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ALL TIMES LISTED ARE CENTRAL U.S.
Some events are free to attend or discounted for members.
Become a CPL Member for full access to all events.
Photography, audio, and video recording may occur during any CPL event, and by entering the event, you consent to the use of these recordings for various purposes for CPL.
In an era where we are constantly told we are a divided people, CPL is committed to convening opportunities to remember our shared humanity and discover our common values of caring for one another.
Community
Join CPL Communities to become part of a vibrant community of purposeful leaders like you.
CPL Communities is the CPL private social network.
Benefits of CPL Gathering:
Meet fellow change agents.
Find new friends/allies.
Deepen friendships and collaborations.
Explore new ways of thinking and being.
Be inspired by an awesome community.
Upcoming Events Schedule
CPL Connect
CPLC Connect: More ways to be in community
A key benefit for CPL Members
1st & 3rd Wednesdays · 9:00 - 10:00am CT US
Join Patricia Neal and Paul McCarthy
Updates on all things CPL and how you can engage!
What's at the heart of the matter?
Let's connect! Continue the conversation from the Hearth, and Essential Conversation, etc. This is the "after-party" to the "after-party."
What brought you to CPL?
What can CPL do for you?
Whether you are new to CPL Communities or have been here a while, do you know how to navigate the network, this platform, events, find people, connect?
Join Paul McCarthy and Patricia Neal and guest conveners to learn more about this Community of Practice.
Community Hearth: Kindling → Hearth → Embers
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
Community Hearth: Kindling → Hearth → Embers
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
CPL Connect
CPLC Connect: More ways to be in community
A key benefit for CPL Members
1st & 3rd Wednesdays · 9:00 - 10:00am CT US
Join Patricia Neal and Paul McCarthy
Updates on all things CPL and how you can engage!
What's at the heart of the matter?
Let's connect! Continue the conversation from the Hearth, and Essential Conversation, etc. This is the "after-party" to the "after-party."
What brought you to CPL?
What can CPL do for you?
Whether you are new to CPL Communities or have been here a while, do you know how to navigate the network, this platform, events, find people, connect?
Join Paul McCarthy and Patricia Neal and guest conveners to learn more about this Community of Practice.
Community Hearth: Kindling → Hearth → Embers
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
Essential Conversations: From Roots to Impact: Creating a Sanctuary for Belonging and Empowerment
Essential Conversations
2020-2026
7 years of conversations imagining and building a world that works for all
From Roots to Impact: Creating a Sanctuary for Belonging and Empowerment
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
9:00-10:30 am CT US
Save Your Spot Today!
Then return here to register for free
Join us on October 28 for an Essential Conversation with the Mizizi Initiative, a community-based organization creating a sanctuary for young people, women and emerging artists in Mathare, Nairobi. Through poetry, story and open dialogue, we'll ask a simple question: what does it take to make a space where a community feels truly seen, heard and supported?
We are thrilled to spotlight CPL partner Mizizi Initiative as they launch their future.
Mizizi is Swahili for "roots." In Mathare, one of Nairobi's oldest and largest informal settlements, about 85% of residents are between 12 and 28. It's a community full of artists, filmmakers, musicians, entrepreneurs, women leaders and changemakers. But young people there also face limited economic opportunity, too few safe creative spaces, drug abuse, political intolerance, and the pull of gangs and violence.
The Mizizi Initiative was founded on the belief that impact starts at the roots. Its programs in music, film, photography, visual arts, storytelling and advocacy are built on four pillars: Talent Development, Voice & Advocacy, Community Support, and Women & Leadership. Mizizi has now secured a physical space. But a room doesn't become a sanctuary on its own. Sanctuaries are built together.
In this Essential Conversation you'll:
Hear "Roots," an original poem written and performed by Karanja
Watch The Gift of a Paint Brush, a community story directed and narrated by Julius
Imagine your own sanctuary in a small-group breakout and reflection
Explore how the CPL community can help "water the roots" through skills, networks, mentorship, partnership and resources
Come ready to listen, reflect, and imagine what we can build together.
Who is Mizizi?
Agneta Asitwa, Experienced Filmmaker | Editor | Camera Operator | Director, Managing Director, Sitwa Production
Richard Tabu, Operations Manager, The Whysmen Virtual Pub, Nairobi County, Kenya. Freelance Copywriter, Upwork
Michael Tharuba
Karanja (Toonhood) Wangui, Artist, Art that Impacts/ Writer/ Graphics designer/ Show Host/ Cartoonist/ Creative director, Stunts Actor / Actor/ poet/ Script writer/ Film Director, Author, brOKen; The Diary of Forbidden Desires
Julius
Peris Nyambura Muratha Kibui, Recruitment Consultant at cornhusker connection
Community Hearth: Kindling → Hearth → Embers
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
Community Hearth: Kindling → Hearth → Embers
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
6th Annual CPL Fall Retreat 2026
Making Sanctuary
Location: Mt. Olivet Conference Center, Farmington, MN (35 mins south of MSP Airport)
What is new this year?
Days: Monday-Thursday
Location: Mt. Olivet Conference Center, Farmington, MN (35 mins south of MSP Airport)
Flow, including Leadership Path sessions each afternoon: Whole Person Leadership for Women, Art of Convening CoLab
What you can count on:
wonderful, courageous people who add value to our lives every day
conversations you don’t want to miss
networking and “camp” experiences
What we know: the way we gather shapes what becomes possible.
What would it mean in your life to make a little more sanctuary? Making sanctuary is a practice. Imagine gatherings where hospitality and generosity shape the tone of every conversation. Instead of being framed by scarcity, dialogues focus on gifts, strengths, and shared possibilities. Community members show up not as passive consumers—waiting for someone else to solve problems—but as citizens, offering their contributions and “confronting one another with their gifts”*.
Just as no crop can exceed the quality of the soil from which it grows, no encounter can exceed the quality of the relational ground in which it happens. Making sanctuary is, in this frame, the practice of tending social soil: cultivating intention, quality of listening, depth of holding, clarity of relational boundaries — not as preconditions for something else to happen, but as the thing itself.”
We will explore the meaning and practices of sanctuary as tending and enriching the social soil that is already so rich in the CPL community.
*Peter Block, Community: The Structure of Belonging
$100 Deposit Saves Your Place
Community Hearth: Kindling → Hearth → Embers
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
CPL Connect
CPLC Connect: More ways to be in community
A key benefit for CPL Members
1st & 3rd Wednesdays · 9:00 - 10:00am CT US
Join Patricia Neal and Paul McCarthy
Updates on all things CPL and how you can engage!
What's at the heart of the matter?
Let's connect! Continue the conversation from the Hearth, and Essential Conversation, etc. This is the "after-party" to the "after-party."
What brought you to CPL?
What can CPL do for you?
Whether you are new to CPL Communities or have been here a while, do you know how to navigate the network, this platform, events, find people, connect?
Join Paul McCarthy and Patricia Neal and guest conveners to learn more about this Community of Practice.
Community Hearth: Kindling → Hearth → Embers
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
CPL Connect
CPLC Connect: More ways to be in community
A key benefit for CPL Members
1st & 3rd Wednesdays · 9:00 - 10:00am CT US
Join Patricia Neal and Paul McCarthy
Updates on all things CPL and how you can engage!
What's at the heart of the matter?
Let's connect! Continue the conversation from the Hearth, and Essential Conversation, etc. This is the "after-party" to the "after-party."
What brought you to CPL?
What can CPL do for you?
Whether you are new to CPL Communities or have been here a while, do you know how to navigate the network, this platform, events, find people, connect?
Join Paul McCarthy and Patricia Neal and guest conveners to learn more about this Community of Practice.
Community Hearth: Kindling → Hearth → Embers
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
Community Hearth: Kindling → Hearth → Embers
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
CPL Connect
CPLC Connect: More ways to be in community
A key benefit for CPL Members
1st & 3rd Wednesdays · 9:00 - 10:00am CT US
Join Patricia Neal and Paul McCarthy
Updates on all things CPL and how you can engage!
What's at the heart of the matter?
Let's connect! Continue the conversation from the Hearth, and Essential Conversation, etc. This is the "after-party" to the "after-party."
What brought you to CPL?
What can CPL do for you?
Whether you are new to CPL Communities or have been here a while, do you know how to navigate the network, this platform, events, find people, connect?
Join Paul McCarthy and Patricia Neal and guest conveners to learn more about this Community of Practice.
Community Hearth: Kindling → Hearth → Embers
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
Community Hearth: Kindling → Hearth → Embers
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
CPL Connect
CPLC Connect: More ways to be in community
A key benefit for CPL Members
1st & 3rd Wednesdays · 9:00 - 10:00am CT US
Join Patricia Neal and Paul McCarthy
Updates on all things CPL and how you can engage!
What's at the heart of the matter?
Let's connect! Continue the conversation from the Hearth, and Essential Conversation, etc. This is the "after-party" to the "after-party."
What brought you to CPL?
What can CPL do for you?
Whether you are new to CPL Communities or have been here a while, do you know how to navigate the network, this platform, events, find people, connect?
Join Paul McCarthy and Patricia Neal and guest conveners to learn more about this Community of Practice.
Community Hearth: Hearth → Afterglow
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
Community Hearth: Hearth → Afterglow
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
New! AoC Civic & Community Leaders
A learning journey for leaders who bring communities together.
Convene with Courage. Build Trust.
Build an Abundant Community.
For civic leaders, organizers, and dialogue facilitators, the Art of Convening® offers tools to foster trust and momentum across differences—helping communities shift from fear and fragmentation to belonging and abundance.
Community Hearth: 9-10 am + 15-minute After-party
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
CPL Connect
CPLC Connect: More ways to be in community
A key benefit for CPL Members
1st & 3rd Wednesdays · 9:00 - 10:00am CT US
Join Patricia Neal and Paul McCarthy
Updates on all things CPL and how you can engage!
What's at the heart of the matter?
Let's connect! Continue the conversation from the Hearth, and Essential Conversation, etc. This is the "after-party" to the "after-party."
What brought you to CPL?
What can CPL do for you?
Whether you are new to CPL Communities or have been here a while, do you know how to navigate the network, this platform, events, find people, connect?
Join Paul McCarthy and Patricia Neal and guest conveners to learn more about this Community of Practice.
Community Hearth: 9-10 am + 15-minute After-party
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
New! AoC Civic & Community Leaders
A learning journey for leaders who bring communities together.
Convene with Courage. Build Trust.
Build an Abundant Community.
For civic leaders, organizers, and dialogue facilitators, the Art of Convening® offers tools to foster trust and momentum across differences—helping communities shift from fear and fragmentation to belonging and abundance.
Community Hearth: 9-10 am + 15-minute After-party
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
CPL Connect
CPLC Connect: More ways to be in community
A key benefit for CPL Members
1st & 3rd Wednesdays · 9:00 - 10:00am CT US
Join Patricia Neal and Paul McCarthy
Updates on all things CPL and how you can engage!
What's at the heart of the matter?
Let's connect! Continue the conversation from the Hearth, and Essential Conversation, etc. This is the "after-party" to the "after-party."
What brought you to CPL?
What can CPL do for you?
Whether you are new to CPL Communities or have been here a while, do you know how to navigate the network, this platform, events, find people, connect?
Join Paul McCarthy and Patricia Neal and guest conveners to learn more about this Community of Practice.
Community Hearth: 9-10 am + 15-minute After-party
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
New! AoC Civic & Community Leaders
A learning journey for leaders who bring communities together.
Convene with Courage. Build Trust.
Build an Abundant Community.
For civic leaders, organizers, and dialogue facilitators, the Art of Convening® offers tools to foster trust and momentum across differences—helping communities shift from fear and fragmentation to belonging and abundance.
Community Hearth: 9-10 am + 15-minute After-party
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
CPL Connect
CPLC Connect: More ways to be in community
A key benefit for CPL Members
1st & 3rd Wednesdays · 9:00 - 10:00am CT US
Join Patricia Neal and Paul McCarthy
Updates on all things CPL and how you can engage!
What's at the heart of the matter?
Let's connect! Continue the conversation from the Hearth, and Essential Conversation, etc. This is the "after-party" to the "after-party."
What brought you to CPL?
What can CPL do for you?
Whether you are new to CPL Communities or have been here a while, do you know how to navigate the network, this platform, events, find people, connect?
Join Paul McCarthy and Patricia Neal and guest conveners to learn more about this Community of Practice.
Community Hearth: 9-10 am + 15-minute After-party
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content
New! AoC Civic & Community Leaders
A learning journey for leaders who bring communities together.
Convene with Courage. Build Trust.
Build an Abundant Community.
For civic leaders, organizers, and dialogue facilitators, the Art of Convening® offers tools to foster trust and momentum across differences—helping communities shift from fear and fragmentation to belonging and abundance.
AoC Faith & Spiritual Leaders
A learning journey for leaders who bring communities together.
Gather Your Community with Sacred Presence. Lead with Wisdom. Inspire Action Rooted in Faith.
Whether you’re guiding worship, leading a study group, facilitating a retreat, or hosting a congregational dialogue, the Art of Convening® equips faith and spiritual leaders to create spaces of trust, belonging, and transformation.
Community Hearth: 9-10 am + 15-minute After-party
https://www.cplcommunities.org/spaces/13037179/content