Friends Place offers opportunities for experiential education and civic engagement programs with a focus on how people-power creates justice, peace, a healthy planet, and a stronger democracy.
About Our Programming
Friends Place offers civic education and engagement programs with several options for workshops and guided discussions that can be adapted to the ages and learning objectives of your group. We have worked with students of all ages, recent college graduates, Boy and Girl Scouts troops, Quaker meetings and other faith congregations, faith-based youth groups, intergenerational groups, advocacy organizations, mutual aid organizers, service-learning and alternative break experience leaders, and more. We also are constantly developing new ideas for workshops based on suggestions from groups and are happy to speak with your group leaders to develop a customized workshop for your group. We encourage teachers, chaperones, parents, or organization staff to participate in our programming alongside their students and participants.
While we offer these workshops free of charge to build the skillset of our network, Friends Place is able to do so because of the generosity of our community. We suggest a $200 donation, but we welcome donations of any size and appreciate groups that have the means to offer an increased donation amount to help support groups that cannot donate at all.
Civic Engagement Programs
Friends Place’s civic education and engagement programs are grounded in Quaker values and practice. Our programming is immersive, actionable, and always tied to effecting systemic change. Workshops typically run from 1-2 hours.
Core Offerings
- Lobby Training: Participants will learn about FCNL’s work as a Quaker lobbying organization and learn how to lobby representatives on an issue they care about through utilizing our theory of change and the power of storytelling. We would role-play and debrief a lobby visit using FCNL’s lobby visit roadmap.
- Letter Writing for Change: Participants will learn about an FCNL legislative priority and receive guidance on how to structure an effective ask in the form of a handwritten letter or email action. Participants will write their letters and send them to at least one member of Congress.
- F/friends in Unlikely Places: Engaging with Those Who Disagree: Participants practice strategic dialogue, listening, and speaking skills, and explore how we might draw on Quaker tradition and spiritual grounding for the work of building a more just and peaceful democracy by engaging with those who might disagree with us.
- Budgets as Moral Documents: Participants will learn about the federal budgeting process through a hands-on activity in which they will design their ideal government budget and discuss advocacy strategies to address people’s needs.
- Writing Letters to The Editor: Participants will learn how to write and publish letters to the editor in local media to advance our legislative asks. We will go over tips and best practices, read recently examples, and make time to start writing as a group.
Supplemental Offerings
- Art and Advocacy: Participants will study what elements create effective visual displays to call for social justice. They will review samples of impactful visual messaging used at protests and advocacy actions. Participants will then have time to create and share a piece of visual art to amplify a message of their choosing.
- Service, Justice, and Organizing: Participants will analyze the differences between responding to social problems with a focus on service projects and advocacy campaigns. Then, we will spend time planning organizing strategies that focus on grassroots advocacy.
- Digital Storytelling: Social Media for Narrative Change: Participants will examine how political narratives can be challenged or shifted through digital storytelling for advocacy. They will practice mock interviews, photography skills, and create a caption for their images for an imagined social media post.
Ready to Get Started?
Contact us to start planning programming for your group. We collaborate with group leaders to customize an experience that matches the learning objectives for your organization, congregation, school, or youth group.
Our Values
Anti-racism, Anti-bias, Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
To remedy past wrongs and build a just and equitable future, FCNL and Friends Place commit to treating anti-racism, anti-bias, justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion (AJEDI) as central pillars of our work. Our AJEDI principles are core to both the content of our programming and the ways in which we implement it. We invite groups to approach our programming with an open, curious mind, to treat fellow participants and staff with respect, to help each other learn and grow through challenge or discomfort. We expect all staff, guests, vendors, and community partners to fulfill our community agreements while they are engaged with us both inside and outside of the building to ensure that we are practicing building the beloved community we seek.
Accessibility
All Friends Place workshops are developed with principles of universal design for learning and trauma-informed practices in mind. We strive to include a mix of small and large group discussions, movement and sensory-based activities, and allow multiple options for students to engage and participate. Please speak with our staff if members of your group require specific accommodation so that we can ensure your accessibility needs are met. We are happy to collaborate and co-facilitate with any support staff of your school or organization as needed.