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Marcy Mager hadn’t expected the visceral response to the book. Most times in her book club, members were measured in their thoughts.
“Normally, they’d say, ‘Well, I didn’t think she did a good job on good characterization, but I loved the chronology,’” Mager says. “The people are a little balanced. But there were two people in the group who were like, ‘I hated this book.’”
The book in question — Mónica Guzmán’s I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times — was the pick for a book circle started by the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia. As part of an effort to get people from different perspectives to get to know each other and possibly bridge divides, the foundation purchased copies of the book and asked supporters to gather people to discuss it.
Mager, a donor who created a memorial scholarship at the foundation, jumped at the chance to host a book circle. She’d previously attended a virtual discussion of Guzmán’s book where participants said kind things and generally agreed, so the initial reaction from her own book club was a surprise. But she didn’t get flustered, as she’d known these people a long time. The group dug into the discussion and, as they hashed things out, realized their disagreement was over style — which some described as “too pedantic and condescending” — not substance. There were points in the book that even the haters thought were good.
And that’s what the community foundation was looking for when it started the book circles: people having discussions who might not see eye to eye but would still walk away friends.
“A theme that we heard coming out from our fund partners and from our board members was just how divisive the times were feeling,” says Gabrielle Webster, director of donor relations. “That’s a problem that’s hard for philanthropy to solve because you can’t really throw money at people not communicating. So how do we create these spaces? This was our attempt at that.”
‘We’re About Bringing People Together’
The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia has organized the book circles two years in a row and learned new things in each outing. The book circles were designed so multiple small-group discussions — either in person or virtually — could be held throughout the year. They culminated with a large gathering where the author spoke and attendees could ask questions.
The community foundation distributed copies of the book to volunteer hosts who agreed to bring together people with different perspectives for discussion. It sounded good in theory, but there was a problem.
“The first year, a lot of the questions were, ‘How do we find people who have differences from us?’” Webster says. “We all kind of self-select and silo, not even intentionally.”
Webster says the foundation doesn’t collect information on supporters’ political outlooks, so it couldn’t put together people with wildly different policy views. However, for the second year of the program, during which participants discussed How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, by David Brooks, it attempted to assemble diverse groups based on other factors.
“We tried to put people together whose paths may not necessarily cross,” Webster says. “Even if they don’t necessarily have extreme differences, they maybe just wouldn’t have met each other otherwise. They work in different sectors or they live in different parts of the region.”
The key is having different people from the community get comfortable with each other so that when tough problems arise, they’re able to meet with one another, be respectful, and move the community forward, says Sari Raskin, vice president of grants and community leadership at the community foundation.
“We’re about bringing people together so we can come together to solve problems and be creative and respect one another and each other’s perspectives,” Raskin says.
Lots of Partners
The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia didn’t invent the concept of book circles to bring communities together. It borrowed the idea from the Delaware Community Foundation, which has been hosting book circles since 2018.
“What we’re really trying to focus on is, how do we build resiliency in our community to be able to face challenges moving forward,” says Sarah Hench, executive vice president for strategic engagement at the Delaware grant maker.
The community foundation has worked with libraries and funding partners, including the United Way, to find hosts for book circles and reach a wide range of people, who, it hopes, have diverse views. Even the high-school students who make up the foundation’s Youth Philanthropy Board- participate in the circles.
“We’ve engaged them in these conversations to say, You’re the future of our community,” Hench says.
In Delaware, the community foundation has experimented over the years. Once it bought audiobook copies for the library in hopes of increasing accessibility. Eric Klinenberg, who wrote 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed, about New York during the pandemic, will be doing a number of events for the community foundation over two days. There will be the big ask-the-author event the foundation has traditionally hosted, as well as some small VIP events with certain donors and partners.
Back in Virginia, the community foundation has added a new event to bring the community together. This year, it held a “people’s supper,” where attendees sat in small groups and got to know each other better. The foundation says events like this and the book circles are a great way to connect with the community.
“These book circles were an opportunity to extend our reach into those different sectors and groups,” Raskin says. “We’re not asking you for money. We’re not fundraising. We’re saying, ‘Join us. Join us in conversations.’”
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