Gatherings

Aug 11, 20257 min read

Gatherings

Structured yet emergent spaces for cross-sector relationship building and co-creation

Context

Organizations attempting to bridge diverse communities face significant challenges in creating productive dialogue. Traditional approaches—conferences with predetermined agendas, workshops with one-way information flow, or unstructured networking events—often fail to generate genuine understanding or collaborative relationships across knowledge and cultural divides.

This pattern applies when:

  • Technical and non-technical communities need to collaborate but lack shared language or understanding
  • Multiple stakeholder groups bring vastly different knowledge bases and communication styles
  • Organizations seek to move beyond surface-level engagement to deeper collaborative relationships
  • There’s a need to balance structure with emergence in multi-stakeholder processes
  • Traditional meeting formats reinforce existing divisions rather than building bridges

The pattern is particularly relevant for:

  • Web3 organizations engaging with traditional communities
  • Cross-sector partnerships requiring mutual understanding
  • Innovation initiatives that span technical and social domains
  • Community organizations exploring technological transformation
  • Networks attempting to align diverse stakeholders around shared purpose

Challenges

Knowledge and Communication Gaps: Different communities operate with distinct vocabularies, conceptual frameworks, and communication norms. Technical discussions using specialized jargon exclude non-technical participants, while community-focused conversations may not engage those seeking technological innovation. Traditional translation approaches often oversimplify complex concepts or create further confusion.

The Inclusion Paradox: Attempts to make sessions maximally inclusive for all participants can accidentally exclude those seeking specialized engagement. When every discussion must be accessible to everyone, deeper technical exploration becomes impossible, and specialized community knowledge gets diluted. This creates frustration for participants who came for specific types of engagement.

Engagement Depth vs. Breadth: Organizations struggle to balance broad participation with meaningful depth of engagement. Large-scale events enable many connections but often remain superficial. Smaller gatherings allow deeper work but limit network effects. Finding the right scale and structure for productive cross-sector work challenges traditional event design.

Power Dynamics and Cultural Differences: Participants from different sectors bring varying levels of institutional power, resource access, and cultural expectations. These differences can create invisible barriers to authentic participation, with some voices dominating while others remain unheard despite facilitators’ best intentions.

Sustaining Momentum: Single events rarely create lasting change. However, maintaining engagement across multiple gatherings requires significant resources and participant commitment. Organizations struggle to design gathering sequences that build momentum while respecting participants’ time and maintaining accessibility.

Solution Framework

Gatherings create structured containers for emergence—spaces designed to encourage authentic relationship building and co-creation while maintaining enough structure to ensure productivity. Unlike traditional conferences or workshops, Gatherings allow participants to shape content based on their interests and expertise while facilitating meaningful connections across difference.

Core Design Principles

Selective Participation Over Universal Attendance: Rather than expecting all participants to attend all sessions, Gatherings encourage self-selection based on relevance and interest. This creates smaller, more engaged groups where deeper work becomes possible. Participants choose their level and type of engagement rather than having it prescribed.

Emergent Content Within Structured Process: While the overall process and timing are structured, specific content emerges from participant interests and expertise. Facilitators create containers for exploration rather than filling them with predetermined content. This respects the knowledge participants bring while ensuring productive outcomes.

Connection Points and Specialized Spaces: Gatherings maintain bridging functions through shared opening and closing sessions where all participants connect around common purpose. Between these touchpoints, specialized discussions allow communities to go deep in their areas of interest without losing connection to the whole.

Productive Tension as Generative Force: Rather than avoiding the tension between different perspectives, Gatherings harness this tension as a source of new insight. Skilled facilitation helps participants sit with discomfort and confusion long enough for genuine understanding to emerge.

Implementation Structure

Preparatory Phase: Before formal Gatherings begin, preparatory meetings establish relationships, surface stakeholder needs, and test engagement approaches. This phase builds the trust necessary for productive tension in later sessions.

Gathering Sequence: Rather than standalone events, Gatherings work best as a series that builds understanding over time. Each gathering can focus on different aspects while maintaining continuity through consistent participants and evolving relationships.

Documentation and Synthesis: Rich documentation captures not just outcomes but the evolution of understanding. Poetic harvests, visual documentation, and participant reflections create multiple ways to understand what emerges. This documentation becomes a resource for future gatherings and broader community learning.

Participant Support: Meaningful engagement requires valuing participants’ time and expertise. This includes compensation for participation, accessibility support, and recognition of the knowledge participants contribute.

Implementation Considerations

Facilitator Requirements

Successful Gatherings require facilitators who can:

  • Navigate between technical and non-technical languages
  • Hold space for productive tension without forcing resolution
  • Recognize and interrupt harmful power dynamics
  • Support emergence while maintaining sufficient structure
  • Document insights in ways accessible to diverse audiences

Finding facilitators with this combination of skills often requires drawing from multiple domains—those with technical knowledge, community organizing experience, and process facilitation expertise.

Technical Infrastructure

Resist the temptation to showcase cutting-edge technology. Successful Gatherings prioritize accessibility through:

  • Familiar video conferencing platforms
  • Simple collaborative documents
  • Standard communication tools
  • Optional exposure to new technologies

The goal is reducing barriers to participation rather than demonstrating technical sophistication.

Resource Requirements

  • Time: Allow 2-3 months for preparatory phase and 4-6 months for gathering sequence
  • Funding: Budget for participant compensation, facilitation, documentation, and accessibility support
  • Human Resources: Lead facilitators, documentation support, logistics coordination
  • Relationships: Existing trust networks to draw initial participants from

Common Adaptation Points

Scale Considerations: Groups larger than 20-25 may need sub-group structures. Smaller than 8-10 may lack sufficient diversity of perspective. Adjust structure based on participant numbers while maintaining quality of engagement.

Virtual vs. In-Person: While in-person gatherings enable richer relationship building, virtual formats increase accessibility. Hybrid approaches can work but require careful design to avoid creating two-tier participation.

Sector-Specific Adaptations: Academic communities may need more time for theoretical exploration. Business participants might prefer outcome-focused structures. Grassroots organizations often value relationship-building over task completion. Adapt pacing and structure while maintaining core principles.

Examples & Case Studies

All In For Sport: Bridging Web3 and Grassroots Sports

All In For Sport conducted six Gatherings from November 2024 to February 2025, connecting 111 participants from Web3 technology and grassroots sports communities. Building on preparatory Community Experience meetings (August-October 2024), these sessions aimed to bridge significant knowledge and cultural gaps.

Key Implementation Details:

  • Selective attendance produced higher engagement than mandatory participation
  • Technical accessibility remained a persistent challenge despite simplified tools
  • Evolved from trying to serve all audiences simultaneously to allowing specialized discussions
  • Maintained connection through joint opening/closing sessions

Critical Learning - The Inclusion Paradox: “In trying to be maximally inclusive, we sometimes became accidentally exclusive to those seeking more specialized discussions.” This finding fundamentally challenged assumptions about universal accessibility in bridge-building work.

Outcomes: Participants distinguished these Gatherings from typical Web3 conferences or nonprofit workshops, reporting that productive tension between perspectives generated genuinely new thinking. Both technical participants and grassroots organizations moved from skepticism to identifying specific collaboration opportunities.

References

  • Participatory Governance: Gatherings incorporate participatory design principles but focus specifically on cross-sector bridge-building rather than design outcomes
  • Local Nodes: Gatherings often serve as activation mechanisms for Local Nodes, bringing together stakeholders who will sustain ongoing collaboration

Theoretical Foundations

  • Contact theory and intergroup dialogue practices
  • Emergent facilitation and complexity-aware process design
  • Critical pedagogy and popular education approaches
  • Design justice principles for inclusive participation

Implementation Resources

  • Art of Hosting practices for participatory leadership
  • Technology of participation (ToP) methods
  • Liberating Structures for engaging everyone
  • Data for Black Lives’ abolitionist tech practices

Contrasting Approaches

  • Traditional Conferences: Predetermined content, speaker-audience hierarchy, networking as add-on
  • Unconferences: Fully emergent but may lack structure for cross-sector bridging
  • Focus Groups: Extract knowledge rather than building relationships
  • Design Sprints: Outcome-focused, may not allow time for relationship building

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