Karuna Center is based in Western Massachusetts, but works nationally and internationally. Our mission is to empower communities divided by conflict to develop mutual understanding and to create sustainable peace. Our work focuses on areas impacted by violent conflict and dangerous polarization in the U.S. and worldwide. Since the organization began in 1994, we have worked with diverse groups in more than 30 countries, adapting our methods to each local context while supporting the leadership of people who are impacted by conflict. This work has involved engaging a range of stakeholders, from grassroots communities and religious leaders to rebel forces and members of parliament. Often, new organizations and networks arise out of our projects and continue to lead local peacebuilding efforts—both independently, and in partnership with Karuna.

We develop practical, community-driven strategies for preventing violence, improving social cohesion, and broadening participation in civic life. Our work in the U.S. context uses dialogue and capacity-building to uncover common ground across deep social and political divides, whether at the local or national level. In recent years, we have worked with schools in Western Massachusetts to address the root causes of violence, including training students to help strengthen the sense of community and belonging at their school. Our Community Response Hub model is inspired by and adapts our successful work in Nigeria, through which we recently developed the Peace By Us model with our local partners (see PeaceByUs.org).

We aim to raise $35,000 through the Civic Exchange, which we will combine with other funding to launch this initiative. As a pilot initiative, we expect it will benefit the local community but also allow us to develop a structure and training package that will be replicable at other sites. Funds raised through the Civic Exchange will support a team of skilled trainers to adapt and test a training and mentoring curriculum with participants in the pilot Hub. As part of the co-design process, funds will also support key staff at the host organization to coordinate the Hub. Training includes how to run the Community Response Hub to identify challenges and and facilitate proactive responses; how to lead dialogue and bridging processes to support collaboration amongst diverse stakeholders; and how to build support in the community for  action on shared challenges.

We plan to design a monitoring, evaluation, and learning process specific to this initiative, using our extensive experience evaluating peacebuilding interventions in complex contexts. We will incorporate lessons learned into the toolkit and framework produced by this pilot.

We also hope there will be initial problem-solving successes at the local level, including through spin-off initiatives to address issues defined by the community. This could be (for example) a peer counseling initiative to provide psychological first aid following an incident of violence, a mutual aid network supporting community members, a series of community dialogues to address tensions at city council meetings, or collective strategizing on how to repurpose vacant buildings for community benefit. Rather than champion a single issue, the Community Response Hub will seek to incubate and support new ideas, strategies, and networks for response within the community.

Our pilot phase is planned for Springfield, Massachusetts. We are seeking funding for that local pilot as well as to develop a replicable model out of that pilot that we will propagate regionally and then nationally. Our model of co-development with a local anchor organization allows them to take control of the hub going forward. They may want to continue on the Civic Exchange as a local hub at that point. 

Our vision for scaling this model nationally begins by engaging a cluster of new sites in developing their own Community Response Hubs, based on the framework developed and refined through this pilot, and with ongoing support from our training team. We would link Community Response Hubs with each other—including the pilot hub—for shared learning, peer mentoring, and co-strategizing through workshops and ongoing forums. Once a cluster of Community Response Hub sites has been established, we envision launching a national network that provides training and ongoing support for any community-based organization seeking to become the anchor of a Community Response Hub.

Our Community Response Hub initiative uses proven approaches from the peacebuilding field to help reinvigorate American civic life. By using a framework that integrates dialogue with problem-solving and shared action, we can restore a sense of agency and voice—for people from all walks of life—in the decisions and institutions that determine the future of communities. Our initiative will not only benefit the local pilot community, but also produce a toolkit and framework that will then serve as a model for strengthening civic spaces across the country.

Our Community Response Hub initiative creates ongoing processes through which people from all walks of life come together with representatives from a wide range of institutions to improve access to information and repair trust. The process is designed to bring people together across differences and organizational silos—e.g. service providers and recipients, educators and local business owners, residents and local officials—to work together in common purpose and freely exchange information and ideas. Through dialogue and shared action, we can rebuild trust across these divides. Our approach also incorporates early warning-early response strategies for flagging and responding to misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information that could cause harm or worsen divides within the community.