This page contains accessible and free resources to help plan projects and activities related to interfaith engagement, religious literacy and bridgebuilding across diverse worldviews (registration may be required on some sites). Resources, including examples of projects, external links, and successful microgrant awards, will be updated as the Dialogues Across Difference initiative continues.
Past Dialogues Across Difference campus activities/Projects:
Coming Summer 2027!
Pluralism:
This report looks at what helps or hurts pluralism in the U.S. and includes examples from education and community life. It provides useful background information for shaping activities that build religious literacy, relationships across lines of difference, and thoughtful interfaith cooperation.
Interfaith America offers a wide range of practical tools and campus resources for working across worldview differences. Materials may help grant applicants develop and build interfaith activities across university constituents.
Harvard University Pluralism Project
The Pluralism Project provides numerous case studies and teaching materials about religious diversity in the U.S. These resources may be helpful for expanding religious literacy and brainstorming campus activities.
California State University, Long Beach – Beach Pluralism Project
The Beach Pluralism Project demonstrates how one CSU campus puts interfaith and intercultural learning into practice. Its offers ideas for campus programming that can strengthen belonging, conflict-resolution skills, interfaith competency, and collaboration among people from different faith and worldview backgrounds.
Storytelling & Active Listening:
This resource provides instructors with activities for helping students listen and share stories with curiosity and respect. It is useful for building bridgebuilding skills and creating more productive conversations across religious, cultural, and worldview divides.
“Bridgebuilder Basics,” Interfaith America
Interfaith America’s introduction to working across differences and taking shared action. The curricular ideas equip participants with skills to practice relationship-building and communication, that lead to stronger interfaith engagement and productive discussions.
“Bridgebuilding Activity: Story Circles,” Interfaith America
Interfaith America’s story circle activity uses personal stories to help people connect across differences without turning the conversation into a debate. It foregrounds the importance of listening more closely to understand lived experiences and find common ground.
“Listening Deeply Strategy,” Making Caring Common Project, Harvard Graduate School of Education
This short activity developed by the Harvard Graduate School of Education helps people practice listening without interrupting, fixing, or shifting the focus back to themselves.
Dialogue:
This free course guides learners through the basics of interreligious dialogue, including tools, examples, and approaches for handling tension and conflict.
Generation Global’s guide gives facilitators easy-to-use activities for practicing listening, questioning, reflection, and respectful conversation.
Fostering Dialogue Across Divides: A Nuts and Bolts Guide – Essential Partners (2019)
This resource offers suggestions about how to plan and lead conversations when people disagree on important issues. It can help facilitators foster thoughtful dialogue while focusing on bridgebuilding.
Dialogue Institute, Journal of Ecumenical Studies – Dialogue Principles
The Dialogue Institute’s principles offer clear examples for fostering respectful dialogue. They may be useful in helping groups set clear expectations for conversations that build understanding.
Other External Links –
Centre for Civic Religious Literacy
The Centre for Civic Religious Literacy website contains toolkits, videos, projects, and teaching resources about religion, belief, and diversity in public life.
Religion and Education Collaborative
The Collaborative brings together research, teaching resources, recorded discussions, and scholarship on religion and education.
ReligionAndPublicLife.org offers self-paced, virtual courses on interfaith leadership and bridgebuilding. These trainings can help students and faculty build sustained, durable skills for dialogue facilitation, and interfaith cooperation.