Collective Visioning: How Groups Can Work Together for a Just and Sustainable Future (AGENCY/DISTRIBUTED) - Softcover

"To listen to Linda Stout is to be inspired, to gain new hope that a fundamental transformation of our culture is not only possible but may be much nearer than we expect."
--Dr. Ron Miller, President, New Visions Foundation

"This book encourages us that real love is about caring for all people, not just those who look and sound like us."
--Rev. John H. Vaughn, Director, Twenty-First Century Foundation

"Stout has suffered the fates, encountered troubles, and defeated them. In short, her life has been devoted to a world of grace, peace, and beauty."
--Studs Terkel, author and radio broadcaster

"This inspiring and practical guide to community organizing should be read by everyone involved in the struggle for justice, democracy, and equal rights. Linda Stout knows how to bring people together to be agents of change. Read this book and find out how you can do this too."
--John Shattuck, President and Rector, Central European University, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

"Linda Stout's book represents decades of profound experience activating ordinary people to do extraordinary things! She inspires people to take action toward the kinds of future they truly want, to experiment with expanding their sense of empowerment, build a cohort group for support, and get on with changing their world. Stout knows we proceed from 'the dream' outward into activism. She is a true master of inspire, inform, and activate. Collective Visioning is where it all begins."
--Christina Baldwin, coauthor of The Circle Way and author of Storycatcher

"The peace movement is too intellectual. There needs to be a book that speaks to regular people. Linda has taken the research we did and made it real and accessible."
--Elise Boulding, cofounder, International Peace Research Association, and author of Cultures of Peace

"Linda's book is urgently needed now. Many congregations are starting to engage in appreciative inquiry and visioning processes to identify hopes and dreams but lack the tools that can translate these into concrete action."
--Susan Leslie, Director, Office for Congregational Advocacy and Witness, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

"Now more than ever our world needs to make use of Linda's heartfelt and innovative approaches to engage people of all backgrounds--including those whose voices are not often heard--in creating futures that work for all. Buy this accessible, straightforward guide today and make a difference tomorrow."
--Amanda Trosten-Bloom, Managing Director, Corporation for Positive Change, and coauthor of The Power of Appreciative Inquiry

"Linda's soul is well endowed with a generous, optimistic, and creative sense of the capacity for enlightenment and change for each fellow mortal, no matter what social class or ethnicity each represents. She offers opportunities for our democratic process to work, indeed, flourish, giving us hope in a climate so laden with negativity. Her book is most timely when we hunger for new approaches to solving so many problems eroding our communities."
--Loring Conant, Jr., MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

In far too many organizational meetings, equal speaking opportunity seldom results in equal say. Factors such as race, class, and personal history too often inhibit open dialogue within and among groups, which can lead to a sense of disenfranchisement within the organization, and subsequently, disillusionment with the movement.

Collective Visioning is the first visioning method to address these hurdles in the organizing process and to fully enable members to share their opinions without hesitation. Linda Stout uses her background and her own personal experience of marginalization within the organizing community to show how trainers can be more mindful of the diversity of their members as they strive toward a common goal.

The book features a clear, actionable, step-by-step process to set up and create a welcoming space for activist leaders to collaborate for positive change. Stout details ways in which trainers should reach out to different groups, listen to and understand needs and concerns of the group, create a welcoming space for all voices, foster agreements, ensure the visibility of all members.