Last week, I found myself in a room with 350 people gathered for the Innovia Community Leadership Summit.

That sentence sounds straightforward enough. It could be the start of a recap, a list of sessions, a summary of “key takeaways.” But what stays with me isn’t what was said from the stage. It’s what happened in the spaces in between.

It was the way people leaned in.

You could feel it in the room—this quiet, collective recognition that the work of building community has become both more urgent and more complicated. We are living in a time where division is easy, even rewarded. Where misunderstanding travels faster than truth. And yet, here were 350 people choosing something harder. Choosing to show up. To listen. To ask better questions.

Not perfectly. But intentionally.

There’s something powerful about being in a room where people are not pretending to have all the answers. Where phrases like “we’re still figuring this out” and “we got it wrong” aren’t signs of weakness, but markers of honesty. Again and again, I heard people speak not from a place of certainty, but from a place of curiosity. And that feels like a different kind of leadership than we often see.

A quieter kind.

In conversations over coffee, in passing moments between sessions, people shared stories of their communities—the challenges, the small wins, the ongoing work of trying to bring people together who don’t always see the world the same way. There was no single blueprint being handed out. No universal “best practice” that could be neatly applied everywhere.

Instead, there were threads.

A belief that relationships still matter.
A recognition that listening is not passive—it’s an active act of courage.
An understanding that community is not something we declare, but something we build, moment by moment, conversation by conversation. Slowly. And steadily.

And maybe most importantly, a shared willingness to stay in it. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when it’s slow.

I kept thinking about how rare it is to gather in a space like that—to be surrounded by people who, in their own ways, are all asking the same question: How do we do this better? Not just more efficiently. Not just more visibly. But more humanly.

In my own work, I often talk about storytelling as a way of saying, I see you. I hear you. You matter. What I witnessed at the summit felt like a living, breathing version of that idea. Not polished. Not performative. Just people, doing their best to see one another more clearly.

The summit ended, as all gatherings do. People returned home to their communities, their organizations, their daily work. The noise of the world didn’t quiet down. The divisions didn’t suddenly resolve.

But something subtle shifted.

Or maybe it was simply reinforced: that this work—of building connection, of choosing empathy, of staying curious about one another—is still happening. Quietly, persistently, in rooms like that one and far beyond it.

And that feels worth holding onto.

More than 100 people shared their response to this question: “In times that can feel especially divided, what’s something you have done — or could do — to help build community?

And here’s what they said: