COMMON GROUND: COMMUNITY BUILDING IN THE WORKPLACE
To enhance communication, support morale,
and strengthen working relationships
Community Building in Nonprofits, Nonprofit Philanthropies, and Universities
Susan Danoff offers workshops to build community in the workplace in order to enhance communication, support morale, and strengthen working relationships. She works with new teams who will benefit from gaining insight into what their colleagues bring to the table, with cross-functional teams to enhance organizational and personal understanding, and with groups addressing diversity to deepen cultural awareness and appreciation. She also facilitates group building among constituencies in order to bridge gaps and foster greater understanding and stronger partnerships.
Using storytelling as a facilitation technique, Susan offers workshops on specific issues of mutual concern such as diversity, transition, problem solving, and creativity.
After in-depth discussions with the presenting organization, Susan customizes each workshop. Sessions include ten to fifteen participants and can run either a half-day or a full day. She also offers staff retreats to foster dialogue between staff and board members.
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From 2007-2009 Susan ran many successful community building sessions for Princeton's Office of Information Technology. She is an outstanding facilitator who brings years of experience working with diverse groups – college students, teachers, executives, technologists, academics. She provides an enjoyable, meaningful, and rich experience to participants, and in the process, enables the group to build community in a natural and organic way.
-Hetty Baiz, Manager, Project Office, Office of Information Technology, Princeton University |
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I was very fortunate to hear about Susan Danoff and her storytelling workshops through a colleague at Princeton University. After meeting Susan and discussing the “power” of storytelling, I knew we needed to try this in our organization. Susan worked with me to develop two different workshops – first, to explore diversity and achieve an appreciation of diversity within an organization; and second, to create community as we planned a major office relocation for the organization. In both cases, we not only received excellent feedback on how meaningful the workshops were, but we also observed significant changes in attitude and behavior which directly contributed to enhancing our organizational effectiveness. I would highly recommend working with Susan and using storytelling as a tool to create desired change.
- Nancy Costa, Associate CIO, Office of Information Technology, Princeton University |
Community Building in Schools
In schools where teachers are almost entirely focused on their students, community building among staff members is often ignored. How can teachers and administrators get to know one another better, share histories, discover the resources that might be hiding just down the hall, build a common sense of mission, and practice the model the community building strategies that they strive for in their own classrooms?
Susan Danoff uses storytelling as a facilitation technique to address community building in schools. She customizes each workshop to address the issues of concern raised by the school community in daylong workshop with a maximum of fifteen educators per group.
Susan has worked with teachers and school administrators for thirty years as a professional development provider, teaching artist, and the director of an educational nonprofit.
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I have attended five of Susan’s summer storytelling institutes at Princeton University, and each time I marvel at her ability to bring a group of strangers together and to help them open up to each other in ways that create lasting bonds of friendship. Susan has the generous ability to value each person’s individual needs and talents, while also nurturing a sense of community within the group. I have witnessed this, not only in her week-long teacher institutes, but also in her summer retreat for storytellers, which she has run for over 16 years, and to which many of the same members return year after year. Even with such a close-knit group, Susan is able to welcome and incorporate new participants so that they quickly feel like regular attendees. While all of this involves extensive and meticulous planning, Susan accomplishes it in a way that always appears effortless.
-Tara McGowan, Doctoral student in Education, University of Pennsylvania |