GATHER: The Art and Science of Effective Convening

Monitor Institute has published GATHER: The Art and Science of Effective Convening. This is a hands-on guidebook for convening designers and social change leaders who want to create convenings that tap into a group’s collective intelligence and make substantial progress on a shared challenge. GATHER provides simple frameworks for the questions that are often ignored: whether convening is the right tool to use to advance a strategic agenda, and how a convening can be used to achieve a specific purpose. It then helps readers understand how to customize the design to fit that purpose, laying out a clear series of steps for what is a naturally chaotic workflow. It then offers principles to use for each of the many tactical choices involved. GATHER and its accompanying workshop materials are designed for nonprofits to use in their own work and with larger groups both inside and outside their organizations.