Thank you for organizing, Karen, but it's potluck action without in the middle. It's alright, it's alright. No worries. No worries. Alright. So let's explore opportunities in Chapter organizations and partnerships and empathy circles. You don't have to develop chapters or partnerships for political action, but that's the example we're going to use today. We're going to use it just go right into the lion's den and you know, maybe we'll have some fun with it. Alright, so saving democracy is our mission, and this is written with examples, discussion and anecdotes from the United States. Our friends abroad are warmly welcome to share their examples, analysis and insights for development of future publications or to publish their own this guide is open source, so we're not covering Chapter nor partnership or operations in detail. This is more of an overview of the differences between the two. Most likely you might be starting a chapter, and this primer simplifies your understanding of what the chapter does partnerships take on the tougher stuff down the road. We're running through the most relevant concepts to get you started and still see the big picture of how empathy circles can fit into full spectrum politics. This guy doesn't need to tell you what party to support, what policies to support, nor do you need to agree with all the recommendations or examples. This is about considering concrete steps for building a culture of empathy where it feels good to organize with people who disagree with you. At a glance, you might assume only bleeding heart liberals would be interested in empathy circles, some of our biggest supporters in our community's history identify as conservatives. Vote for Trump and love the relationships and experiences possible in empathy circles. The campfire of an empathy circle feels warm to a lot of different kinds of people. Can you tell which party the broccoli represents circles outperform alternatives in building consensus and compromise? You can observe the accelerated pace of relationship building personal growth and the frequency of discovering Win Win opportunities in contested environments. This strategy won't magically address all of our society's ills overnight, nor make everyone think the same. There will still be differences of opinion and values. You may observe people do empathy circles for years, but still have competing interests, such as supporting different political parties for the same offices, chapters and partnerships can help you manage those differences at scale. Difference, for our purposes here, means differences in opinion and action in the political process. This includes strategy, policy, positions, fundraising, any activity that ultimately impacts law and budget. The chapter's job is to facilitate a constructive culture and climate where the general public feels empowered to participate in a culture of empathy, chapters can conduct business and formally incorporate, but its business decisions should primarily support building a community for bonding relationship, building partnership, building and fun, where chapters Are the home or church partnerships enable flexibility with complex differences. When people want to take action on a short or long term basis, they form a partnership. The specific structure of a partnership, like its leadership structure, are irrelevant to us here. Partnerships can be as simple as a handshake and as complex as incorporated nonprofits. You can call it a working group, committee, campaign project, etcetera, but calling it a partnership helps illustrate certain concepts, such as forming coalitions with businesses and nonprofits. This is a powerful word in the English language. This word culturally promotes participants into a mindset of mutual power, responsibility, purpose and respect. Participating in a partnership carries a different mindset from a committee, but choose what works for you. Partnerships could be popular and widely supported by members of a chapter or multiple chapters. The partnership may also be unpopular. Or there may be partnerships with competing interests in disagreement with each other. Chapters are the primary incubator for partnerships. This doesn't mean chapters are expected to endorse partnerships, and in general, they shouldn't. You can simply reference them on a chapter, website, social media and emails. Is something like member partnerships or member projects, or project directory or similar language. Now you might be thinking, but why not use empathy circles to resolve the differences? That's the idea. But resolving certain differences can take months or years, and some differences may never resolve partnerships that are allowed to cooperate and compete help protect the chapter from power struggles over mission strategy and leadership, organize stakeholders into appropriate context right where they can appropriately deliberate, negotiate and compromise. Enables people to pursue missions that are important to them while participating in culture of empathy. Otherwise they would just pursue their missions outside of the community, and after pursuing different missions, folks can still return to the same chapter families with continued opportunities for bonding and solidarity. So let's do a fictional example here. Alright? Victoria conversations, fictional organization. It's an empathy circle chapter that is operated with distinction since 2015 there are 300 members. Include parents, students, young professionals, some local politicians, small business owners and members of the clergy. They hold events every week, online and around town. Every year, they host candidates forums, or candidates participate in empathy circles instead of a debate style format, the forums are now a local tradition and is broadcasted on public access television. Their members include Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, greens and independents. The chapter's role is to be the family unit and to host a productive culture and climate performing partnerships. A big topic of discussion at the chapter is money in politics. People across the aisle agree that they don't want billionaires and mega millionaires buying their members of Congress. During one empathy cafe, members presented campaign finance reports showing millions of dollars flowing from Fortune 500 companies to Pablo Matias, the Democrat representing Victoria in the US House. People across the aisle in the chapter were concerned about this, even Democrats wondered, is he actually serving our interests, or is he just working for the donors? Mattias agreed to participate in one empathy circle in Corpus Christi when asked if he is willing to stop taking money from special interest groups and their lobbyists, he declined, claiming it's impossible to compete without those donations, but I'll never betray my constituents. I work for you. Weeks later, Mattias voted for massive, historic tax cuts for the billionaires, even though the vast majority of of his constituents oppose the tax cuts, feeling betrayed. Folks had enough. 52 Victoria conversations members formed the anti corruption partnership with advocacy groups and other empathy circle chapters across Texas. Their mission read support candidates at the state, local and federal level, who only accept campaign contributions from the people of Texas. You work for us, not them. The ACP agreed to share resources to support a Democrat and Republican candidate in the primaries. The Republican candidate is Luke Avery, a member of the chapter and has been leading empathy circles for years. The Democratic primary, ACP endorsed Sophia Luna from Corpus Christi, a long time leader of the Corpus Christi empathy circle club, Republican members of the ACP, though, ran into problems with Texas for life 501, c4 advocacy organization who just recently started participating in empathy circles, Texans for life refused to join the anti corruption partnership due to its endorsement of pro choice. Democrats across the state as a compromise, pro life Democrats and Republicans in Texas formed the pro life partnership here. This new coalition enabled Texans for life to endorse Luke Avery as part of a separate effort. So right now, we got two partnerships, one of them endorsing both of our empathy circle candidates, and one partnership that's just working with Luke Avery here. Unfortunately, Matias wins the Democratic primary, Luke Avery, though won the Republican primary chapter members decide whether to continue supporting the ACP. A number of Democrats choose to support Avery in the general election because they feel overall satisfied with his policies and leadership. Others don't because Avery's pro life, and they knew ahead of time they weren't going to support any pro. Life candidate in the general so they respectfully move on to other efforts. The chapter continues operating normally throughout the election season.