Community Café

Start by welcoming everyone and introducing the space as one of mutual respect and learning. Review a shared set of community agreements—like “Speak to be understood; listen to understand” or “In every chair, a leader”. These agreements help create a safe container for open and sometimes vulnerable conversations. Facilitators should invite everyone to uphold these agreements together.

This is a quick and easy guide to your community café! The document will walk you through a community café focused on relationships. The questions will shift based on your café topic, but the flow itself will likely look similar. 

After any café, the facilitator will gather all that was discussed in one document to be shared with those who participated. This sample harvest shows you what this document could look like. Harvest should include detailed next steps, and suggestions for how to use the information gathered. 

Dialogues and Café’s are most successful when utilizing these technologies. In this instance, “Technologies” are just different ways to facilitate conversations with groups of people. This document lays out technologies and floor plans, as well as when and how to utilize them.