St. Croix Foundation Hosts Community-Building Activities with World Renowned Systems Change Agent

CONTACT: DEANNA JAMES, PRESIDENT
(TEL)340.773.9898, (EMAIL) DJAMES@STXFOUNDATION.ORG
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 14, 2019

St. Croix – The St. Croix Foundation is pleased to announce that on June 20th and 21st, it will once again host Tuesday Ryan-Hart for a three-day community training grounded in systems change. Ms. Ryan-Hart is an internationally renowned systems change strategist who has worked with global organizations and stakeholders engaged in community building. Last summer, Ms. Ryan-Hart introduced local nonprofits and community stakeholders to a new concept of community engagement, entitled “The Art of Hosting,” to help build capacity in our community through conversations and training around high impact collaborations and leadership development. This summer, Ms. Ryan-Hart along with fellow practitioner, Kelly McGowan, will take a deeper dive into the concepts surrounding the Art of Hosting and provide fully-immersive trainings in the practice. Nonprofits in our community are invited to RSVP with Jonathan Williams at jwilliams@stxfoundation.org by Tuesday, June 18, 2019, for the trainings which will take place on Thursday & Friday, June 20th and 21st at the Company House Hotel Conference Room in historic downtown Christiansted. Ryan-Hart will be holding a closed workshop on June 19th.

The Art of Hosting supports dynamic and diverse community stakeholders in exploring and unpacking barriers to effective collaborations to include; acknowledging perceptions of where and how Power sits in a room; mutual agreements around shared work and shared values; how stakeholders Host themselves as Individual Leaders vs. Organizational Leaders in collaborative spaces;  and how to find balance between Chaos and Order in complex systems.

Today, the Foundation is acutely sensitized to the fact that Systemic Change in our Civic Sector (and in our community on a whole) must happen in order for our entire Territory to not only survive but to thrive. As such, the Foundation has committed to drilling down deeper.

Defined as, “a highly effective way of harnessing the collective wisdom and self-organizing capacity of groups based on the assumption that people give their energy and lend their resources to what matters most to them – in work as in life – the Art of Hosting blends a suite of powerful conversational processes to invite people to step in and take charge of the challenges facing them and their communities.”

According to St. Croix Foundation President, Deanna James: “Because many of those challenges are grounded in patterns of thinking; and patterns of practice that no longer serve the advancement and innovation of our Territory, changing some of our thought patterns and rooted inter-personal practices will require heavy lifting.”

“Over the course of the past year, the Foundation has been sponsoring convenings around the issues of civic leadership, collaboration, and community vision building. Ms. Ryan-Hart and Ms. McGowan’s engagement represent the deepening of our commitment to sustained capacity building in our civic sector.” James continued.

St. Croix Foundation extends its deepest appreciation to Tuesday Ryan-Hart, Kelly McGowan, and to St. Croix’s nonprofits who continue to provide vital services to our community while also moving the needle on entrenched social issues. Special thanks also goes out to the many corporate, foundation, and individual contributors who make St. Croix Foundation Nonprofit Consortium and CARE Fund possible.

For more information on the Foundation’s upcoming convenings, or to RSVP for attendance, please call the St. Croix Foundation at 340-773-9898 or email: jwilliams@stxfoundation.org.