Our Commitment to Neutrality, Diversity & Inclusivity​

Neutrality in our facilitation is at the core of Confluence’s founding, our daily work and our approach to every project. Our team brings extensive expertise and knowledge about a wide variety of policy, regulatory, change management and operational issues which enables us to effectively manage collaborative decision making processes on most subjects. We draw on decades of experience and a national network to identify appropriate experts, research and exemplars to inform discussions. Our team combines this expertise and research-informed approach with the often equally critical component of lived experience perspectives as just one part of our strategy to ensure the balance in information presented and to maintain the neutrality of each discussion and process. We believe neutrality in both practice and perception is critical for building trust among stakeholders, for finding common ground among people with differing if not opposing views and for building sustainable solutions with broad buy-in. This commitment to neutrality is foundational to our work, our staffing and the processes we lead.

Our organization has a strict policy regarding employee neutrality in fact and perception. No employee or contractor of Confluence who has publicly taken a position on an issue, been involved in advocacy relating to the issue in the past five years (or volunteered or donated to any organization that does or has) is permitted to staff or contribute to a project that relates to that issue. We do encourage staff to be involved public citizens but we limit their work on behalf of Confluence to topics that are not in any way connected to issues in which they are, have been or may reasonably be perceived to have an established point of view on the topic or be predisposed to favor any point of view, organization or solution.