Consensus Building Institute (CBI)

The Consensus Building Institute (CBI) is a non-profit institution established in 1993 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. CBI’s mission is to improve the theory and practice of public consensus building and conflict resolution through training, capacity building, facilitation and mediation, and research. Its founders include several pioneers the field of public consensus building.

CBI maintains a strong commitment to help young people understand conflict and develop consensus building skills through hands-on practice. We have had some notable success with our approach. We helped develop the Program for Young Negotiators (PYN), an innovative and well-respected negotiation training course for middle school students, which is still being used in school districts around the country. Our current educational initiative is a curriculum and teacher training program on intergroup conflict and conflict management called Workable Peace.

In addition to our work with schools, CBI works with public and non-profit organizations around the country and internationally to build consensus on public policy issues, interagency partnerships and strategies for organizational change. We specialize in environmental, land use, health and safety issues, and also work on a variety of community-building initiatives with foundation boards, community agencies and local governments.

Why CBI?

Across the United States and around the world, there is an ongoing revolution in the way we make decisions on public and organizational issues. More than ever before, people and groups potentially affected by political, regulatory and organizational decisions ("stakeholders") expect to participate in making those decisions. More than ever before, decisions within organizations are being made by teams, not individuals. And more than ever before, the issues that we need to decide are complex. To deal with complexity, stakeholders have to be able to gather and analyze information that is both scientifically credible and legitimate in the eyes of its users; craft contingency plans to deal with uncertainties; and continue working together to monitor the impact of their decisions and revisit them if necessary.

The bad news is that traditional strategies for decision making--leaving final authority to a single individual, voting, lobbying, or using the courts when conflicts can't be resolved--are usually not the best ways to make group decisions on complex issues. They often produce win-lose or lowest-common-denominator outcomes, carry high costs, and damage relationships in ways that make it harder for stakeholders to work together in the future.

The good news is that there are proven principles, strategies and techniques for improving group decision making on complex public and organizational issues. Many of these strategies have been developed through the Program on Negotiation and the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program at Harvard Law School, where a number of CBI's staff and Board members are affiliated. The Consensus Building Institute is dedicated to applying these strategies to improve decision making on public policy issues and organizational strategies.

CBI improves the way leaders, advocates, experts and communities make public and organizational decisions. We use innovative strategies to engage diverse stakeholders, identify shared goals, manage conflicting interests, achieve joint gains, and build productive working relationships. We work with government agencies, community groups, businesses, advocacy organizations, researchers and educators.

Our work spans:

• economic, environmental and social issues in the U.S. and around the world;
• organizational management in corporations, public agencies and non-profits; and
• conflict resolution education in schools.

Core Services
Our world-class professional staff provide four core services:

Conflict Assessment: we identify key stakeholders, learn about their interests, perspectives and capacities, identify divergent goals, and suggest ways for them to work together to achieve their goals.

Consensus Building: we work with diverse groups to increase their ability to define and achieve their goals. We help them design decision making processes, conduct joint fact finding to produce credible and legitimate technical and scientific information, make meetings focused, goal-oriented, and outcome-driven, resolve conflicts and improve working relationships.

Training, Capacity Building and Organizational Development: We help organizations assess their negotiation and consensus building competence, provide tailored training for key individuals and teams, and follow up with coaching and post-training assessment. We also help design and modify organizational policies, procedures and resource commitments to reduce conflict, save money and maximize organizational effectiveness.

Research and Evaluation: CBI is both a learning organization and a leading contributor to evaluative research on consensus building. We assess the effectiveness of consensus building and conflict resolution practices and programs in organizations and policy arenas, develop and test new ideas, and provide professional education opportunities to the next generation of scholars and practitioners.

For more information about CBI, please visit our website at www.cbuilding.org