the WK Kellogg Foundation, many American universities and Imagine project start-ups and community forums on six continents. Global conference facilitation has included Rethinking Development: Pathways to Participation, the PLUS network global conferences in Vancouver and Durban, the Shambhala Institute, UNICEF’s Child Friendly Cities, the Search Institute’s Healthy Communities Healthy Youth conference, and YPO’s Beijing Olympic Family Experience.

To contact us to facilitate your event, please call Imagine Chicago’s office at 773-275-2520 or send an email.

To read more about how Imagine Chicago does facilitation, read our Foundations for Facilitation which follows.

What do we keep in mind as we design and implement an Imagine event? How do we support diversity and social inclusion? What helps build community and encourages people to translate their aspirations into actions?

What follows are some of the facilitation practices and tools which Imagine Chicago uses to encourage each participant to bring his/her self fully to the experience:

Value Local Context

• Listen and incorporate local language, cultural traditions, resources, practices, current questions.

• Understand what processes are already in motion for which this can serve as a next step. Refer to and build upon these.

Expand Participation

• Demonstrate inclusion, in thoughts, words and deeds, to overcome the mindset and practice of division (by race, religion, age, education, etc.).

• Expand ‘who’ is included and mix them up in unlikely combinations.

• Encourage the participation and leadership of multiple generations, so a vision of the future is present and highly visible.

Create Space for Belonging and Hope

• Shape the physical space to nurture participation. Notice the size, conditions, flexibility and range of space, and orient it in ways that cultivate connections and conversations.

• Trust life, trust people. Be fully present.

• Give space to spirituality and meaning making as a resource for hope and transformation.

• Offer a confident, embodied vision of human (and life) possibilities.

• Assume people want integrity-- to align their values and actions.

• Be honest, natural, vulnerable. Allow room for risk-taking and mistake making, for oneself and others.

• Actively nurture a safe and open climate.

• Have good food and time to enjoy it.

Empower Participation

• Begin with and draw from participants’ questions and experiences. Make clear that everyone’s participation is valued, but not prescribed.

• Ask interesting, constructive questions and listen to responses with respect, delight, interest and commitment. Positively mirror back contributions (by smiling, repeating, recording, appreciating, summarizing).

• Structure the rhythm of interaction to create safety before gradually stretching comfort zones. Move from individual reflection to pairs to small groups to large groups; allow time for large group activities to be personally appropriated. Give options with respect to assignments.

• Integrate artistic expression, to strengthen peoples’ confidence and self understanding

as creators. Create processes that are friendly to a range of learning modes and styles. Emphasize fun!

• Minimize the likelihood of dependency or control by using lateral rather than hierarchical structures, which validate the skills, knowledge and value of each individual and organization.

• Provide time to reflect on and share learning. Use closing circles to highlight and summarize what people have learned and gain support for actions for moving forward.

Re-enchant the Culture of Citizenship

• Use language in which people are subjects and co-creators of the future (not objects in a depersonalized politics). Favor a culture of community based on commitment over a culture of professionalism and expertise.

• Elevate the language of hope and possibility, to overcome a discourse of cynicism and judgment.

• Assume problem statements are frustrated dreams. Reframe them into possibility statements.

Build Community Identity and Accountability

• Invite storytelling. Exalt the lived experience of community members. Create ways for them to explore and value each other’s experiences.

• Encourage group work and group learning, the sharing of gifts, hopes and commitments.

• Jointly brainstorm possible action steps and ways to support and sustain the network that emerges.

• Leave responsibility for action to the participants gathered. Use processes to distill what has most energy and commitment and ask for leadership around these priorities.

• Get feedback on what worked, had value, lessons learned and ways it will be applied. Where practical, provide organizers that will provide a simple framework for reflection and comment.

• Share lessons learned with whoever might benefit from your experience.

~by Bliss W. Browne, Imagine Chicago 2009