Host Your Own MADA

We’re so thrilled that you’re interested in hosting a MADA dinner! If you’ve never done it before, it can certainly seem daunting, but this guide is here to show you the way. The easiest way to start is to host an online conversation with the help of our partner Living Room Conversations. If you'd prefer to host an in-person dinner, here are the steps that we suggest:

1. Pick a co-host! It's always easier (and more fun) to have someone else in the trenches with you as you plan and carry out your event :) .
2. Get together with your co-host and decide the following things:
   
   
   1. Date and time
   2. Location
   3. Divvy up organizational tasks like:
      
      
      • Reaching out to guests and confirming/following up with them
      • Booking/Confirming a location
      • Menu planning and/or grocery shopping
      • Schedule creation
      • Finding a photographer if desired
      • Getting supplies like nametags, pens, etc.
3. Select and invite your guests. Strive for balance of opinions and diversity of life experiences for the most interesting gathering! We used Typeform to create signup sheets to ensure a balanced group. Here’s an example of some questions we asked on our signup sheet:
1. Which of the following political perspectives do you identify with the most? Check all that apply :)
   -Republican -Democrat -Libertarian -Independent -Conservative -Liberal -Progressive -Democratic Socialist -Apathetic -Other
2. Do you mind sharing your approximate age?
   -18-29 -39-45 46-60 -60+
3. Do you mind sharing your gender?
   -Female -Male -Other
4. Is there anything else you think is notable about your perspective? For example race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, line of work, religious beliefs, favorite dish, volunteer activities, hidden talents, etc :)
5. Why are you interested in joining a dinner?
6. Do you have any dietary restrictions, allergies, or aversions?
4. As the date gets closer, one more meeting would be helpful to finalize the schedule. Feel free to make your own schedule, or use one of our templates:
   
   
   1. MADA Schedule Template: Cooking Together
   2. MADA Schedule Template: Catered Dinner
   3. MADA Schedule Template: Radical Empathy
   4. MADA Schedule Template: Large Format

For more detail than you could ever want on each part of the dinner-planning process, keep scrolling... :)

Location, Location, Location

First you’ll want to figure out where your dinner will happen!

Picking a Place

Should be convenient for the group, so if you live in an area where everyone drives, make sure your location has ample parking. If you live in a place where public transportation is king, make sure your location is near a central stop.

Prioritize Privacy & Quiet

Conversation can get quite intense, so make sure to choose a spot with space and noise control so your guests can hear each other. Whether this is a private room at a restaurant, a living room at home, or a meeting room in a workspace.

Types of Venues

Private Homes

• Pros: Private, Quiet, Most Cost Effective, Intimate. Hosting at home is a great opportunity to do a potluck style gathering, where everyone can contribute. This will be easier on your budget, and will create a greater sense of community!
• Cons: Not all of us have homes large enough or conveniently located enough to do this, and depending on how much you enjoy cleaning up and hosting, this option can be the most work. It could also be harder to maintain a sense of neutrality, especially if the host is participating in the conversation with a very strong point of view.
• How to Make It Work: Hosting at home works best when your group is friends, friends of friends, or people who otherwise would feel safe and comfortable going to a stranger’s home. If you’re doing potluck style, you can ask each person to sign up for either a main dish, side dish, beverage, or dessert.

Restaurants

• Pros: This is the easiest type of venue. Food is prepared and served for you, table is cleared and cleaned after you.
• Cons: It can also be the priciest and noisiest option, depending on the type of food and ambiance. Particularly if you’re booking a private room, you might be subjected to a minimum fee.
• How to Make It Work: Hold your event on a less busy evening of the week so the restaurant has more incentive to welcome your group even if you’re not paying top-dollar. Speak with the restaurant’s event/sales coordinator of the restaurant and explain the mission of the event to see if there are any allowances they can make (waiving the room minimum, for example), or ways they can help you come up with an affordable menu.

Example outreach:

Community Centers / Common Areas / Workplaces

• Pros: Private, Quiet, Less expensive (usually a reasonable hourly rate for community centers, and some common areas in apartment complexes are free for residents).
• Cons: You’ll have to bring in your own food and clean up afterwards, if a workplace, it can feel a bit stiff and not as cozy as some of the other options.
• How to Make It Work: If the common area has a kitchen, this could be a great opportunity to make cooking the dinner a group activity where everyone can get to know each other better. If not, options include potluck, takeout, catering by a private chef, or catering by a grocery store like Whole Foods.

Paying For It

If you do not have the budget to foot the bill yourself, there are a few ways to cut costs, or get help from others.

Ask For Donations

You can ask for a donation via Venmo or PayPal ahead of the event in your follow-up email, and you can have a donation box ready at the event.

Example:

Potlucks

As mentioned, if you’re hosting at home or in a common space, a potluck is a great, affordable option. If you can provide a main entree and invite guests to bring sides, drinks, and desserts, this ensures that there will be something yummy to eat, even if a couple guests do not follow through. Having a signup sheet for the potluck can help you be prepared for how much food you need to bring yourself.

Gathering a Group

This is the hardest part — gathering a balanced group of people with different opinions who are interested in coming together to get to know one another and talk about our country’s challenges.

Timing

Give yourself at least one month to recruit guests, bearing in mind you might need to make adjustments to the guest list all the way through the day of; it’s possible there will be a couple last minute additions and cancellations.

Size

We recommend aiming for 6-8 people depending on your space. An even number will ensure more productive partner activities. Fewer than 10 allows everyone to feel space for their voices to be heard. Even a group of 4 can be a wonderful learning experience, so don’t feel like you have to invite the whole town in order to have a good conversation!

Use Your Network

The most approachable way to recruit is word of mouth. Leverage your existing networks of friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances by:

• Posting a message on Facebook, and making it visible to the Public. This ensures that people who are outside your “Friends” network can see the post and reply. It also makes it easier for your friends to share with their friends, tag their friends, and easily connect you.
• Sending an email to any communities of which you are a part.

Example:

Use Our Network

We’ve had thousands of signups across the country, so chances are, we may have a few contacts for you in your area. We can also create a signup sheet for your city or town, and promote it on our website and Facebook! Don’t hesitate to ask.

Reach Out to Established Groups

To cast your net even wider, reach out to established political groups and organizations in your area. For example, in San Francisco we reached out to the Berkeley College Republicans, the Trump Bay Area group, the Bay Area for Bernie Sanders group, the San Francisco for Jill Stein group, etc. Building these partnerships also ensures that you’ll have a pool to draw from for future gatherings!

Example:

Invitation

Once you’ve looked over your signups and know who you want to invite to create a balanced conversation, reach out to them over email with the details of the event. We suggest providing all the important things they’ll need to know (day, time, format), and asking them to RSVP by a certain date, so that if they’re not able to make it, you have time to invite others. Here’s an example invitation email:

Follow Up

To help guests follow through on their commitment, we recommend sending a friendly reminder once all or most guests are confirmed. This should be sent 1 to 2 weeks ahead of the event. The main purpose of this email is to remind guests of all the information they need. You can also attach a calendar invite (.ics file) to the email so they can easily save it in their digital calendars (e.g. Google, Outlook, or Apple).

Example:

Day-of or Day-Before Reminder

This is meant to be a little nudge reminding guests and getting them excited for the dinner. It would be wise to reply to your Detailed follow up email (above), so they have all the information in one thread, at the top of their inbox. This followup is also an opportunity to mention any last minute changes or things to be aware of like weather or traffic conditions. You should also provide your cell phone number in case guests need to reach you.

Example:

Last-Minute Cancellations

This can happen, and it’s tough! Have handy a waitlist of folks who you know are eager to attend and have relatively flexible schedules. If anything, have a close friend or significant other in the wings, ready to jump in.

• Night Before/Few Days Ahead Cancellation: Be positive, but express disappointment, and ask for them to connect you with someone who might like to join in their place.
• Day of cancellation: Be positive, but be ready to replace this person with someone from your emergency waitlist.

Example:

Last-Minute Additions

Hopefully with each cancellation, you have an addition. Forward the new guest the Detailed follow up email so they have all the most pertinent info, and at the top of the email, express how thankful you are they are joining so last minute.

Example:

Creating Your Schedule

We always like to have a detailed schedule in place, even if we don't end up sticking strictly to it. Each group will have a slightly different dynamic, and may take the conversations to places you don't expect — which keeps things interesting! Having the schedule written out ahead of time can make you feel as prepared as possible. As mentioned, we've created templates that you are welcome to follow:

1. MADA Schedule Template: Cooking Together
2. MADA Schedule Template: Catered Dinner
3. MADA Schedule Template: Radical Empathy
4. MADA Schedule Template: Large Format

You can also create your own schedule, and focus it on whatever topic you think would be most engaging for your group. People have taken our dinner formats to discuss socioeconomic differences, religious differences, and current events. Feel free to make it your own! The one thing we highly suggest is having ground rules stated at the beginning of the discussion, as this reminds everyone to be civil. People also appreciate having a noisemaker of some sort to signal when things are getting too heated for them.

More Moderation Tips

We have collected a few moderation tips from our friends Anna Kawar, Raman Frey, and our resident facilitation expert, Jessica Baen. If you have specific moderation tips, do not hesitate to reach out to Jessica.

• Help set the tone at the beginning of the conversation. Explain that MADA dinners are about dialogue not debate, i.e. making personal connections across political divides and hearing new perspectives, rather than trying to persuade others of our views.
• You might suggest the group agree to some conversation guidelines, which can include being mindful of the amount of time you are speaking, not interrupting others, etc.
• Give each speaker your absorbed and undivided attention and empathy, whatever they’re saying. Try to stay neutral and avoid expressing your own political opinions during the conversation. If you remain open and curious about other points of view, guests are more likely to feel comfortable expressing their true opinions.
• One of your main jobs as moderator is to ensure that a diverse range of speakers are heard. If some guests are very talkative, you might need to interrupt and say you want to make sure that all guests have a chance to speak. Some "heavy talkers" will need to be interrupted. Some more shy folks might need to be drawn out and invited to share.
• If a guest is repeating themselves, it might be because they don't feel their opinion has been heard or acknowledged. Try summarizing what you heard from them or reflecting their emotions about a given issue. Then ask "Did I get that right?" to allow them a chance to clarify.
• If things get heated or if someone is getting aggressive, stop and specifically ask the person to share what they are feeling in that moment. Reflect on the emotions you are sensing in the room and empathize when appropriate. Encourage guests to use "I" statements and speak from their own experience. For example, instead of saying, "He did this..." or "This is how it is," they might try saying: "I feel insulted..." or “I feel scared..."" or "My understanding is...."
• Be ready to offer a comment or insight here and there if the conversation needs a segue or a spark. Try asking guests why they believe what they believe in order to explore underlying values and assumptions. Asking guests if or how a given issue affects them personally can be another way to deepen the conversation. You can also ask guests how they feel about the conversation. Have they heard anything new or surprising?

Keep It Going!

Here are a few ways to keep the momentum going in your communities.

Share on Social Media

Post pictures, before or after quotes, or brief write-ups from your event on social media and use hashtags #MakeAmericaDinnerAgain and #MagicOfMADA. If you’re posting quotes from guests, please use the #OverheardAtMADA hashtag. We might draw from these and post on our social channels (example).

In general, we’d love if you tagged us in your posts so we can easily re-post, re-tweet, and get a sense for how things went. On Twitter and Instagram we’re @MADA_Hosts, and on Facebook, we should come up as @Make America Dinner Again.

Examples:

Attention folks attending #SXSW this year: you can now RSVP for our workshop on Designing Dinner to Bridge Political Divides on March 9th. Feel free to re-tweet or let your friends and colleagues know, too! #MagicOfMADA @sxsw https://t.co/kxgvRhLZDA

— Make America Dinner Again (@MADA_hosts) February 19, 2019

Now on #NewDayNW: we’re learning about a new program that’s bringing people of all walks of life to the dinner table for a conversation! #MakeAmericaDinnerAgain pic.twitter.com/m0lpZUlPoP

— #NewDayNW (@NewDayNW) September 4, 2018

Think dinner parties get awkward? Try adding strangers to the mix. And strong political opinions. That's the idea behind #MakeAmericaDinnerAgain, a U.S. supper club for voters with clashing views.

I went to a #MADA potluck in D.C.: https://t.co/9AFLyaTc1R @MADA_hosts

— Matt Kwong (@matt_kwong) October 16, 2018

Excellent show, Glenn!

Hubby and I have shared this with our friends and family members! Keep up the great work!!#MakeAmericaDinnerAgain#MADA@theblaze #TruthHasNoAgenda https://t.co/r7m3tMLwQA

— Marlena (@reallyraisin) April 27, 2018

This is amazing! I'm so glad to have been a part of @MADA_hosts #makeamericadinneragain and love that it's picked up this kind of attention. Let's keep up the open dialogue. #Murica https://t.co/KBadH0vaQt

— Kasey Randall (@kasey_design) April 25, 2018

Follow-Up Email

Send a follow up email to guests within a week after the event to thank them, ask for feedback, and encourage them to keep in touch and host their own dinner.

Example:

Make It a Regular Thing

Schedule ongoing dinners with the same group or a different group on a monthly or quarterly basis. We imagine each dinner will be slightly different depending on the individual guests, and the news cycle. That's what makes this so fun! Keep the conversation going, and see if folks might form friendships as a result of sustained meetings. Some groups of people like to meet up on a more casual basis, like for coffee or drinks, and some are interested in volunteering together, for example doing a neighborhood cleanup together. See what best suits your group!

Pitch to Local Media

Reach out to your local newspaper, radio, and publications to see if they would be interested in covering the dinner, by attending as a fly on the wall. They might request to interview guests before and after the dinner. Of course, please make sure that this is OK with your guests beforehand.

Continue the Conversation Online

If guests are interested in continuing the conversation with other Americans across the political spectrum, invite them to join our discussion group on Facebook. It's a closed group, so request to join and the administrator will sign you up! If you or any of your guests would like us to create a closed group just for your specific dinner guests, we can help with that, too.

Share With Us!

We’d love to hear how your event went, learn from you, and provide feedback if it’s helpful. E-mail us: makeamericadinner@gmail.com.