A Note From The Executive Director

2026 has been a year of exciting growth and meaningful change for Gathering Ground. In January we welcomed a new team member, Maria Espinal-Mena, as our Community Engagement Coordinator, and just last month our Board officially adopted our 2026–2030 Strategic Plan. While we are proud of all that has been built since our inception, from 20 Calls to Collaboration to the many impactful and thought-provoking programs we have hosted, we know our work is far from finished.

In 2025, with the support of champion funders like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, more than 750 organizations and 850 participants engaged with Gathering Ground across 44 unique programs. Each of those connections represents a shared commitment to building stronger relationships, deeper understanding, and more equitable outcomes for communities across New Jersey. We look forward to continuing to grow that impact in the years ahead.

This Strategic Plan represents both a reflection on how far we have come and a thoughtful look toward the future. It clarifies our priorities, strengthens our values, and deepens our commitment to creating spaces where people can come together across difference to learn, connect, and act.

At the heart of this next chapter is a renewed sense of purpose and possibility, fueled by radical generosity and joy. Our work continues to be guided by a clear vision and mission:

Vision

We envision a joyful, just world of belonging and radical generosity.

Mission

Gathering Ground creates irresistible, justice-centered gatherings that ignite dialogue, learning, action, and collaboration, in solidarity with all people, and in service to the creation of a fair and just world.

These words reflect not only where we are headed as an organization, but the spirit and passion that animate our work every day. They also frame the journey our team, our partners, and our broader community are on together.

The following message reflects on that journey and the deeper purpose that continues to guide Gathering Ground’s work:

Two and a half years ago I came to Gathering Ground motivated largely by an unrelenting desire to be back in community with people, to be in direct dialogue, solidarity and connection with other activists, organizers, changemakers and visionaries. After 10+ years working in progressive media, while meaningful and aligned with my values and beliefs, I often felt removed and disconnected from the direct experience of people whose lives we were seeking to impact and influence. I longed for the sense of invaluable connection — of sitting in a room, listening deeply, dialoguing and bearing witness to how change can be activated and catalyzed when people come together authentically, with honesty, courage and purpose. Gathering Ground offered me a way back to that, a return to the essence of our shared humanity.

Here, I found a community that doesn’t simply stop at talking about justice and equity — we live it every day both internally in our organization and externally. We build spaces that invite everyone to bring their full selves, to listen across all differences – race, class, lived experiences, sector, issue area, work experience, knowledge and understanding – and to imagine and dream about what is possible together. The work we do isn’t easy. It is heavy and steady work. It doesn’t always move in straight lines, or reveal its immediate impact to us, but it is real. It is human-centered and it is essential. It’s the kind of work that reminds you that progress happens through relationships, through collaboration, through trust, authenticity and through the collective belief that a better, more equitable world is possible.

It’s the kind of work that sustains and renews hope through the hardest times and rekindles our spirit to carry on. Because the status quo is no longer acceptable and an alternative is long overdue.

Over these past years, I’ve seen our impact ripple outward — from the energy of our Movement-Building Call to Collaboration and our Elevating Equity Programming to the unique moments of connection that happen between people who might never have met otherwise. I’ve seen ideas take root and partnerships form that continue to grow long after

our gatherings end. That’s the formidable unspoken power of this work: it’s both visible and invisible, immediate and long-term, grounded in the understanding that justice – our ultimate north star – is not merely a destination, but a shared journey of learning, growing, reimagining and rebuilding.

As we look ahead to our 2026–2030 Strategic Plan, we are building on that foundation. We are reaffirming our commitment to equity and justice as both core values and practices – to ensure that our workplace, our spaces, our partnerships, our gatherings, our programming and our leadership reflect the communities and people we serve. We are

investing in deeper relationships across sectors, geographic regions, issue areas, communities and lived experiences. And we are creating new pathways for dialogue, learning, and action that move us closer to systems that truly work for everyone. We are having the difficult conversations that uncover and confront the root causes of injustice, oppression and systemic racism, acknowledging the full complexity and unpleasantness of our nation’s history, and making space for voices that have far too often been silenced and ignored.

This strategic plan is a roadmap for the next chapter of Gathering Ground’s story, but more than that, it’s an invitation – to continue showing up, to keep listening and learning, to continue to stay open to new possibilities, and to keep working and building collaboratively. The challenges we face as a society are multi-layered and complex, but our collective capacity for creativity, resilience, solidarity and love is powerful and must continue to be nurtured.

I am deeply grateful to be on this journey with all of you – our peers, our partners, our board members, our team members, our funders and supporters, and community allies – who share our belief and vision that change begins with conversations and connection. It is my hope that together we will continue creating spaces and programs where all voices are heard, truth-telling is normalized, power is shared, and injustice is uprooted, giving way to a world where all people can truly thrive.

With gratitude and in solidarity,