An explanation of how your presentation relates to the conference theme (250 words or less); The conference theme highlights collaboration and networking as an key pathway to community development. This observation builds on the now well established role of social capital in helping communities to move ahead. Unfortunately, the continuing erosion of many foundations of social capital, parallelled by a loss in trust in a wide array of American institutions, has been documented for decades. Coming to the foreground in the context of this erosion, attention has been increasingly riveted to the political polarization that has steered these trends in increasingly disruptive directions. While most prominent in relation to national politics, many communities have experienced growing gulfs between different factions within their communities. Interventions that are intentional, programmatic, and effective have the potential to help arrest this deterioration of this vulnerable form of capital, and a wide array of organizations and academics are increasingly focused on what approaches hold promise. Our presentation, about one such intervention based on a collaboration between Cooperative Extension and Braver Angels, fits best under the People Driven Solutions label as it helps build the capacity of community members to create social capital themselves. This case was implemented programmatically in a state, not in a single community of place. However, the basic inspiration for the approach has equal resonance for the them of place based collaboration as well, and is explicitly designed to focus on creating forms of inclusion and connection where belief in the possibility of these things may seem most frayed. An overall description (100 words or less) for the conference program Polarization impacts civil discourse and, to an uncertain but evident extent, community development work. Systemic forces drive polarization, but interventions can build social capital. We describe a pilot program that grew into a series organized by University of Wisconsin’s Division of Extension. The programming involved a partnership with Braver Angels, a national organization applying research-based skills to building bridges. We argue that Extension has untapped potential to address division and lack of civility by building civic infrastructure and skills for constructive dialogue. We report on the series and evaluate its impacts on participants.
