Our Community Partners

The community partners featured here have made a financial commitment to help CUC bring understanding-based conflict resolution training to people and organizations that might otherwise face barriers to participation.

Each commitment has a particular focus. Together, these partnerships allow the Center to intentionally identify and reach out to nonprofit organizations, legal aid and pro bono providers, community mediation programs, restorative justice and reentry organizations, youth-serving organizations, and other community-based partners across the San Francisco Bay Area and New York Metropolitan Area.

Support extends beyond participation in a single training. CUC’s goal is to build relationships that provide participants with practical tools for navigating conflict and difficult conversations, greater awareness of their own responses to conflict, and ongoing opportunities to learn through CUC Connect webinars and our training library.

Armonibre has committed financial support to help CUC expand access to conflict resolution and mediation for underserved communities, with particular interest in initiatives serving children and young people, people affected by violence or abuse, human rights defenders, displaced and migrant communities, and others who may otherwise have limited access to these resources.

Founder Nathalie Herren is an international mediator, trainer, consultant, and CUC trainer whose work is strongly informed by the Understanding-Based Approach. Her international and intercultural experience helps extend CUC’s community of practice across geographic and cultural boundaries while supporting broader access to conflict resolution resources for people and communities who may otherwise have few opportunities to engage with them.

CEEQ has committed financial support to help CUC expand access to understanding-based conflict resolution for individuals and organizations working through family, community, educational, and organizational conflict.

Founded by Misha Safran, CEEQ’s work centers on empathy, emotional intelligence, communication, leadership, and helping people navigate difficult conversations with greater awareness and connection. Its mediation practice is explicitly informed by the Understanding-Based Approach and the principle that the people closest to a conflict should remain at the center of resolving it.

Miller Law Group has committed financial support to help CUC make understanding-based conflict resolution resources available to immigrant and refugee families facing or experiencing family separation in the New York Metropolitan Area, as well as the professionals and organizations working alongside them.

Founded by longtime CUC trainer and leader Katherine Eisold Miller, whose family law practice has emphasized mediation, Miller Law Group collaborative approaches, and helping families address conflict outside traditional adversarial processes.

Minovi Law & Mediation has committed financial support to help CUC expand access to understanding-based conflict resolution for low-income and underserved families in the New York Metropolitan Area, as well as the legal services professionals, mediators, and community organizations that support them.

Founder Michelle Exline Minovi brings extensive experience at the intersection of family law, mediation, trauma, and access to justice. Before establishing her mediation practice, she represented low-income and Spanish-speaking immigrant clients experiencing domestic violence through the legal services nonprofit Ayuda. 

The Law and Mediation Office of Hansa R. Patel has committed financial support to expand access to understanding-based conflict resolution for young people experiencing homelessness or housing instability, youth facing significant barriers and life transitions, and transitional age youth in San Francisco and Marin Counties.

Hansa’s commitment builds on a career that has included advocacy for children and parents in the child welfare system, mediation, conflict resolution training, and work addressing conflicts that can contribute to housing instability.

Rosenthal Law & Mediation has committed financial support to help CUC expand access to conflict resolution and mediation training for communities of color in New York, with a particular focus on community and family conflict and the challenges surrounding separation and divorce.

Joy Rosenthal is a longtime divorce mediator, family law attorney, educator, and CUC trainer whose work has centered on helping families navigate difficult transitions with greater agency and understanding.

Stargaze Consulting has committed financial support to expand access to understanding-based conflict resolution for formerly incarcerated people and the organizations and professionals engaged in restorative justice, reentry, and community-based support throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

This partnership closely aligns with Stargaze’s broader vision of conflict resolution as a pathway to community transformation and its commitment to developing opportunities for formerly incarcerated people to become leaders in community-based conflict resolution.

A Commitment That Reaches Beyond the Training Room

These partnerships are not simply underwriting seats in CUC programs, they give the Center the capacity to identify communities where access to conflict resolution resources can make a difference, establish relationships with organizations already doing trusted work there, remove financial barriers to participation, and provide opportunities for continued learning after a training ends.

A nonprofit leader can bring these tools back to a staff or board. A legal aid attorney can use them in conversations with clients and colleagues. A community mediator can carry them into conflicts throughout a neighborhood. A reentry practitioner can use them while helping someone navigate a difficult transition. A young person can develop skills for approaching disagreement that remain useful throughout a lifetime.

Join Them

CUC welcomes individuals, law firms, businesses, foundations, and organizations interested in making a similar commitment.

Community partners can direct their support toward a geographic community, population, professional field, or area of need. CUC then works to translate that commitment into intentional outreach, meaningful partnerships, low or no cost participation, and continued access to conflict resolution learning and resources.

Click the button below to make a contribution to scholarships or reach out to [email protected] to start a conversation.