how it works
The Cornerstone//Connect Process
1. Research
The Cornerstone//Connect process begins with PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH, by getting to know the landscape of the community, networking with individuals and organizations, identifying a community’s main players, resources and systems of operation and building community partnerships to promote your project at a grassroots level..
2. Engagement
The next stage of the community engagement process involves strengthening and formalizing the relationships identified during the participatory research phase.
Cornerstone//Connect does this by conducting Story Circles – a creative method for designing facilitated conversation – to collect raw, first person data from the community.
Cornerstone//Connect draws on three decades of experience facilitating story circles in communities to generate honest, authentic conversation.
The Story Circle process goes much deeper than traditional market research or focus groups by creating safe, respectful spaces for individuals to speak candidly about an idea, event or experience.
3. Creation
Perhaps the most powerful and transformational tool in the CTC//CONNECT toolbox is COLLABORATIVE CREATION - a series of interactive creative workshops including storytelling, writing, improvisation and hands-on art-making.
Community Participants work alongside Cornerstone’s ensemble of theater professionals and a guest, lead artist to create a performance drawn from their stories and experiences.
CTC//CONNECT custom-designs an iterative, scalable program of exercises to activate and expand participants’ imagination, build community and provide tools for creating change.
4. Presentation
This culminating PRESENTATION, performed by the community and for the community, consists of material generated through the creative workshops. The presentation reflects back to the community their vision of themselves as they are and as they might be, offering a profoundly moving experience of seeing oneself, and being seen, sometimes for the first time.
For any community – at work, in a neighborhood, faith-based or through affinity – this experience in and of itself can be the key to creating change.
5. Follow-Up
Sustainable change requires ongoing engagement.
After the presentation phase, CTC//Connect will follow-up with further facilitated conversations to share experiences and debrief with the client.
Cornerstone//Connect will also work with the client or community to design an implementation plan including any skill-building or capacity-building trainings needed.
