The Center for Grounded Action | Building strong community organizations

“With CGA and GROW, you are helping organizers and organizations to rediscover the heartbeat, or forgotten core in the heart of organizing, which is deep care for each other and love for our communities.”
Francis Calpotura

A group of people stand in a circle, joining hands and standing on one foot as part of a training activity

Various handwritten notes and images calling for peace and love

A group of people sit together on the floor in a circle during a discussion activity

People are looking over a table with cultural memorabilia on it. The people appear emotional

A training facilitator addresses a room full of learners during a workshop event in a classroom

Join Us. Stay Connected.

Welcome to the Center for Grounded Action

When communities are in crisis, we step forward. When polarization and reactivity are driving us apart, and geo-political conflicts are dividing us, we step forward. When internal organizational conflicts are on the rise, we step forward. We give people a way to come together, to move forward together with positive action. We bring the human connection element to global tensions. We partner with you. We provide essential skill building so that you and your group can be more effective, resilient, relationally intelligent, and effective in meeting challenge. We support organizers, leaders, every day people, and organizations:

We empower you and your team with new skills in communication and conflict resolution
We help your group get unstuck
We move communities from conflict to connection and understanding
We bring people together across differences, to move forward together
We see new possibilities, even when things are tense, and create a new way of coming together.
Right NOW, we are offering free Resilience trainings for federal workers who have lost their jobs, and nonprofit staff impacted by the cuts to programs - offered at no cost. Check the Training page, and here's our next one. To REGISTER: Free Resilience Workshop for Federal Workers - Newton, MA, Veteran's Day, Nov. 11, 2025

What We Do

Grounded Resilience Training

We empower you and your team to have greater impact. The Grounded Resilience Training teaches easy to implement skills in relational intelligence and resilience, so that you can have the greatest impact. Right now, we are offering free Resilience workshops for staff impacted by the cuts to programs.

Learn more

Community Events that Unite

We create events that unite people. In times of local, national, and global crises, we create a big tent, give people a way to connect, take action, and advance progress.

We advise groups on planning their own powerful events that unite.

Learn more

Dialogues Across Division

When an issue is too hot to touch, we partner with you to facilitate healing. We help communities overcome the pain that comes from division and polarization, with courageous, from the heart, dialogue. We bring connection, relief, and healing.

Learn more

Strengthening Organizations

We help your group get unstuck. When tensions or conflicts are pulling you away from your work’s purpose, our blend of organizing skills with attunement to people and systems help your organization get back on track and moving forward together.

Learn more

What is Grounded Action?

Learn more

Resources

The UN identified worldwide Sustainable Development Goals, but then realized that people and organizations first need inner development in order to be able to create sustainable development, hence the emergence of Inner Development Goals. We are collaborating with the IDG Boston group as it explores this new thinking. https://innerdevelopmentgoals.org/. Listen to a Podcast interview with CGA founder Jen Wofford on the IDG Revolution podcast with Max Klau: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/idgrevolution/episodes/Episode-11-Jen-Wofford-on-Outer-and-Inner-Change-e30lg41
We all have different parts inside of us. If you've ever seen the Pixar film "Inside Out" you've seen how different parts inside of us can take over at times. Internal Family Systems is a model that works with the different parts we have inside and with our inherent Self leadership. IFS - or inner parts work - is a profound and yet easy to access model which we draw on in to help people work with reactive and defensive parts, and other parts that might be ready for help, and integrate our parts with Self leadership. We are also honored to partner with the IFS Foundation and its Director Toufic Hakim in our shared pursuit of bringing healing to the world. The Foundation for Self Leadership has highlighted CGA and our work in their newsletter Parts and Self, and has shared a podcast dialogue with Toufic and Jen. https://www.foundationifs.org/. Dick Schwartz, the founder of IFS, has said he is ultra supportive of the work we are doing to take IFS beyond therapy and into community and public spaces. https://ifs-institute.com/.
When a topic feels too hot to touch, we can help. We offer an effective model of Dialogues Across Divisions. If you'll sign up to get connected, we'll gladly share the models and offer guidance and advice. We also are available to support your community or group with a facilitated Dialogue. What makes it effective? Before beginning any dialogue, the key is to create a clear, strong structure which creates a container for strong feelings and strong personalities. For example, since October 2023, we have been grateful to help communities reconnect across the painful divisions around the Middle East war. When the structure and container is clear, and people are given new skills for how to manage their own inner reactive feelings (which may likely happen), and new skills for how to respond with validation or empathy even when they disagree, they are then ready to speak. We have given prompts for each round of dialogue that help to keep people focused on their feelings, needs, concerns, and the impact on their lives, rather than on their political positioning. When we can hear another person’s concerns, feelings, worries, story, and needs, we can relate to someone who holds different views far more easily with empathy.
Nonviolent Communication Method (NVC) is a remarkable, powerful, very simple and profound method, developed by Marshall Rosenberg. Simply, NVC helps us communicate with each other without labeling, judging, or evaluating, and quickly learn how to address and express our needs and feelings, and understand other people's needs and feelings at the root of connection. Simply put, when our basic human needs are met, we have one set of feelings (happy, content, peaceful, etc), and when our basic human needs are not met in a situation, we have a different set of feelings (worried, frustrated, anxious, sad, mad, etc). We are using this method in our Grounded Resilience training, and find that people easily resonate with it and can understand themselves and others better immediately. Marshall's book is called Nonviolent Communication.
Imago mirroring method is a dialogue method of listening closely and saying back what you heard. It is useful for helping diffuse a conflict, clear up a misunderstanding, and repair between people. It is a therapy method developed by Harville Hendricks and Helen Lakelly Hunt, and taught to therapists primarily for couples counseling. We began teaching organizers and staff within mission-driven organizations this simple model of dialogue to help them listen, hear, and understand each other across conflicts, and it worked. When someone else is speaking, most of us are thinking of what we want to say next, we're thinking of a response or a retort or our own perspective. Actually mirroring someone else, where we slow down to really get their words and their experience, is surprisingly hard work. We used it successfully to help a director hear the concerns of his staff, and then helped the staff hear the concerns of the director. It slows a discussion down to be able to really hear each other and make sense of another's perspective and how they make sense. It's a simple model, but profound. It is one of the four method we teach in Grounded Resilience training.
We are people with bodies, we experience life through our bodies and sensations. We also experience and hold stress in our bodies. There are simple and powerful somatic practices to release tension and complete the stress response cycle. Much has been written about how the body holds trauma and stress. We suggest Peter Levine's work of Somatic Experiencing and his book Waking the Tiger. We offer Somatic Practices, in which we are trained, from Yoga, to Qi Gong, to Somatic Imagery and experiencing methods in our Grounded Resilience Training. Our Somatics trainers draw on a range of Somatics practices like Strozzi, Yoga and Somatic Experiencing. For more on SE: https://www.somaticexperiencing.com.

When the ground shifts, people need more than hope -- they need tools, and they need them fast. We teach practical, actionable skills to bring people Resilience

Right now we are providing Free Resilience workshops for Federal workers who've lost jobs and NGO nonpofit staff impacted by the cuts to programs. Good people doing good work are in crisis. The Center for Grounded Action responds rapidly, equipping communities, organizations, and people with Grounded Resilience:

practical, relational skills to stay steady, connected, and ready to act in times of conflict, crisis, or change.

From facilitating dialogue in divided communities to supporting groups reeling from upheaval, we help people meet challenge with courage, navigate uncertainty, and move forward together toward shared goals. Whether you’re a donor or a partner, CGA ensures people can stand strong — and stand together — when it matters most.

We are offering FREE RESILIENCE WORKSHOPS for FEDERAL WORKERS. See below and Training page.

The Center for Grounded Action exists to help create a world guided by the values of connection, unity, compassion, progress, and love.

Join Us!