In this online course you will learn:

embRACE LA did not start as a coalition. It started as an idea: that the people closest to racial inequity should help design the city's response to it. Turning that idea into a permanent institution, the City of Los Angeles Office of Racial Equity, took a 40-organization coalition built patiently over time and hundreds of honest community conversations. In this hands-on workshop, Tiffany Caldas shares the four-phase Idea-to-Implementation model behind that journey and helps you move your own idea toward durable, community-owned change.

Session highlights:

• The four-phase Idea-to-Implementation model (Idea & Alignment, Dialogue, Synthesis, Implementation), inspired by the evidence-based Intergroup Dialogue framework and adaptable to any macro initiative.
• Inside embRACE LA: how 150 "dialogue dinners" engaged 2,000-plus residents and city council members, how community stories and data became public art and a concrete policy blueprint, and how a community base advocated the Office of Racial Equity into existence.
• One guided, hands-on exercise: map an idea from your own work onto the model and sketch your first community dialogue session, using a provided template.
• Straight talk on coalition-building: the time it takes, the trust it requires, and the risks to plan for, with a quick coalition-alignment self-check you can rerun with your own team.
• Take-home tools: an Idea-to-Implementation one-pager, a Dialogue Session Design template, and a Coalition Alignment checklist.

Who should attend: Macro social workers, nonprofit and coalition leaders, policy advocates, and anyone working to turn a community-rooted idea into lasting institutional change.

What you'll be able to do afterward:

1. Map an idea or initiative from your own work onto the four-phase model and pinpoint the next action to advance it.
2. Use a quick coalition-alignment self-check to spot where a multi-organization effort is strong or fragile, and identify strategies for building shared goals and trust.
3. Design a community-dialogue session that centers the voices of those most affected and gathers both qualitative and quantitative input to shape implementable policy.