These four webinars from the Constructive Dialogue Institute give college leaders, educators, and student organizers practical tools for building campus cultures where people can talk across differences. Learn from real examples at leading universities.

What This Series Offers

• Research-backed strategies from leading universities

• Practical tools you can use right away

• Real examples from campus dialogue programs

• Expert guidance from university leaders

• Free recordings you can watch anytime

One Small Step

Let's Talk For A Change

Have a real conversation with someone who sees the world differently than you do. No debates. No arguing. Just two people getting to know each other as human beings.

A StoryCorps initiative bringing together people with different political views for 50-minute conversations that remind us of our shared humanity.

"More than ever, people and organizations need space to come together to discuss, imagine, and chart a path to a more just world. We hope the center helps to fulfill this need."

— Ford Foundation

Welcome to Compassion Week 2025 - Celebrating 10 years!

This year marks a special milestone—our 10th anniversary of coming together for a full week of inspiration, knowledge-sharing, dialogue, collaborations, and hands-on activities. What began as a simple idea has grown into a vibrant tradition, connecting hearts across Greater Houston by showcasing and sharing tangible examples of Houston’s compassionate culture through various partner and network offerings.

Compassion Week 2025 NOVEMBER 10-16

Save the date for Compassion Week 2025 and it’s core message of SMALL ACTS. BIG CHANGE, highlighting the aspiration that each of us can be a force for good. Our small actions rooted in care and love ripple outward to transform the world, starting right where and how we are. Our theme invites us to explore how everyday gestures—rooted in care, courage, and connection—can spark powerful transformation, rippling outward to create lasting change. And it begins with us, right here, right now.

Whether through learning, practice, service, storytelling, or other types of shared moments, Compassion Week 2025 celebrates the tools we each carry to build a more compassionate world, one act at a time.

PURPOSE OF WORLD KINDNESS DAY

Compassion Week coincides regularly with the week in which World Kindness Day falls, a global day, introduced in 1998 by the World Kindness Movement, that promotes the importance of being kind to each other, to yourself, and to the world.

The purpose of this day, celebrated on November 13 of each year, is to help everyone understand that compassion for others is what binds us all together.

"This experience is exhilarating. It's like going on a rollercoaster that looks scary, but after you go through the drops and loops, you're like 'I want to do that again!' The Civic Gym is like that but without the long lines."

— Civic Gym Student Participant

Why Church Safety Matters

Your church should be a safe place. Everyone should feel welcome and protected. But many churches don't know where to start with safety planning.

What churches deal with:

• More than 75% of churches don't have a safety team

• Many churches don't know what rules they need to follow

• Church leaders want to help but don't know what to do first

• Communities need safe places to gather and worship

This event will help you learn simple ways to make your church safer for everyone.

peakers: Míriam Juan-Torres González (Head of Research, Democracy & Belonging Forum) and Stefánia Kapronczay (Hungarian human rights defender; 20 years field experience, 12 years civil society leadership)

How do authoritarian movements weaponize gendered anxieties to divide society and justify extreme measures? This session shares a six-strategy framework from the (En)Gendering Authoritarianism report (Othering & Belonging Institute + Over Zero), with examples from Europe and North America and a special focus on Hungary.

A 30-minute audience Q&A will follow the presentation.

Living Learning Libraries curates high-quality “living books” and lends them to families and educators. The project began in 2016 and operates multiple pickup locations in Palm Beach County, with an emphasis on practical borrowing, volunteer power, and sharing know-how for starting similar libraries.