Sustainable Community through
Public Dialogue & Collaborative Stewardship

Mountain Spirit's Sustainable Communities Program provides communities, their leadership and citizenry with guidance and concrete tools that will bring a positive, forward thinking approach to any crisis. Our primary goal is to transfer as quickly as possible the skills and tools that will be necessary to overcome the barriers and challenges facing communities as they experience the economic, environmental and societal difficulties of today's world. We promote Public Dialogue & Collaborative Stewardship as key approaches to addressing the rapid, crisis oriented changes that are occurring throughout our communities and the world.

Our Invitation:

We offer several resources, including facilitation of large and small public group sessions, executive dialogues, mapping of unproductive action patterns, collaborative design guidance for strategic planning, vision and mission development, problem solving and crisis intervention. We are also able to provide training for community leaders, managerial and administrative staff and non-profit board members that transfer our unique tools and skills directly to interested individuals within your community or organization.

Our services are designed collaboratively with the client, based on the unique circumstances, needs, resources and desired outcomes of any particular client. Therefore, we strongly encourage potential clients, at no initial cost, to test the effectiveness of our approach.

We offer a free, two-hour consultation to evaluate any critical issue utilizing our uniquely collaborative and action oriented approach. The concepts, interactive communication tools, strategies for success and continuous assessment and redesign of our efforts have proven effective in reducing real and potential risks and magnifying opportunities for small businesses, corporate organizations, state and local governments and their affiliate agencies, non-profits, research and social change institutes, universities and large and small communities.

Our Challenge:

We believe in and practice preserving the human dignity of every individual and design all of our client relationships with an invitation for others to join us in that effort. We are always willing to go first and are open to any question about our practices, our intent and our effectiveness.

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Our Experience:

Brenda Dowst, Program Director
Sustainable Communities

Brenda is a certified public manager and program director for the Sustainable Communities Program with Mountain Spirit Institute, an organizational and community development specialist, and a dialogue consultant.

For more than twenty years, Brenda has shared a unique set of communication and analytical tools originally created by Collaborative Action Technology, Inc. with scores of executives, their boards and key managers in private and public administration, education, industry and government as well as grassroots leaders in small and large communities. These tools achieve mutually desirable outcomes through collaborative dialogue. As a certified CAT Trainer and prior consultant for CAT, Brenda was instrumental in the development and current adaptation of these tools and has acquired the right to incorporate these tools in her role as Director of the Sustainable Communities Program with Mountain Spirit Institute. We appreciate the considerable sacrifice of time, effort, learning and research by the Founder of CAT, Gary Lospoluto and his partner, Michael Halperin which enable us to offer these outstanding and highly effective tools to associates and clients of Mountain Spirit Institute .

Her services are now available through Mountain Spirit Institute to clients and participants who seek to maximize their effectiveness as collaborative agents for change. As a facilitator and collaborative design coach, Brenda's skills help overcome barriers to implementation and sustainability, while promoting and advancing individual, group, and community needs and goals. Brenda holds a BS in Sociology from the University of Southern Maine, and completed work for a Masters in Consumer Studies at University of New Hampshire with honors. Brenda calls two places home, Sunapee, NH and Pictou County, Nova Scotia but also spends time in the Salt Lake City area.

A few of Brenda Dowst's past clients:

• State of Maine
• State of Vermont
• ATT
• SEC Software
• Dow Chemical Company
• Harvard - Rappaport Institute

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The CAT toolset was designed and tested to allow users to effectively:

• Distinguish facts and real data from untested and often damaging assumptions.
• Diminish the mechanisms of rumor, political infighting, and the distribution of false and misleading information.
• Begin to illustrate the cost in time, wasted energy and dollars of continuing to conduct "business as usual," while being able to implement change quickly
• Indentify and leverage hidden opportunities for implementing lasting change and innovation
• Integrate highly effective quality assurance, checks and balances into existing and newly created solutions

Some of the tools we currently utilize in our work are listed below:

• Testing Inferences/Assumptions
• Clarifying Intent through Action Inquiry
• Collaborative Design
• Building Support by Declaring a Bind
• Reducing Miscommunication using Different Dictionaries
• Eliminating the Rumor Mill with First Party Checking
• Valuing the Individual through Invitation
• Defining Meaning using the Ladder of Inference*
• Private vs. Public Reasoning
• Systems Mapping - Recurring Problems and Barriers to Change
• Continuous Improvement and the Quality Assurance Cycle

Services and Programs

• Organizational Development
• Community Building
• Issue Oriented Consulting
• Executive Leadership Development
• Workplace Communication Improvement

Important Findings: Collaborative Strategies research data shows:

• Individuals spend 10-20% of their time checking their assumptions with a third party rather than going directly to the individuals with whom they have the inferences.
• 45% of our inferences about others intentions are either inaccurate, incomplete or both.

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Register

CLIENTS:
If you are in a leadership role, and would like to have your group or department or community benefit from our Sustainable Communities Program, please contact either Brenda Dowst directly or the MSI office.

PARTICPANTS:
If you are a participant, and your organization has asked that you enroll in one of our programs, please download the application form and release below.

Contact:
Brenda Dowst, Director
Sustainable Communities Program
PO Box 626
Sunapee, NH 03782
603-763-2668 (MSI Office)
(603) 863-9428 (B. Dowst)
brenda@mtnspirit.org

Download Online Application and Release Forms

Download application Form
Download release Form
(Both forms require free Acrobat Reader program, download by clicking on the link)

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