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Citizen Connect (ARCHIVED VERSION) was a nonpartisan doorway to civic action. This site preserves content from over 600 organizations – right, left, and center – previously working to strengthen our democracy. All materials are provided for archival and informational purposes only and are no longer actively updated.

Crossing Party Lines

Mission:

  • Engage Across Differences

Crossing Party Lines creates open dialogue through warm and engaging conversations with Americans who see the world differently, to increase tolerance, build community, and encourage civic cooperation.

Crossing Party Lines hosts weekly moderated conversations that give each person a chance to share their unique perspectives. The goal is to help us understand how and why we disagree. We don’t try to change minds, win debates, prove a point, or reach consensus. We listen to understand, warmly attending to the other person as they speak, consciously setting aside the tendency to defend.
Being in “discovery mode” opens our minds and encourages curiosity, helping us appreciate the different ways we each see the world. It fosters connection among people who don’t ordinarily meet, much less agree. We engage with tolerance to increase individual and group exposure to different views — leveraging our differences as strengths — in your city, in your neighborhood, and in virtual spaces.
We are an open door offering a forum available to the general public and free to all.

Contact

Lisa Swallow
[email protected]
(929) 266-6078

Headquarters

Portland, OR 97219, USA

Organization Website

Donations

Events

Workshop: Talking Politics

January 25 @ 10:00 am – 12:30 pm PST

Civil, respectful discourse. Talking. Listening. In CPL 101 we'll share the secrets of Talkin…

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Schools, Standards, and Stakeholders: Who Decides?

January 26 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm PST

Schools, Standards, and Stakeholders: Who Decides?School curriculum decisions shape what stud…

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On-Demand

Political Discussions Guide

How to have civil, respectful conversations with just about anyone.

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The Conversation: What’s Your Political Color?

“The Conversation is the Crossing Party Lines (CPL) podcast. Crossing Party Lines is a non-profit that facilitates weekly discussions where people have the opportunity to share their thoughts and feelings about politics, society and everything in between, and to listen to what others think/feel so that we can really understand why Americans believe what we…

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The Root of The Political Divide

The current oppositional style of political conversation is due to how humans were designed, not to a problem with the person we’re talking with. This blog post explains.

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