Work to create collectively-held principles that all will follow and use to hold the community and process accountable. It is essential to identify and create responsibilities and actions for every single person involved. Create accountability partners, make sure that each person, or team, helps call people in to build long-term relationships and partnership.

Establish decision-making processes. You can use processes like consensus, super-majority, and simple majority. It is critical that you create a process to ensure that those most impacted are centered and have a clear pathway to shape decisions. Identify cross-sector and cross-places of work. For example, identify how elected policymakers—who champion the community and are accountable to them—can be a part of this process, when and where appropriate. Facilitating Power’s Spectrum of Engagement is one tool to think about this strategy.

Build Conflict Resolution and de-escalation skills. Conflict is fine, abuse absolutely not. Tensions are normal and often critical for moving work. Tensions are like friction; they create energy that forces us to wrestle with challenges and move us forward. How groups deal with tension and conflict is what matters.